I haven't played any games on my PC for a couple weeks. I bought Mercenary Kings on Steam and tried playing with my wired Xbox 360 controller and immediately noticed a lack of vibration. Fiddling with the in-game vibration setting didn't help so I backed out and tested vibration in other games...nothing, nada, zip. I have a backup controller so I tested that--same thing. I also tested both controllers on every available USB port...still nothing.

Oh, and I tested a PS4 controller (without DS4 Tool) too...still no vibration.

Next I tried uninstalling the drivers (the Xbox one and the generic PS4 one), doing a little cleanup with CCleaner, then re-installing, but that didn't help. All controllers are working fine otherwise--all buttons respond as normal, no lag. I just don't have vibration.

So, I come to you knowledgeable duders and ask: What the hell? I haven't installed anything recently that could be the culprit, be it hardware or software. No BIOS changes either. I'll list my PC's components if that helps:

Asus M5A97 R2.0 motherboard

AMD FX-8320 CPU (overclocked to 4.20GHz--no vibration with or without OC)

Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler

Gigabyte GTX 760 OC Rev. 2.0

Kingston HyperX 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, 8 GB

WD Blue 1 TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive

Corsair Carbide 200R case

Corsair CX750M psu

And about six fans--three exhaust, three intake

Hopefully somebody has some idea. If not, I'm juuuuust about ready to say screw it and re-install Windows.

That sounds like a problem I'd love to have. I've grown to strongly dislike controller vibration.

Try playing games with those controllers on the consoles they actually belong to and then try them on a friend's computer to see if the issue is with your PC or with the controllers themselves.

Also, you have a PS4 controller? Does that use DS3 tool/Motioninjoy? Make sure that's not running.

I can't think of anything else at the moment.

All I can think of is try updating drivers if there are any. I am using my PS4 controller and the lack of vibration really bugs me too.

I also hate the controller vibration just like @believer258. I think it is a stupid annoying gimmick that is distracting and adds nothing to the experience. I hate whenever developers don't let you disable it, Brothers was guilty of this.

Clarification: I dislike controller vibration because it aggravates my wrists.

Rumble works as of the 1.2.2 version of the DS4 to Xinput wrapper. I think it's worked for a while, actually. You can even test the rumble motors in the controller setup options, which I suppose the OP could try.

The controllers each work fine on their respective consoles, so the problem isn't controller-based. I've tested them on my laptop and they work fine there too, vibration and all. I've never installed Motionjoy on this PC.

@magusmaleficus: Take a look at your System Restore interface and see if you can roll back to a point when you know for sure the rumble was working. Alternatively, look at the software that was installed to support Mercenary Kings. Sometimes a DirectX or VC redist package can break things and they need to be uninstalled and then reinstalled.

I only mention this because a couple of weeks ago my audio over HDMI stopped working suddenly and I finally narrowed it down to a DirectX redistributable package that the game had installed. I ended up having to get the manual removal tool from Microsoft and then reinstall the game, after that things were back to normal.

You're free to dislike it, but to say it doesn't add anything to the experience is simply not true. It serves as an additional means of feedback for the what is happening in game.

As an example, I tried switching from using a standard Dualshock 3 to the Dualshock 4 for multiplayer in The Last of Us. The DS4 is fully functional, except for the lack of vibration. I figured that wasn't a big deal and proceeded to play with the DS4. I could easily deal without the vibration which accompanies the firing of my weapon, but oddly enough I found myself being taken somewhat by surprise every time I died. I didn't realize it before, but I was subconsciously using the vibration that accompanies being shot as a means determining when I felt like I was about to die. Without the vibration, I found myself sticking it out in losing situations rather than seeking cover far more frequently because I wasn't getting that feedback telling me of when I was about to die, resulting in poorer play. Sometimes you just aren't paying attention to the strawberry jam, and vibration is just an additional means of relaying information to the player.

That is just one example, there are plenty of others where the presence of vibration can give the player valuable feedback out the current situation. It's usually a supplementary means of feedback rather than the sole means, but having more can certainly help your situational awareness.

I tried rolling back to a prior restore point but there was only one available for some reason and it was after I installed Mercenary Kings. I'm trying to find out exactly what the game installs alongside itself but so far I haven't found concrete info.

I did notice something odd. In dxdiag, under the Input tab, the Force Feedback section next to the listing for the 360 controller says "n/a," which seems wrong, but then I've never specifically looked at that entry before so I don't know if it should or shouldn't say that...

I need to get some sleep, gotta get up early for work. When I get home tomorrow I'm gonna try a few more things; and if none of those work, I'm backing up important stuff and starting from scratch.

This is why I elaborated just a little bit. Vibration in controllers aggravates my wrist. Occasionally, I can deal with it, but if it's something that happens often then I just have to turn it off. I don't want to call it painful - it isn't - but it's a little more than an annoyance. All of that said, I do understand its value. It's another sensory input for developers to use. I can't name any instances where it has been necessary (and I really hope that it never is), but it can be helpful if you don't mind it.

@magusmaleficus: Before you do a complete wipe, try going into Programs and uninstalling the VC/DirectX redists one by one. Delete local Mercenary Kings content, restart, then reinstall.

Unless it's been quite some time since you had a fresh Windows install, in which case it's probably better just to format & reinstall. Windows gets crusty after awhile.

I don't have time to try uninstalling yet but I did take a quick look for the entries in the program list under the "Uninstall or change a program" section and although there are plenty of Virtual C++ entries there are no entries for DirectX redistributables. I tried looking under the Windows features section too...nada. I did a general Windows search for them and couldn't find anything. Oh well. Off to work I go, I'll figure this crap out when I get home.