Controller Overview
The controller manager on the Gamepad settings page shows every controller in one list — all detected physical pads and PowerAim’s virtual pad — so you can see, at a glance, what Windows sees, which device feeds the sync, and what each game will read.
What the list shows
Each row is one controller with:
- a connected dot (green = present, dimmed = remembered but not currently connected),
- its name (physical pads use their friendly name; the virtual pad is named by the active send mode — Virtual (ViGEm), (vJoy), (XInput hook) or (internal)),
- its XInput slot (Slot 1–4) when it’s XInput-addressable,
- and tag chips for the current Sync source and a Hidden state.
Because XInput slots are the authoritative “connected gamepad” source, the list is built from the live slots — so a pad shows up even on systems where the HID friendly-name enumeration comes back empty.
Set the sync source
The sync source is the physical pad whose input is mirrored into the virtual pad (so the game, reading the virtual one, still gets your real stick/buttons). Click Use for sync on any XInput-addressable physical pad to make it the source. The choice is remembered across restarts.
Hide a controller from games
When you drive the virtual pad, many games see both pads and sum their inputs. Hiding the physical one fixes that:
- With HidHide installed, Hide from games cloaks the pad from every app except PowerAim (so PowerAim still reads it for the sync). This is the recommended path — see Hidden Controllers.
- Without HidHide, PowerAim falls back to an internal soft-hide (it stops forwarding that pad). A note on the list tells you when only the internal hide is available.
The virtual pad itself can’t be hidden.
Make games use the virtual pad
Games read the lowest XInput slot, and an app can’t reassign slots — Windows hands them out by arrival order. The one-click helper does the only thing that works: it removes the physical pad from XInput (HidHide cloak, or a system disable when PowerAim runs as administrator) and reconnects the virtual pad so it drops into the low slot the game reads first. A Restore action undoes it. If neither HidHide nor elevation is available, PowerAim tells you which one to enable — the internal soft-hide can’t help here, because it doesn’t remove the pad from XInput.
Picking a controller elsewhere
The same control doubles as a picker. The Gamepad Tester uses it to choose which controller’s live state to visualize — so you can watch what PowerAim injects on the virtual pad versus your own input on a physical one.
Tips
- Set the sync source first, then use make games use the virtual pad — that order leaves the game reading the virtual pad while PowerAim still mirrors your real one into it.
- A dimmed row with a Hidden chip is a pad you’ve hidden before that isn’t plugged in right now; it stays listed so you can always un-hide it.
Troubleshooting
- No physical pad in the list — it must be XInput-addressable to show with a slot; DirectInput-only pads appear without a slot (and can’t be a sync source). Press a button so Windows brings it up.
- The virtual pad shows no slot — in vJoy/internal modes it may not occupy a detectable XInput slot; it’s still listed from the sender state.
- “Make virtual primary” says it can’t — install HidHide or restart PowerAim as administrator; the internal soft-hide alone can’t free the low slot.