Stop fighting Windows about which controller your game sees. Per-game profiles that hide unwanted devices, restore FFB to your wheel, and keep your sim rig and your gamepad from stepping on each other — built on top of HidHide.
If any of these sound familiar, this app is for you:
- Forza Horizon 5/6 (and Motorsport): no force feedback even though everything else works. Cause: the game assigns FFB to whichever controller it sees first at startup, and Windows usually picks your pedals or shifter instead of your wheel.
- iRacing / ACC / Le Mans Ultimate with a big rig: you reseat the USB hub every session because devices get reassigned to different controller slots, breaking your bindings.
- Steam game refuses to use your gamepad because your wheel is plugged in and it grabbed slot #1.
- You stream games to a remote device (Sunshine/Apollo) and the host's physical controllers fight the virtual one for slot #1.
The community fix has always been "unplug everything, plug your wheel in first." This app does that for you, per game, automatically — at the driver level, without actually unplugging anything.
Every game profile is a short list of your devices, each tagged one of two ways:
- Always Visible — the game sees this from the moment it launches. (Your wheel base goes here. Your gamepad goes here for non-racing games.)
- Reveal After Start — hidden when the game starts, then revealed at a time you choose (e.g. "5 seconds after launch"). Order matters — first revealed gets the next available controller slot. (Your pedals and shifter usually go here for FFB games, so the wheel grabs slot #1 alone.)
Anything not in the profile is hidden from the game. That's how you keep your gamepad out of a racing game, or your sim rig out of a controller game — just don't add it. No "hidden" role needed; absent = hidden.
Other apps see everything normally. SimHub, Pit House, MOZA, Fanatec drivers, Logitech G HUB — all of them keep full access to all your devices during a game session. You don't have to whitelist anything.
You need both:
- HidHide — install the MSI from the Releases page. It's a signed kernel driver from Nefarius; it's what actually does the hiding.
- Controller Manager — grab the latest from this repo's
Releases. Two builds:
- Self-contained — bigger download, works on any Windows 10/11 with no other prerequisites. (Pick this one if you're not sure.)
- Slim — smaller, but needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime installed.
Run it. You'll get a UAC prompt once on launch (it needs admin to talk to HidHide's kernel driver). If HidHide isn't installed yet, Controller Manager pops a dialog on first launch with a direct link to the Releases page — install it, then restart the app. After that, you're set — toggle Start with Windows in Settings and it'll be in the tray every time you boot, no further prompts.
The classic case.
- Games tab → New profile — name it "Forza Horizon 6", browse to
forzahorizon6.exe(Steam:...steamapps\common\ForzaHorizon6\forzahorizon6.exe). - Add each device you want the game to see by clicking + Add (or double-clicking the row) in the device picker at the bottom: wheel, pedals, shifter, handbrake, button box. Don't add the gamepad (or anything else you don't want the game touching — it'll be hidden automatically).
- Set roles in the device list:
- Wheel base → Always Visible
- Pedals → Reveal After Start
- Shifter → Reveal After Start
- Handbrake → Reveal After Start
- Check Wait until the game opens the first device before revealing the rest. Leave Wait this many seconds after: at the 1.5s default.
- Set the per-row Reveal at times as additional offsets after that grace period. Common pattern: pedals=0s, shifter=1s, handbrake=2s. So with grace=1.5s, the pedals reveal 1.5s after the wheel opens, shifter at 2.5s, handbrake at 3.5s — each gets its own slot.
- Drag the Reveal After Start rows (☰ handle) into the order you want them mapped to in-game slots #2, #3, #4. List order = reveal order.
- Click ▶ Explain this profile above the device list to verify the launch timeline matches what you expect. Then Save Profile.
When FH6 starts, only the wheel is visible. The game does its warmup, opens the wheel file when it's ready, and Controller Manager spots that exact moment via kernel ETW — then waits 1.5 seconds (your "post-acquisition delay") so the game has time to lock the wheel as controller slot #1 before revealing the rest.
MOZA tip: turn on Forza Compatibility Mode in Pit House so the wheel presents as a Fanatec (VID
0EB7). FH6 detects Fanatec directly via its native SDK and routes FFB through it cleanly.
If your wheel still doesn't get slot #1: bump Wait this many seconds after: to 2.0 or 2.5 seconds. Some games take longer to commit slot assignment after first noticing a controller. Worst case 3s — beyond that, something else is going wrong and worth filing an issue.
If reveals never happen at all: the game probably uses Windows' GameInput (Forza Horizon and modern Xbox-style PC games do) — Controller Manager can't see the "game opened the wheel" moment for those titles. After a 60-second timeout, Controller Manager falls back to revealing at absolute times, but by then your game has long since stopped scanning. The fix: uncheck the "Wait until..." box for those games, switch to Timer mode, and use the per-row Reveal at values as absolute seconds from game launch (e.g. 11.0s, 11.1s, 11.2s for Forza).
Forza's multi-USB handling is fragile once you start adding peripherals beyond the basics. In testing, profiles with a wheel + pedals + shifter + handbrake + button box (5+ HID devices) saw the game lose track of devices, misassign slots, or ignore inputs entirely — even after Controller Manager got the reveal timing right. Forza only reliably handles a handful of devices at once; piling on a full sim rig pushes past what the engine wants to deal with.
The clean workaround used by experienced sim racers is input consolidation via vJoy + SimHub's Control Mapper:
- Install vJoy and bump button count from the default 8 to 32 in vJoy Configurator (you'll need it).
- In SimHub, open Control Mapper and create mappings from each physical
input onto a single vJoy device:
- Foot pedals (brake, throttle, clutch) → vJoy axes
- Wheel paddles (clutch, up/down shift) → vJoy buttons
- Shifter, handbrake, button box → vJoy buttons
- Leave steering on the wheel — don't route it through vJoy.
- In the Controller Manager profile for Forza:
- Wheel base → Always Visible
- vJoy device → Always Visible
- Don't add the physical pedals, shifter, handbrake, or button box — leaving them out of the profile hides them from Forza automatically.
- In Forza's controller settings, bind everything to the consolidated vJoy device (steering and FFB stay on the wheel).
Result: Forza sees exactly two devices — the wheel and vJoy. No conflicts, no slot confusion, and no dual-source ambiguity (where the same pedal reports through both its native wheel axis and a vJoy axis). Steering and FFB stay on the wheel where they belong; everything else funnels through vJoy.
This isn't a Controller Manager limitation — it's a Forza engine constraint that no amount of clever reveal timing can fix. But CM makes the consolidated setup trivial: hide all the raw peripherals, expose only the wheel + vJoy, done.
You don't have to do anything. Controller Manager uses HidHide's inverse whitelist mode during a session — only the game's exe is denied; every other process (including all your companion software) keeps full device access. There's no list to maintain.
This works automatically for any companion app, dashboard, telemetry tool, or config utility — they don't need to be running when you set up the profile.
Hide everything except the gamepad for that one game.
- Games tab → New profile — name it after the game, browse to its
.exe. - Add the gamepad → Always Visible.
- Don't add any other devices. (Anything not in the profile is hidden from the game by default.)
- Save Profile.
That's the whole profile. No reveal step, no timing — the gamepad is just the only thing the game sees, start to finish.
The remote client's input shows up on the host as a virtual gamepad (created by ViGEm). If the host has physical controllers plugged in, the game might assign them slots ahead of the virtual one — and your remote controls do nothing.
- Start a remote session first so the virtual gamepad is present in the
device picker. If you're doing couch co-op or remote play from multiple
clients (handheld + TV, etc.), connect all of them now — each client
shows up as its own virtual gamepad.
Wiggle a stick or press a button on each client. Each client's gamepad won't show up in the picker until you actually use it. The list refreshes on its own every couple of seconds, so just give it a nudge and it'll pop in.
- Games tab → New profile — name it after the game.
- Add the virtual gamepad(s) → Always Visible. Add one for each client you want to allow.
- Don't add anything else. (Physical controllers stay hidden by default.)
- Leave the Game executable field blank. Sunshine/Apollo launches the game itself — Controller Manager just needs to hide and reveal devices around it. (Auto-trigger grays out; that's expected — this profile fires only via the launch command below.)
- Save Profile.
Heads up — the allow list is strict. Anything not in the profile is hidden, and Controller Manager keeps it that way for the whole session. That includes devices that show up after the session starts:
- Pick up a physical controller at your desk mid-stream → it gets hidden within ~1 second. (This is the fix for the "phantom slot" bug.)
- A different Moonlight/Artemis client connects mid-stream (or you stop and start a new client) → its new virtual gamepad isn't in the profile, so it gets hidden too. If you want that client to play, add its virtual gamepad to the profile while it's connected, then save.
Add every client / controller you want to allow before saving the profile. Auto-allowing all virtual gamepads sounds tempting but breaks the "what's in the profile is what gets through" contract — and rules out legitimate cases like "block my kid's TV client while I'm streaming to the handheld."
Then in Sunshine/Apollo: Configuration → Applications → Edit your game → Command Preparations. That section has three columns: Do command, Undo command, and Elevated (a checkbox).
| Column | What to paste |
|---|---|
| Do command | the Copy launch command button output ("…\ControllerManager.exe" --launch <profileId>) |
| Undo command | the Copy restore command button output ("…\ControllerManager.exe" --restore) |
| Elevated | ✅ checked — Controller Manager needs admin to drive HidHide |
Both buttons live in the Games tab and put the exact command (absolute exe
path, correct profile id) on your clipboard. Note --restore takes no
arguments — it always restores whichever profile is currently active, so the
same Undo command works across all your streaming apps.
If you're running the default Big Picture / Desktop app instead of a game-specific app, add the Command Preparations row after the existing default entry, not in place of it. (Order matters here — needs one more round of testing on real Sunshine/Apollo configs; if you hit a snag, mention it in an issue.)
Once you've got a profile saved, three ways to fire it:
| Method | When to use it | UAC prompt? |
|---|---|---|
| In-app Launch button (Dashboard) | Testing, manual sessions | No (CM is already running) |
| Desktop / Start Menu shortcut | Most users — set it once, double-click forever | No (uses a scheduled task) |
| Auto-trigger when game launches (profile setting) | Set-and-forget — works for any launch method | No, but a small race window |
The Desktop / Start Menu shortcuts are the recommended path for most games. Click Desktop or Start Menu in the Games tab to generate one — the shortcut targets the game's icon, looks like a normal game shortcut, and is UAC-free thanks to a per-profile scheduled task.
Auto-trigger lives on each profile as a checkbox: "Auto-trigger this
profile when the game launches". With it on, Controller Manager polls
every 500ms for the profile's .exe and applies the profile automatically.
Catches the game fast but has a narrow race window (~0-500ms) where the
game might already be enumerating controllers. Slow-starting games like
Forza Horizon have 10+ seconds of warmup before they scan, so the watcher
wins that race comfortably. For games that scan immediately at startup,
prefer the shortcut or in-app Launch path.
Heads-up: Two profiles can't auto-trigger on the same
.exe. If you tick the checkbox and another profile is already auto-triggering on the same game, Controller Manager refuses to enable it and tells you which profile already owns that exe — turn it off on the other profile (or point one of them at a different exe) first.
A live list of every HID gaming device on your system, plus an Input Monitor expander at the bottom.
- ON/OFF toggle per device — same effect as a HidHide global hide. Turn off any device you never want games to see (e.g. a noisy DS4 you only use for SimHub). Game profiles override this on a per-game basis.
- Show all devices — uncheck to see only game-class HIDs; check to see keyboards, mice, audio devices, etc. (Useful for diagnosing.)
- Input Monitor — pick a device, expand the panel, and you'll see live axis bars, button lights, and joystick pads for any X/Y stick pairs. Each axis and joystick has a Calibrate button that measures idle drift over 5 seconds and recommends a deadzone value you can plug into your game's settings.
Sim racing hardware often shows up with generic Windows names like "HID-compliant game controller." The VID:PID is the give-away:
| Brand | VID |
|---|---|
| MOZA Racing | VID_346E |
| SIMAGIC | VID_3670 |
| Fanatec | VID_0EB7 |
| Heusinkveld | VID_30B7 |
| Simucube / Granite Devices | VID_16D0 |
| Thrustmaster | VID_044F |
| Logitech | VID_046D |
| Asetek SimSports | VID_2433 |
| Cammus | VID_3416 |
| STM32-based DIY (FreeJoy / Cube Controls / VRS) | VID_0483 |
VID:PID shows up as a tooltip when you hover a device name in the Devices tab. Right-click a row → Copy VID:PID, Copy instance ID for paste-able strings.
Can't tell two identical devices apart? Unplug one, hit Refresh, see what disappears.
The reveal-after-start phase relies on the game supporting hot-plug device detection. Modern games using WGI, RawInput, or current XInput all handle this fine — they notice when a new controller appears and integrate it. Pure legacy DirectInput-only games that scan controllers once at startup and never again won't see your pedals if they're hidden at that moment.
For those games, you have to choose:
- FFB on the wheel + no pedals (hide everything except wheel; don't reveal),
- OR all devices visible at launch + wrong slot assignment.
In practice this is rare — FH5/FH6, all sim racing titles I'm aware of, and every mainstream PC game in the last decade use hot-plug-aware input. If you hit a game where reveal doesn't work, file an issue with the game name and I'll add it to a known-broken list.
"No force feedback" after launching with Controller Manager
- Make sure you launched the game through the profile (Dashboard button, exported shortcut, or auto-triggered by process watcher). Launching the game directly won't apply the profile.
- For FH6 / Forza Motorsport specifically: confirm Forza Compatibility Mode is on in Pit House (MOZA) or equivalent in your wheel software.
- Check that your wheel base is set to Always Visible in the profile.
"My wheel ended up as slot #2 (or #3)"
- If the "Wait until the game opens the first device" checkbox is on, the game might be committing slot #1 too slowly for the default grace period. Bump Wait this many seconds after: in the profile editor to 2.0 or 2.5 seconds. (Per-row Reveal At times are added on top of this grace — so if you've already set them, bumping grace pushes all reveals back.)
- If the checkbox is off, your per-row Reveal at times are absolute seconds from game launch. Make sure the wheel is Always Visible so the game's startup scan finds it alone, and spread the Reveal After Start times out (e.g. 11.0s, 11.1s, 11.2s) so they arrive after the slot #1 assignment.
"The game doesn't see my pedals after they're supposed to reveal"
- The game might not support hot-plug detection (see Honest limit).
- Verify the per-device Reveal at times — if you set everything to 0s they all appear at once and the game's scan sees them all together, defeating the slot-#1 assignment.
- The game might have a hard detection cutoff a few seconds after first scanning. Tighten the reveal spread (e.g. all devices within 1s of each other) so nothing falls past the cutoff. The "Wait until first device" checkbox handles this automatically since reveals fire back-to-back once the signal lands.
"Some devices weren't hidden — the game saw them anyway"
- Make sure the device appears in the Games-tab device picker (in the row list, before you add it to the profile). If it shows up in the picker only with Show all devices checked, it has no inputs — the app skips those during a session. If it has inputs and was still seen by the game, double-check it's not assigned a role in the profile — anything in the profile is visible to the game in some form. To hide it, just remove it from the profile entirely.
Devices show as off in the Devices tab after I closed the app mid-session
- HidHide retains the persistent blacklist across reboots; if Controller Manager crashed during a session, some session devices are stuck in the global hide list. Toggle them back ON in the Devices tab.
Steam pops a "Controller Detected" toast for a device that should be hidden
- Steam can still see the device exists, but the game won't get any input from it — that part is working. If the toast bothers you, open Steam → Settings → Controller, click the gear next to the device, and turn off Steam Input. One-time per device.
The "Inputs Monitor" doesn't show any axes / buttons
- Select a device in the list before expanding the monitor. Some companion apps hold devices exclusively — close them temporarily to test.
A device shows up labeled "HID-compliant game controller" with no real name
- The Windows driver hasn't registered a friendly name for it. The VID:PID tooltip still works — use that to identify it. (PRs welcome to expand the brand table in this README.)
Filing an issue / collecting diagnostic logs
- In Settings → Logging, set the level to Verbose (or Debug for
HID-class details if I ask for it). Reproduce the issue, then attach
%LOCALAPPDATA%\ControllerManager\log.txtto your issue. Debug-level logs include per-device kernel HIDCLASS events which are firehose-chatty — only use that level for short test sessions.
PRs welcome for:
- Bug fixes and improvements
- Brand additions to the VID table above
- Game-specific notes (especially anything you confirm works or doesn't work)
GitHub: Ginger-Beard/ControllerManager
/app — WPF app (.NET 10, MVVM)
/Services — HidHide IOCTL wrapper, device enumeration, launch orchestrator,
process/file watchers, profile store, calibration runner, tray
/ViewModels — Dashboard, Games, Devices, Settings, Input Monitor
/Views — XAML
/Models — Profile, HidDevice, AppSettings
/Native — P/Invoke shims (HidApi, NtDll, SetupApi)
/Cli — Launch invocation entry points (--launch, --steam-wrap)
/tools/DeviceWatcher — Companion CLI for testing hide/show behavior
Controller Manager is built on top of HidHide by Nefarius and the many other contributors — a signed, MIT-licensed kernel filter driver that does the actual device hiding. Without their work none of this would be possible. Huge thanks for the tireless work maintaining and improving it.
- Maintained by Ginger-Beard.
- VID data curated for sim racing hardware; upstream USB ID database at usbutils.