Speedlink Phantom Hawk flight stick wrongly recognized as a console gamepad

[Erkhyan]

I have a Speedlink Phantom Hawk flight stick which I want to use to play Star Wars Squadrons, but no matter what I do, Steam detects the flight stick as either a XBox One gamepad or a PS3 gamepad. That makes the flight stick essentially unusable in-game because none of the buttons and axes match those of a gamepad. Is there a way I can force Steam to recognize teh flight stick correctly?

[ReBoot]

Disable Steam's input mapper. Restart Steam. Problem solved.

[Erkhyan]

Sorry, but problem NOT solved. I disabled Steam’s input mapper, rebooted Steam, rebooted the computer, etc. No dice. Game still registers the flight stick as a Xbox One controller.

[Nx Machina]

Did you download and install the driver for the Phantom Hawk?

https://www.speedlink.com/en/Gaming/PHANTOM-HAWK-FLIGHTSTICK-BLACK.html

Did you after installing disable Steam input and test?

[Erkhyan]

Yes, the driver is installed. I’ve been using this flight stick to play X-Wing Alliance for several years now, and checking the driver was the very first thing I did.

Yes, I’ve already:
- Disabled Steam input and test;
- Disabled Steam input, restart Steam, and test;
- Disabled Steam input, quit Steam, rebooted the computer, and test.

But no matter what i do, the controller is detected as a Xbox One Controller both by Steam and by the game (even after forcing Steam input to off both globally AND in the game’s properties.

[ReBoot]

How's it look in the device manager? Is it possible that the whole reason is this thing identifying as an XBox gamepad to the system?

[Erkhyan]

It appears as “HID-Compliant USB Game Controller” in the Windows device manager.

It appears as “SPEEDLINK PHANTOM HAWK Flightstick” in the Windows game controller settings.

The properties page recognizes everything fine: The X/Y axes, throttle, rudder, PoV hat, 12 buttons, vibration works fine.

The controller works fine in all non-Steam games. X-Wing Alliance and Rogue Squadron 3D (GOG versions) both recognize the stick without any tinkering needed, with all axes/buttons and vibration fully functional.

Only Steam (and games that rely on Steam) insists on recognizing it as a XBox gamepad.

[ReBoot]

That's because Steam's input mapper is still active. It maps everything to XInput because XInput is what games generally recognize.

[Erkhyan]

Heh, I eventually just decided to remap everything. Not the best solution, but it kinda works.

[Erkhyan]

Update: against all logic, the solution to making it work was uninstalling Speedlink’s drivers and letting Windows treat the flight stick as a generic controller. It all works without needing to remap anything, now.