vJoy for Star Citizen: HOSAS with Joystick Gremlin and HidHide

Star Citizen is the game where twin sticks — a HOSAS setup, hands on stick and stick — make the strongest case for vJoy. One stick handles pitch, roll and yaw for the ship’s nose. The other handles strafe: up, down, left, right and forward thrust. Add pedals, buttons and hats, and a player can easily present Windows with several physical controllers at once. The community stack that grew up around this problem is vJoy plus Joystick Gremlin plus HidHide. That stack is community practice shared by players. It is not an endorsement by CIG, and this guide presents it exactly that way.

Here is what each piece does. vJoy provides the virtual DirectInput devices, each with up to 8 axes, up to 128 buttons and up to 4 POV hats, up to a documented limit of 16 virtual devices. Joystick Gremlin reads the two physical sticks, applies curves, merges or splits controls, and writes the result to vJoy. HidHide then hides the physical sticks from the game, so Star Citizen reads the tidy virtual devices instead of also reading the raw sticks and creating duplicates. Without the hiding step, many players see doubled inputs or controls that appear in the wrong order.

What you need

• vJoy from our download page — the BrunnerInnovation 2.2.2.0 build is the starting point for Windows 10 and Windows 11. If Gremlin or another feeder misbehaves on 2.2.x, 2.1.9.1 is the compatibility fallback described on the download page.
• Joystick Gremlin — see our Joystick Gremlin guide for profiles, curves and merging.
• HidHide — see our HidHide guide for hiding physical devices from a game while keeping them visible to Gremlin.
• Two sticks for HOSAS, plus any pedals or button boxes you plan to include, all tested in Windows before you begin.

Setup, step by step

1. Install vJoy and create the virtual devices you plan to use in Configure vJoy. Many HOSAS players start with two vJoy devices — one mainly for flight rotation, one mainly for translation — rather than forcing every axis into a single device.
2. Install HidHide and, before changing anything, note its default state. You will hide the physical sticks from Star Citizen, but Joystick Gremlin must still be allowed to see them. Whitelist Gremlin in HidHide so the feeder keeps access.
3. Hide the physical stick devices in HidHide, then restart the game if it was open. Check in Windows that the vJoy devices still appear in joy.cpl.
4. In Gremlin, map the right stick to pitch, roll and twist yaw on the first vJoy device. Map the left stick to strafe axes on the second vJoy device. Write down the mapping, including which device number owns which function.
5. Apply modest curves in Gremlin. Fine control near the centre matters for landing and for small corrections in combat, while full deflection still needs to arrive quickly at the stops.
6. In Star Citizen, open the keybinding and joystick mapping screens and bind from the vJoy devices only. Work through one group at a time: rotation first, then strafe, then throttle behaviour, then buttons.
7. Test in a hangar or a low-risk flight mode. Move each axis alone and confirm only the intended ship movement responds. If two movements happen together, suspect a physical device that is not hidden, or a duplicate binding.
8. Save and back up your Gremlin profile and your game control exports before any game patch. Large patches are the moment players most often wish they had a copy of a working mapping.

The device-mapping note players miss

Community HOSAS guides often talk about a five-device picture once sticks, pedals, button boxes and virtual devices are counted together. Treat device order as a real setup task, not a detail. Windows enumeration, HidHide state and which vJoy device you created first all affect what the game shows you. If a binding suddenly points at the wrong stick after adding hardware, do not remap the whole profile in frustration. Check the device list first, confirm HidHide is still hiding the physical sticks, and confirm Gremlin is outputting to the vJoy device numbers you documented.

Limitations and honest notes

This stack adds layers, and every layer is a place a patch can change behaviour. Keep the setup as simple as your sticks allow: if a single vJoy device covers your axes cleanly, do not create extra devices for symmetry. vJoy is DirectInput and does not emulate XInput. Also be honest about expectations: curves and merging improve control, but they do not turn entry sticks into high-end hardware, and no feeder can remove a worn gimbal’s centre slop.

An honest note on RSI referrals: Star Citizen referral codes give the recruit 50,000 UEC in-game credit and $0 cash to anyone. We publish no referral code on this page. If you use any code, use one from a friend or creator you want to support, knowing the benefit to you is the same 50,000 UEC.

More help: the vJoy setup guides by game hub collects every game guide, the HidHide guide explains the hiding step in depth, and our vJoy for Elite Dangerous setup covers a related HOTAS merging workflow.