What are Hall effect sticks?

Many GameSir controllers, such as the G7 SE, the Nova and the Cyclone 2, have Hall effect sticks. A regular stick reads its position with a contact that slides over a track and wears down over time, which is a common cause of drift. A Hall effect stick senses a magnet instead, so nothing rubs. It's still worth checking a new controller, since a stick can rest a little off center out of the box.

Tool description

This tester shows what your GameSir controller sends to the browser. Connect it with a cable, its receiver or Bluetooth, then press any button, since browsers only show a controller once one of its buttons is pressed. If your model has several modes, use the PC or Xbox one, which browsers know.

The gamepad picture lights up A, B, X, Y, LB, RB, View, Menu and Home as you press them, fills LT and RT as far as you pull them and moves the sticks. LS and RS are the stick presses. Under the picture, each button has a tile with how far it's pressed, and both sticks show their exact X and Y position from -1 to 1. If your browser can make the controller vibrate, Test vibration rumbles it for one second.

Back buttons and other extra buttons show up as the button they're mapped to. If the browser doesn't know the controller's layout, the tester says so and numbers the buttons and axes the way the browser reports them.

Checking the sticks

Let go of both sticks. A healthy stick rests close to zero, like 0.0039. A value that stays around 0.1 or more, or changes on its own, means the stick drifts.

Features

  • A controller picture with the buttons named as in Xbox mode
  • How far each button and trigger is pressed, and each stick's exact position
  • A one second vibration test