Installation

PowerAim is a portable Windows desktop app. There is no required installer — you can run it from any folder, including a USB stick. An optional installer is provided that creates Start-menu shortcuts and a Programs-and-Features entry.

1. Install the prerequisites

Both are one-time installs. Skip whichever you already have.

1. .NET Runtime 10 (x64) — download here
   • Pick the Desktop Runtime (not the SDK) unless you plan to build PowerAim from source.
2. Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x64) — download here

Both must be x64 — PowerAim does not work with the x86 / ARM variants. If you accidentally install x86, uninstall it and grab x64.

2. Pick a build: DirectML or CUDA

PowerAim ships two release flavors:

Build	File name pattern	Hardware
DirectML (default)	PowerAim-*.zip or PowerAim-*-Installer.exe	Any DX12-capable GPU
CUDA (faster on NVIDIA)	PowerAim-*_cuda.zip or *_cuda-Installer.exe	NVIDIA GPU + CUDA 12.x runtime

If unsure, start with DirectML. You can switch later from the Settings page without losing your config.

3. Download

Grab the latest release from the Releases page. Each release has four assets:

PowerAim-x.y.z.zip                  # DirectML, portable
PowerAim-x.y.z-Installer.exe        # DirectML, with installer
PowerAim-x.y.z_cuda.zip             # CUDA, portable
PowerAim-x.y.z_cuda-Installer.exe   # CUDA, with installer

4. Install

Option A — Installer (recommended)

Run PowerAim-*-Installer.exe. It places PowerAim into %LocalAppData%\Programs\PowerAim, adds a Start-menu shortcut, and registers an uninstaller. No admin rights required.

Option B — Portable

Extract the .zip to a folder of your choice (e.g. C:\Tools\PowerAim). Run PowerAim.exe from inside.

The first launch is slower than subsequent ones — PowerAim probes DXGI support, loads ONNX models, and initializes the binding hook. After that, cold start is under 2 seconds on most machines.

5. (Optional) Install ViGEmBus

If you plan to use any gamepad feature — controller mapping, AutoPlay with gamepad output, or “Use controller for aim” — install ViGEmBus.

Easiest path:

1. Launch PowerAim
2. Open Gamepad in the sidebar
3. Click “Get ViGEmBus driver” — it opens vigembusdriver.com in your browser
4. Download and run ViGEmBus_Setup_x.x.xx_x64.exe
5. Back in PowerAim, click any other sidebar item then click Gamepad again — the status line should now say “PowerAim is ready to send Gamepad signals”

6. (Optional) Install HidHide

Only needed if you want to cloak your physical controller from games while a mapping profile is active. PowerAim ships the installer — on the Gamepad settings page, click “Install HidHide” and follow the prompts. A reboot is required.

See Hidden Controllers for what HidHide does and when you need it.

Where PowerAim stores its data

Location	What lives there
<install dir>\bin\models\*.onnx	Bundled and downloaded ONNX models
<install dir>\bin\configs\*.cfg	Saved configuration presets
<install dir>\bin\anti_recoil_configs\*	Per-gun recoil config files
%AppData%\AI-M\LastConfigPath.cfg	Pointer to the config that was loaded last
%LocalAppData%\PowerAim\tessdata\	Tesseract OCR data
%LocalAppData%\PowerAim\replays\	Replay-buffer export folder (default)
%LocalAppData%\PowerAim\autoplay_model.json	Recorded AutoPlay learning model (default)

The whole app is portable — copying the install directory to another machine preserves all bundled assets. Per-user state lives under %LocalAppData% and %AppData% and is not copied.

Uninstalling

• Installer build: Settings → Apps → PowerAim → Uninstall
• Portable build: delete the folder. Optionally also delete %LocalAppData%\PowerAim and %AppData%\AI-M.

If you installed ViGEmBus and / or HidHide and want them gone too, uninstall them separately from Windows Settings.

Updating

PowerAim ships with an in-app update checker. When a new release is available you’ll see a notice bar at the bottom of the window — click it to open the UpdateDialog, which downloads and applies the new build in place.

If you’d rather update manually, just download a fresh release and overwrite the install directory. Your config (under bin\configs\ and %AppData%\AI-M\) is preserved.