From some research, it appears that the NVIDIA streaming app on the host PC has it's own proprietary Xinput stack that simulates Xinput and works ok on Xinput games. It seems to me, that it doesn't support directinput. That is, Microsoft's regular 360 drivers windows will work and have secondary support for directinput mode for those games that don't support Xnput. Since most emulators don't support xinput (only direct), they won't work with nvidia's stack. I'd guess Dolphin and PCSX2 for example a support xinput, so it would work on them ok. [update] found a possible solution: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/622876/shield-portable/-guide-use-shield-w-non-xinput-enabled-games-and-applications-xpadder-pinnacle-game-profiler-etc-/8/