Mega-reply
 

Exactly as for me then. Did you note though that my trials with other devices had a very similar result (except the reversal jump bug)? IL-2 seems to be to blame for outright lax reading of the axis positions. Possibly some old DirectX Input issue, I don't know.

Mine work everywhere - but I did set my Logitech Profiler to "apply persistant profile". If one has the auto-detect game settings it will not apply that profile when the game isn't in focus, I imagine.

Speaking of IL2 with G940 and TrackIr5 - I keep trying to optimize the way the view controls are set up. Current revision is programmed to make use of the mid-stick thumb button "S4" - clicking it toggles between wide fov and 'realisticformymonitorsize' fov, while holding it sets maximum zoom and the precision mode in TiR5 - until released, when it reverts to whatever fov mode it was in before. Seems to work fairly well. The lower castle hat on the stick (push right) is TiR center. I found that it's very easy to push the hat to the right from the left with the thumb (coming from the red thumb "FIRE" button), not having to place the thumb inside the hat. Pinky button for radio transmit (just like the real world Fw 190, yum!). One of the backside throttle buttons toggles between gunsight position and 6DoF position. Comes in handy for certain messed up models. And all this of course with autohotkey. I'll mention more about it at the end of the post.

Jolly good I say! I knew about much of what you just told me already, by finding the post you made in the RoF thread about changing your mind about the G940 and linking to my posts here, and this was several days ago. I read more on SimHQ after that and I signed up yesterday, in no small part due to finding your post through google. I am going to look up that link after I finish posting this. EDIT: That's the one post I found several days ago :)

Logitech did have some explanations for what the force feedback settings are, but I recall that none satisfyingly explained it until I dug around deeper, especially with some force feedback testing programs + a few manuals for coders of devices (one was for some FF for handicapped people article). I think one of the more important things is finding out by experimentation how spring forces work in IL-2 - that the range utilized is limited to about 130km/h (no resistance) to 300km/h (max resistance). Hopefully Storm of War will have a much larger range and tons of other improvements.

Happy to share my findings with others. I get pleasure from helping (so it's a selfish motivation when it comes down to it. Though that's why we do just about everything we do). :)

SDK tailoring of forces though? Are you talking about the .ffe files in the IL2 force feedback folder? There wasn't that much to change there to be honest, mainly just tweaking the RPM and more importantly, power, of the gun effects seperately from all the others. Could be useful though. If I remember correctly you rely more on FF due to having impaired hearing? If so tweaking it right would have more significance than for the average user. I have the opposite problem, hypersensitive hearing (not that I have better hearing than others, I just experience things as louder and distressful). Use a lot of earplugs, sealed headphones and even got hearing protectors that I often wear just to shut up the neighbors and traffic.

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Throttle LED tips:

If you look in your logitech profiler folder, there's a LedSDK app that can be run. You can move this executable anywhere convenient. When run, it allows you to set the colors you want for each button. As far as I can tell, the throttle permanently remembers the settings until you open the program and change them again at some later point. It helps to categorize the functions a bit by how critical they are or what systems are affected. My "Master Arm" button is red, for example. Engine ignition 1 and 2 are red also.

When you feel like making things dark for sleep or whatever, you can go into the game controllers in the control panel, open up the throttle device, and click 'advanced' or whatever it is. There you will find a master light switch that turn off all the lights. Repeat to turn them on again (they'll resume the colors you programmed earlier). I hope Storm of War will have LED light support directly.

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Autohotkey stuff:

I think people out there still need convincing, so here are a few examples. It is awesome for the G940 (and anything else for that matter).

Example 1: having a "Master Arm" switch (G940 shipped with such a cutout paper thingy that I put under one of the throttle buttons):

The script is set up along these lines:
If the masterarm button is pressed, then toggle 'safety off' or 'safety on' inside the script.
Bind the weapon 1, 2, 3 and 4 to numpad 1 2 3 4.
When script senses that a stick button is pressed, it looks if safety is on or off, and if it's off, it pushes the numpad key to fire weapon 1, etc. If it's on, nothing happens.

It's very basic yet functional and useful. I've had 'accidents' happen, mostly inadvertant firing of a cannon or MG; but also heavier stuff. Ever drop a bomb during take off? Ooops.

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Bailing out realism:

Make you stay in cockpit view when initiating the bailing out sequence, and even play a sound file that has the sound of seatbelts being detached, windscreen being jettisoned and louuud wind noise.

It just checks if your bail-out button (a stick button perhaps?) is pushed. If it is, it sends "F1" right away to bring you instantly back to cockpit view, and also starts playing the sound file specified. I made one of my own and it works quite nicely, fitting what is seen.

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No more mouse map crap:

Instead of having to use the mouse (letting go of the G940 stick tends to not have good effects) and click the right mouse button continously inside the map window to go through all the zoom levels (what a pest), and using left click and drag to move the map, have one zoom in button, one zoom out button, and use a hat to scroll around on the map. No mouse involved at all.

This one was very tricky to cook up. Mouse coordinates is nearly completely unsupported in IL2, and figuring out how to cause two buttons to send the right amount of rightmouseclicks to either zoom one step in or out depending on the button pressed, but it works :). I don't think I can explain it in a short enough text, and in a useful way here.

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Make buttons make sounds when pressed (as well as released):

Super easy. Just tell the script to play a soundfile of our choice when a certain button is pressed (and another when released if one so wishes). Turning off the HUDLOG means there's no indicators when WEP is on, when fuel tank is jettisoned, navlights are triggered, engine key bla bla. There's usually not a single sound effect from inside the game to let you know that you did something. Adding a sound effect makes you hear that you did indeed press the button. In my case, I've made it keep track of if wep is on or off, if the safety is on or off, and it plays a different sound file to let me know that WEP Is turned ON for example. In both cases I used a little alarm buzz of the same kind that the Bf 109 uses (sort of) when deplying flaps without the gear down. Knowing that WEP is on or off or the master arm switch, not to mention the rather critical tail wheel lock function, is important, and this is one way to deal with it when getting rid of the HUD Log.

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Any kind of view controls one can imagine:

I have mentioned it before. Tell it to send the max zoom + smooth headtracking button when a certain button is pressed, then upon release, send max fov or medium, or anything one wants. Can cycle through things, make things activate when held longer than a certain time, two buttons held together, there's no limit.

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Radio commands through single key:

Can do this with the Logitech Profiler as well. Just look up what keys need be pushed in what order to send a certain command. Tab + 7 = "help me anyone!". Tab + 8 + 2 = request vector to home base. And so it goes.

I have one such similar macro set up to toggle that 'zoom when moving forward with TrackIR' off, as I prefer to do my zooming with keys instead. It requires pushing a numpad * key and then numpad 1 together.

Other small things is having right + left mouse button = Escape. Right mouse + scroll wheel up/down is alt-tab (no need to reach for the keyboard anymore).

Another useful thing is binding the Trim 3 knob to volume control. Yes, instant volume 'trim', accurately and easily. In this one tells autohotkey to scan the trim3 axis and then to convert the position of it onto the system volume setting something like 10 times a second.

S!

Very thorough review there and good points Mikko. Still have to say FF is not for me as it should simulate only the flying effects. None of the WW2 vets, pilots of course, mentioned their control stick shaking like crazy when firing. The effect they felt was slight thump or vibration in airframe, but stick did not jerk around. So in this way IL2 modelling gun firing thus making gun solution harder than it was = unrelalistic.

I used CH ForceFX stick years ago in IL-2 and have tested MSFF etc as well. Still I consider my Cougar better than any of them, being only lightly modded with lighter springs. Therefore waiting more for the TM Warthog stick having hall-sensors etc. already without need of modding them in.

Anyways the G940 seems to be decently good for anyone wanting a FF stick and maybe new sims will use it's features better as you described. TY for the review, was top class.

Thank you for the praise, glad it was so informative.

The gun firing fibration/etc can be set to whatever level one prefers. The default in IL-2 is very subtle, and after hearing more about it (another sim veteran commented on it last night on a server) I'm personally going to tweak down that particular effect, which I had raised overall.

It can be set both by the basic G940 force setup page - it is covered under the general effects slider. And also by either removing all together, or editing the "machinegun.ffe" and "cannon.ffe" files in the forcefeedback folder, using the directX force editor.

This is beneficial for me as, those effects are by far the 'noisiest' and I prefer to keep a low profile as far as my environment goes. :D

I have it and its very nice.
I think that when it loose Feedback is because i have not execute the Logitech Profiler.


There are some things that have to be corrected ,you have said it before

In IL-2 (winXP 32bit), if I alt-tab out of the game and come back, the spring (wind resistance) forces disappear, and initially a very tightly centering force (which feels awesome and how it should be like) appears in it's place - but this also disappears with a bit of stick pull (often suddenly all resistance disappears).

To get the force feedback working again is a matter of restarting the flight. I.e. "Refly".

Dual Throttle Support!
 

I've managed to program autohotkey to support two axis as individual throttles! Took a very long, intense night trying to figure out how to do it and make it behave properly (it is so much more difficult than it sounds like). Basically it checks two axises of our choice, then when presses the appropriate keybinds (first selecting which engine - 1, 2 or both), then a power input. Like 0%, 10%, 20% etc.

But as maybe others have tried in the past, being annoyed with having just 11 positions (10% increments), I managed to make it sneak in an extra "increase power" button click, which raises and lowers the throttle setting by 5%, enabling a scale of 0-110% in 5% increments through any analogue axis (a total of 23 positions). That's not far off from the analogue typical of 2%.

I tried it with my Saitek Quadrant (3 levers) and it worked perfectly there too. So far it supports two throttles axises. There's no reason 4 shouldn't work, just need a bit of work to add the extra code.

I could not wait for Team Daidalos 4.10 patch (which may or may not bring dual throttle support). The twin engined heavy fighters were calling my name. More..engines..to..play...with...

Anyway, is there any interest in this? I could clean it up a bit and upload it, even as an .exe file that needs nothing else.

Please do so mikkowl, i, i.e., would really appreciate it.

Hi MikkOwl and everybody else,

That's a great thread, thanks for all the info!!!

However i've got a question, where did you find that LedSDK application?
I've looked in the out of the box CD for my G940 and the update that I downloaded from Logitech, but I don's see it anywhere.

Could you please give me a hint?

thanks in advance

cheers
Schallmoser

BTW: I'd be interested in dual throttle control as well!!!! :grin:

C:\Program Files\Logitech\Gaming Software

Logitech_SDK_For_PC_1.00.002.ZIP

Into the zip
/joystick

unzip the directory.
run JoystickSDKDemo.exe ;)

Thanks Qpassa! I missed the zip file somehow...
getting old and blind these days...;)

cheers
Schallmoser