g940 firmware update crapped my il2 ffb..

[Artist]

You made me curious... And I digged into it. Here's my result:

1. Obviously it's not Logitech's fault (this time ), but a rather strong spring-setting within IL-2, which is now correctly interpreted by the Firmware 1.42...

2. This strong spring setting is encoded in the file

<IL2-Directory>/ForceFeedback/spring.ffe

3. This file can be edited with a small tool from Microsoft, called fedit - which was part of the DirectX 8.1 SDK, but is not available from Microsoft anymore.

4. However, I found a copy of fedit here - and take no guarantee whatsovever.

5. With this tool one can inspect the spring.ffe and see that the force is full (10000) on all axes...

6. With this tool one can create a new spring.fee (modifying the original did not work with me - and, for heaven's sake: do save the original to a safe place first!) with very much lower settings...

7. For the many impatient I have attached an zip-archive with a spring.ffe with very low (447) settings (And again: do save the original to a safe place first!). On the runway the stick is as limb as a, a..., well metaphors fail me . In the air, the force grows with speed and is gone on stall...

8. Finally, do not blame me, if something goes wrong!

9. [added later] There's one drawback, however: The ForceFeedback is not properly initialized with a plane standing motionless on the runway (there's just no force to feedback ). So when you start the game and then start a mission on the runway, everything is fine (stick is limb). When you leave the mission in midair (stick is stiff) and then restart the mission on the runway the stick will retain the former FFB (=stiff)... If you had landed properly and parked the aircraft, the stick would have gone limb and would be so on the start of the next mission...

Have fun,
Artist

PS: There's a good post by MikkOwl on G940 and ForceFeedback settings here

[ph8]

~S!

OMG I was so closed to going the fedit way!!! But the cause and effect fw/new fw was so "obvious" to me!

I didn't cus i had to install an old directx sdk on windows 7 and wasn't sure how that would work out (not enough time).

But if you say spring effect is full that rocks, that means essentially that logitechs new firmware is in effect reading the .ffe code as it should unlike before

That is a very interesting discovery and i thank you so much for providing it, I will try it first thing in the morning as it is my much earned day off and will give you some "force"feedback

You da man Artist thank you for your interest in my post!

~S Ph8

[Artist]

Updated my post (9. and PS)...

[ph8]

~S

Well after much tweaking and testing I have gotten it to feel "somewhat" like the old firmware but still no go.

It seems between floppy stick and stiff stick its not very progressive.

If i'm entering a stall at 150 in a spit mk9 it only gets limp at around 30-40kph. Wether flying 200kph or 700kph still feels the same.

The good news is i had this stick RMA'd for the r1 and r2 and rudder spikes. I get to keep the old one and the new just arrived and hopefully it has the old firmware on it.

If that is the case I will have old and new firmware to compare with.

Maybe this way it will be easier to get that old feel back having a reference.

Will keep you updated.

~S Ph8

[Artist]

I found that there are several versions of fedit.exe floating around and at least one of them is kind of buggy: It does write what you configured, but does not correctly read the ffe files... As both versions that I have claim to be "Version 1.0" in the "About"-dialog, you must check the "Version"-tab
in the Fileproperties (mouse, right click):

The buggy version says there: Fileversion 1,0,0,1
My working version says there: Fileversion 5.04.00.2904

Apart from that, the buggy version has a file size of 168,720 bytes and (my) working version has 176,128 bytes

Hope this may help those like me that started swearing loudly and obscenely when reopening the ffe files never showed what had been saved before

However, the file I linked in my post (see above) is the "5.04.00.2904"-version.

Artist