[p3d v4.5 and p3d v5.0 parallel installation problem]

I experience problems working with FSUIPC and Linda with my parallel install. 

FSUIPC in itself seem to be working fine as I can scan for my different axis and they are correctly identified. But when I start Linda (not the GUI but when through FSUIPC6.in the ipcReady.lua and the Linda.lua are started and I see the Simconnect message "Linda ready" appear, then FSUIPC6 is not responding anymore. If I try to Rescan for my axis it found nothing.

With a dual FSUIPC6 installation in the p3dv5 add-ons folder, both p3d v4 and p3d v5 display the same behavior.

I'm exchanging with Andrew the author of Linda but he is as puzzled as me as what can cause FSUIPC6 to not respond.

My question is; is there any way we can log a session to see at what point FSUIPC6 cease to respond ? Linda already use the logging facility of FSUIPC6 to describe the different steps and all seems normal in this log. What about a log of what FSUIPC6 is receiving that cause the wrongdoing ...

ps: we tested also the two separate FSUIPC6 installation (one for V4 and one for V5 by running twice the installer.... same issue but only on v5 while v4 worked. At least for my test yesterday).

 

[Lua programs to access your Saitek Radio, Switch and Multi panel]

Introduction

 

This post explains how you can use a LUA routine to access the status of the buttons/switches/selectors/gear and flaps lever and trim wheel (herewith named collectively as Buttons) on 3 Saitek panels using FSUIPC and Linda. The first section presents a quick instruction to start gathering information  based on lua program attached to this post. The second section gives a simple example of a Lua program that access the Saitek panel buttons status and select specific FSX/P3D actions accordingly. The third section goes more into the details about how this LUA programs was made.

 

You need a registered version of FSUIPC for this to work.

 

Section 1 – Quick Start

 

Download and install the relevant LUA routines;

 

Attached to this post are 3 Lua programs corresponding to the 3 Saitek panels. You just need to install the ones corresponding to the panel you own.  The 3 Lua programs are:

 

-          HIDRadio.lua

-          HIDMulti.lua

-          HIDSwitch.lua

 

Note; I have renamed the 3 programs with a .txt exension for upload as the system doesnt allow to upload .lua files. You will need to change the extension back to .lua before using them.

 

To install them, just drop the ones corresponding to the panel you own into the “module” directory of FSX/P3D.

 

Automatic start of the LUA programs

 

The LUA programs selected above must run in permanence to scan the status of the buttons and map (copy) this information into specific address of the FSUIPC offsets. To inform FSUIPC that those programs must start and run continuously, it is necessary to add the following lines to the FSUIPC.ini files (located in the module directory of FSX/P3D).

 

 [Auto]

1=lua HIDRadio

2=lua HIDMulti

3=lua HIDSwitch

 

On the next start-up of FSUIPC, the Lua program will start to scan the status of the buttons and selector on Saitek panels.

 

Checking with FSUIPC logging facility that the Lua programs are in place and operating

 

FSUIPC has a built in logging facility that can be useful to check the proper operation of the Lua programs and the correct mapping of switches to the offset address.

 

Go to the FSUIPC Logging tab and on the right part of the screen, enter the following information:

 

Offset   Type of data       Remark

3358       U32                        Saitek Radio panel offset address

335C      U32                        Saitek Multi Panel offset address

3360       U32                        Saitek Switches Panel offset address

 

Then click on “FS window” and you should have a green message on the top left of your screen. Move some selectors or push buttons on each of your panels and see if the values on screen change according to the position of the buttons. An annex at the end of this post gives the value of each button.

 

Note1  : The knob just send a short pulse so the number on screen will just change very rapidly and come back to the value prior to moving the knob when you stop moving it.

Note 2: The buttons just change status while they are pressed, they doesn’t indicate the status of the corresponding function. Ex: the Autopilot button will just send a ON status when you press the button. So this is not intended to test if functions like the AP are engaged or not. It’s just to test the instantaneous position of the hardware buttons.

 

Make sure you have version 4.934 as the previous one has a problem that killed lua programs on start-up and caused me a couple of evening of head scratching... 4.934 solved this as soon as I installed it.

 

Accessing the information from within a LUA program in Linda

 

Now everything is in place and you have the possibility to access the information on your panel switch.

 

For simple assignation of a single button, you usually doesn’t need complex programming as FSX, Spad or Linda menu all allow you to directly select FSX/P3D commands. On the other hand, if you want to combine the status from different buttons to trigger a specific FSX/P3D action, then you need to use a Lua program (you can also use FSUIPC conditional button programming but Lua is more flexible).

 

Using Linda, it is possible to assign user created Lua program to a button so the program is called when the button is push (or a switch is move to the “on” position or a selector is put in a specific position). The Lua program allows you to test the status of others buttons and makes your program act accordingly to send the proper FSX/P3D command.

 

In Linda, you can create individual LUA program module (a module can contain several Lua program) for each aircraft. Linda includes also a text editor that makes creation of Lua program easy. Some functions in the Lua library allow reading specific address in FSUIPC offsets. Each address that will be assigned to the 3 Saitek panels covered here will contain between 18 to 20 bits of useful information (not considering the LED display) that correspond to all the buttons, switches, selectors and gear and flaps lever of the panel. The switches panel for instance contains 20 bits of information that you can test. The address to use in order to read each panel information are:  

 

0x3358 = Radio panel

0x335C = Multi panel

0x3360 = Switch panel

 

Note : You can assign other address if those one are already used for other purposed on your setup. You will need to modify the HIDxxx.lua program that correspond to the device you want to change.

 

Note: The "0x" in the adress above just means that its written in hexadecimal notation. You will need to include the 0x within Lua program otherwise it will consider that the address provided is decimal. Please note that in the FSUIPC logging page, you don’t need to include the 0x as this page always consider that the value entered is hexadecimal.

 

There are two main functions within Lua programs that can help you to read buttons status.

 

First, the following Lua program line read all the bytes of information from the Saitek Radio panel and put it in a variable named “pos”.

 

pos = ipc.readUB(0x3358)

 

But the value returned is not quite useful by itself as it represents the cumulative sum of all the individual bits for switches that are in the “on” position resulting in a large number of possible values. You then need to isolate the value that you are specifically interested by using the following function (here represented in a separate line).

 

pos = logic.And(pos,mask).

 

Here mask correspond to the specific value (or sum of values) you are interested in. For instance, if you are interested to test if the position of the magneto switch is at the “right” position on the Saitek switch panel, then the value for the mask is 32768 (see annex for all possible values) and the Lua program line becomes

 

Pos = logic.And(pos,32768)

 

Section 2 : Example for the Duke piston or Douglas C-47 Magneto selector

 

In the Duke Piston from Real air (and Douglas C-47 from Manfred Jahn), the magneto animation in the VC are reversed compared to the Saitek switch magneto button for the “left” and “right” position which create a weird jump in the VC while you move the magneto selector on your Saitek panel.

-          Duke Piston/Douglas C-47 VC magneto selector order: Off – Left – Right – Both – Start

-          Saitek Switch panel magneto selector order: Off – Right – Left – Both - Start

 

So the objective is to program a function in a Linda module that will reverse the operation of the left and right magneto position between the Saitek panel and the VC. In addition, we want to test the position of the upper mode button for the Saitek radio panel to determine if we want to operate the motor 1 or 2. Spad has a built-in functionality that allows using several switches (ex: Aternator, fuel pump, cowl, de ice)  to act on motor 1 or on motor 2 according to the position of the top selector on the Radio panel and we want to replicate this functionality here.

 

First you need to create a module for your targeted aircraft if it’s not already existing. See Linda documentation to do this.

 

Then you need to copy the following program (or use the Magneto.txt file provided) into the aircraft module using Linda editor screen. Again, refer to Linda documentation to see how to open the editor.

 

The title between double hash characters is recognized by Linda as a heading separator for functions. It makes easier to identify function you have created.

Comments (text preceded by --) in the program below provide detailed comments for each steps.

 

-- ## Magneto ##

 

Function MagLeftVC ()

 

-- This function handle the reversal of the magneto in the VC panel compared to the Saitek selector.

-- It is activated when the selector on the Saitek switch panel will be put at the left position. 

-- It will result in positionning the VC magneto selector to the "right" position.

-- The Saitek Radio top left selector at position COM1 means that the left engine is considered. If the selector is at the COM2 position, then the right engine will be treated.

 

-- The information about the radio panel status is at offset 0x3358

-- reading the offset to get all Radio panel switches current status

 

pos = ipc.readUB(0x3358)

 

-- The next line of lua code will isolate the bits of information we are interested in

-- mask = 1 would be usefull ot test if the top left selector at the COM1 position

-- mask = 2 would be appropriate to test if the top left selector at the COM2 position

-- Mask = 3 accept both COM1 and COM2 and will return either 1 or 2 as the selector

--   can be only in one of the two positions at a given time.

--   If the selector is not at COM1 or COM2, then the logic.And function will return zero and no action will be done.

 

pos = logic.And(pos,3)

 

-- the next group of lines will send the command to put the magneto for left or right motor in the right position in the VC.

-- 66400 is the Magneto1_set command for FSX/P3D

-- 66401 is the Magneto2_set command for FSX/P3D

-- The parameter 2 is for the “right” position of the magneto

 

if pos ==1 then ipc.control(66400,2)

else if pos ==2 then ipc.control(66401,2)

end

end

 

Function MagRightVC ()

-- same approach as for the left mag function, without comments here

pos = ipc.readUB(0x3358)

pos = logic.And(pos,3)

if pos ==1 then ipc.control(66400,1)

elseif pos ==2 then ipc.control(66401,1)

end

end

 

Section 3 – Nut and Bolts.

 

This section provides some additional explanation on how the HIDRadio.lua program was created from the HIDDemo.lua program provided by Peter.

 

Step 1: Obtain HIDDemo.lua

 

We need to have a Lua program running continuously to scan the Saitek panel switch status then map this information in FSUIPC offset. The offset can then be read from a Lua program in a Linda module for an aircraft. Peter Dowson provided an example of a Lua program that scan HID device like the Saitek panels and write the information on offset. We just want to use his demo and modify it a bit.

 

The HidDemo.lua program is available in the complete install of FSUIPC4.

 

Or you can download the latest HidDemo.lua  example from : http://forum.simflight.com/topic/68257-latest-lua-package-for-fsuipc-and-wideclient/

 

Step 2: Create HIDRadio.lua

 

Make a copy of HIDDemo.lua and name it HIDRadio.lua (we will give only one example herewith but the same approach works for the switch and the multi panel also).

 

Step 3 – Adjust HID device identification

 

At the beginning of the HIDDemo.lua program, there is two lines that identify the Saitek panel (HID device) you want to communicate with. You have to insert the hexadecimal code for the vendor and for the product.  For instance the lines for the Saitek radio panel are:

-- Saitek Radio panel

Vendor = 0x06A3

Product = 0x0D05

 

If you dont know the HID device codes, there is a utility provided by Peter Dowson called HIDscanner.exe that gives a report about all devices connected to your PC and their vendor rand product codes.

 

I already run this utility to find the relevant information of the 3 following Saitek Products.

 

Radio Panel :

Vendor = 0x06A3

Product = 0x0D05

Multi Panel :

Vendor =0x06A3

Product = 0x0D06

Switch Panel :

Vendor =0x06A3

Product = 0x0D67

 

The HIDScanner.exe utility is available at the same link provided above on Peter support page.

 

Step 4 : Change the size and destination of information blocks

 

In HIDDemo.exe, you will find a loop of instruction toward the end of the program that read the status of the buttons on your HID device and copy it to a specific offset.  The loop is initially programmed for reading 8 blocks composed of 4 Bytes of information. For the Saitek panel switches, you only need to do it once as all information fit into a double world (32 bits of information).  So I cleaned the iteration loop (from 1 to 8 and adjusted the HIDDemo.lua program to do a single read of a 32 bits of information that is sufficient for the Saitek panels.

 

Next, you need to select the destination for the button information in the FSUIPC offset table. There is an ipc.writeUD instruction in the HIDDemo.lua program that was modified to correspond to an offset that was used for mapping.

 

The possible offset for the 9 contiguous blocks of 4 bytes (32 bits of information) are: 0x3340, 0x3344, 0x3348, 0x334C, 0x3350, 0x3354, 0x3358, 0x335C, 0x3360. See the “FSUIPC4 Offset Status.pdf” document provided with FSUIPC documentation. The Saitek version of HIDDemo.lua use the 3 last virtual joystick addresses so Joystick 71,72 and 73 located at 0x3358, 0x335C and 0x3360 respectively.

 

Step 5 : Install your newly created Lua program

 

Just copy them it in the “module” directory of FSX or P3D. If you have started with the quick start portion of this document, you have already done this.

 

Step 6 : Automatic startup of HIDRadio.lua

 

To start automatically your Lua program add the following lines in FSUIPC.ini. If you have applied the quick start instruction, its already done.

 

 [Auto]

1=lua HidRadio

 

Step 7 : Create custom lua program

 

See the example provided for the Duke above.

 

Annex: Saitek panels reference of  “buttons” value

 

Saitek Radio Panel (20 bit of information + 2 bit unused)

 

Top left mode selector

1= Com1

2= Com2             

4= Nav1

8= Nav2

16= Adf

32= Dme

64= Xpdr

Bottom Left mode selector

128= Com1

256= Com2

512= Nav1

1024= Nav2

2048= Adf

4096= Dme

8192= Xpdr

16384 = Top right ACT/STB button

32768 = Bottom right ACT/STB button

65536 = Clockwise turn of the top knob

131072 (2E17)=Counter-clockwise turn of the top knob

1048576 (2E20) = Clockwise turn of the bottom knob

2097152 (2E21) = Counter-clockwise turn of the bottom knob

 

Saitek Multi Panel (20 bit of information)

 

Selector button

1= Alt

2= VS

4= IAS

8=HDG

16=CRS

32= Clockwise rotation of knob

64= Counter clockwise rotation of knob

128= AP button

256= HDG button

512= NAV button

1024= IAS button

2048= ALT button

4096= VS button

8192= APR button

16384= REV button

32768= Auto Throttle switch ON

65536= Flaps up (2^16)

131072= Flaps down (2^17)

262144= Elevator Trim Pitch up (2^18)

524288= Elevator Trim Pitch Down (2^19)

 

Saitek Switch panel (20 bit of information)

 

Note: The minimum value returned corresponds to the position of the landing gear handle plus the position of the magneto knob. 262144 is returned if the gear lever is UP and 524288 if the gear lever is DOWN.

 

1= Battery

2= Alternator

4= Avionic

8= Pump

16= De Ice

32= Pitot heat

64= Cowl

128= Panel

256= Beacon

512= Nav

1024= Strobe

2048= Taxi

4096= Landing

 

Magneto selector

8192= Off magneto

16384= Left Magneto

32768= Right Magneto

65536= Both Magneto

131072= Start Magneto

Landing gear lever

262144= Landing gear Up

524288 (2E19)= Landing Gear Down

Magneto.txt

HidMulti.txt

HidRadio.txt

HidSwitch.txt

[HIDdemo testing]

Hi Pete, 

 

Was abroad for a couple of week so didn't had time to post the information in the user contribution. I will do it eventually but I have now problem to have a consistent access to the Saitek modules. At the beginning of this week, I made a fresh install of Prepar3dV2.2 on a new SSD drive and tried my 3 modules again just to find that their behavior was now erratic. I get access to the Radio panel most of the time (but not always), Multi is so so.. .about 50% success and I'm not able anymore to access the Switch panel. I took a couple of hours on the last two evening to investigate but still puzzled as the changes made to HidDemo are minimal (in the last try I made yesterday, I just changed the vendor and product number, the loop to 1 iteration as all information fit in one 32 bit button and the destination offset address). And I did restart P3D about 50 times yesterday evening and the success of connecting is random....  I finally gave up yesterday after the last 5 tries didn't succeed to access the 3 panels. I will see if I can investigate further this week-end.

 

Pierre

[HIDdemo testing]

And if it may help others people to get access to their Saitek panel, here is the mapping of the value returned by each switches and button. they fit in 17 or 19 bytes so reading a single double world is sufficient to get the complete status of the panel.

 

Note: The value returned is the sum of the value associated with all switch position and button that are pushed.

 

Saitek Radio Panel

 

Button 1 (top left)

1= com1

2= com2              

4= nav1

8= nav2

16= adf

32= dme

64= xpdr

Button 2 (bottom left)

128= com1

256= com2

512= nav1

1024= nav2

2048= adf

4096= dme

8192= xpdr

16384 = ACT/STB button 1 (top right)

32768 = ACT/STB button 2 (bottom right)

65534 = Turn right (top dial button)

131072 (2E17)= Turn left (top dial button)

 

Saitek Multi Panel

 

Selector button

1= Alt

2= VS

4= IAS

8=HDG

16=CRS

32= Dial turn right

64= Dial turn left

128= AP button

256= HDG button

512= NAV button

1024= IAS button

2048= ALT button

4096= VS button

8192= APR button

16384= REV button

32768= Auto Throttle switch

65536= Flaps up (2e16)

131072= Flaps down (2e17)

262144= Pitch up (elevator trim)

524288 (2E19)= Pitch down (elevator trim)

 

Saitek Switch panel

Note: The minimum value for saitek value correspond to the position of the landing gear handle. 262144 is returned in the UP gear position and 524288 for down Gear.

1= Battery

2= Alternator

4= Avionic

8= pump

16= DeIce

32= Pitot heat

64= Cowl

128= Panel

256= Beacon

512= Nav

1024= Strobe

2048= Taxi

4096= Landing

8192= OFF magneto

16384= Left Magneto

32768= Right Magneto

65536= Both Magneto

131072= Start Magneto

262144= Landing gear Up

524288 (2E19)= Landing Gear Down

[HIDdemo testing]

It works fine for the Saitek Radio, Saitek Multi and Saitek Switch panel. I create 3 different versions of HIDDemo, one for each panel that write at different offset as you mention.

 

Thanks for the fast and very informative support..

[HIDdemo testing]

Thanks Pete for the fast return and the clarification of the multiplier. Now it makes perfect sense.

 

As for reading 32 bit at the time, I'm fine with that approach. I was not suggesting to make more read operation with smaller quantity of byte each.

 

As for the quantity of information returned, if my Saitek multi panel for instance fit in 2 x 32 bits, I will have to modify the GehidButtons line of code as follow risk of causing errors because I just have two destination variables button[1] and [2] instead of 8 in the initial code?

 

buttons[1], buttons[2] = com.GetHidButtons(dev, CurrentData)

 

If it is as simple as that, no need for a function that return the quantity of information from the Panel as I can test this already using the Hiddemo and adjust the code accordingly.

 

I will try to give a go to my first trial in lua programming....  I will need indeed to modify the program and destination offset for each of my 3 panels but that should not be too complex.

[HIDdemo testing]

Hi,

 

I’m trying to build a lua routine to scan my 3 Saitek panels (Multi, Switch, Radio) and I use as a template the example HIDDemo.lua. While reviewing the code, there is a point needing clarification.

 

I was able to access the panels and took note of each button value. The next step for me was to assign different virtual joystick to each of the 3 panels and that is where I have some problems.

 

On the writing button loop of HIDDemo, I don’t understand why in the ipc.write line the increment is 8. I was expecting that writing a double world 4 bytes x 8 bit = 32 buttons will requires a 4 bytes increment between each button write. The last loop when I=8 here will give an increment of 64 bytes over the base address of 0x3340 which seems larger than the block of offset associated with virtual buttons. I’m missing something?

 

                i = 1

                while i <= 8 do

                    if buttons ~= prevbuttons then

                        fbutton = true -- flag change for logging

                        prevbuttons = buttons

                        -- Send to FSUIPC as a set of 32 virtual buttons

                        -- i.e. DWORD offsets 3340 onwards

                        ipc.writeUD(0x3340 + ((i-1) * 8), buttons)

                    end

                    i = i + 1

                end

 

Also, I was wandering why in this example, the decision was to read 8 buttons x 32 bit each instead of less? How can we know what is the quantity of button that will be returned by a HID device? Is it the “wr” parameters in the com.openhid command? For instance, I know from testing that the Saitek radio panel  use 17 bits and the Multi panel 19 bit of information. So I expect to be able to assign the 3 first block of 4 bytes in the 0x3340 offset to my 3 panels. Does it makes sense?

 

 

 

[zoom problem]

Hi,

I use FSUICP with a CH product yoke and I try to assing a button to the zoom in and zoom out functions.

I went to the Button & Switches screen of the FSUIPC and pushed the switch I wanted for zoom in. It worked fine and I defined it as a key to be sent when the button is pressed. this is the key 0 that i use on my keyboard for zoom out. The same for zoom in where I wanted to use the + key (FSUIPC identify it as the =+ key which seems fine.

The problem is when using those button in fsx. It work on entry then regularly stop to work. Often it seems related to zooming out to 0.3 then it seems to stop accepting any change. The weird things is that it does not accept direct key press from the keyboard for zooming.

If I want to restore proper function, I have to open a new view, the zoom will work in this one. If I close the new view, it restore the proper operation of the zoom button in the main view.

Any clue what is happening?

Pierre