Beta Innovations Plasma Lite Switch Mapping

[BAW019]

Hi,

I have a Beta Innovations Plasma Lite v2 card plus it's GT64-X expansion card. Together they give me 88 switches to play with but for some reason only a few are visible to FSUIPC.

I'd really like to be able to program all the switches from FSUIPC so I can dispense with the BetaInnovations key mapping software which is a little twitchy. Plus I guess it makes more sense to have the controls running from one bit of software rather than spread across multiple resource grabbers!

Can you tell me if there's something I can do to reveal these switches to FSUIPC. If not, are there are any plans to make this possible in the future?

If it's just not possible is there something sensible and meaningful I can pass on to BetaInnovations that they could maybe do to the firmware to make this possible? (You'll have to excuse my ignorance on this subject!)

Many thanks

Ian

[Pete Dowson]

I have a Beta Innovations Plasma Lite v2 card plus it's GT64-X expansion card. Together they give me 88 switches to play with but for some reason only a few are visible to FSUIPC.

Does it emulate a joystick game device, or come with its own drivers? FSUIPC only handles standard Windows-recognised joysticks, and not via DirectInput, only via the original joystick API. That supports up to 16 joystick/game devices each with 32 buttons, 6 analogue axes and one POV (Hat).

DirectInput can I think support up to 64 buttons and two POVs. not sure about the axes. Does FS itself see more of your buttons? It uses DirectInput since FS2002.

Specific drivers for specific devices can of course support whatever they like. EPIC, PFC and GoFlight are all examples of implementations which have their own driving software.

Can you tell me if there's something I can do to reveal these switches to FSUIPC. If not, are there are any plans to make this possible in the future?

If the makers don't supply drivers to emulate game devices then really I can't do anything. From what you say it sounds like they designed it to work with their drivers as a keyboard emulator.

If it's just not possible is there something sensible and meaningful I can pass on to BetaInnovations that they could maybe do to the firmware to make this possible? (You'll have to excuse my ignorance on this subject!)

They could provide a HID (Human Interface Driver) for windows to make their device look like one or more standard game devices, each with up to 32 buttons. This is how it is done in the EPIC.

Regards,

Pete

[BAW019]

Hi Peter, thanks for such a swift reply.

Looking through your text and putting two and two together I think it must use directInput since only a handful of switches are visible to Windows and FS9.

I like the idea of HID drivers to emulate one or more Joysticks and will post a message in the Beta Innovations forums to see if that's possible.

Thanks again

Ian

[Pete Dowson]

Looking through your text and putting two and two together I think it must use directInput since only a handful of switches are visible to Windows and FS9.

You misunderstood something I think. If it is a DirectInput device then it can provide up to 64 buttons -- Windows and FS9 should be able to see a lot more than FSUIPC, which doesn't use DirectInput. If Windows, FS9 and FSUIPC all see the same handful of buttons, then that is all their driver is emulating as a game type device. It sounds like they intended it primarily as a keyboard emulator not a game device.

Regards,

Pete

[BAW019]

Hi Peter,

Just a quick followup to this as I did some digging and knocked up a simple little program in VB6 to read device inputs using Direct Input (DirectX8). I really wanted to get a handle on why it's so hard and it turns out it isn't. Moreover it provides input for up to 128 switches per hardware device (not 64!) plus the usual array of POVs, sliders and axiis.

Obviously I use my new prog to map my BetaInnovations switches but it's a program that I don't want and shouldn't really need so I was wondering: given the relative simplicity of the code is there any chance you can provide Direct Input support in some future release or patch of FSUIPC? I dare say legions of cockpit builders would be mighty grateful,

All the best

Ian

[Pete Dowson]

Just a quick followup to this as I did some digging and knocked up a simple little program in VB6 to read device inputs using Direct Input (DirectX8). I really wanted to get a handle on why it's so hard and it turns out it isn't.

Hmmm. I did delve into DirectSound way back when I did my Esound package. Although I did get it working it was quite a lot of programming to do a simple thing and it put me off for life! ;-)

... I was wondering: given the relative simplicity of the code is there any chance you can provide Direct Input support in some future release or patch of FSUIPC?

Certainly that's possible. I suspect the enormous VB libraries provide wrappers for you to make it much easier. I'm not going to use VB in an FS module. I expect it is also made easy using MFC, but again it relies on wrappers in large libraries. And compared to the extremely simple (and fast) way I currently do it (one "joyGetPosEx" call for each device, and that's it) I still think it will be a messy and larger job.

I'll make a note to look for an example in plain C or C++ when I have time. Thank you for the suggestion.

Regards

Pete