Bms and Saitek - Flight Instrument Panel
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hi all….
is there any body,how to use Saitek - Flight Instrument Panel,on bms4,32.
maby some software. or it is only to use on fs fsx…from nes.
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I believe all the Saitek stuff is programmable with it’s own software using macros. But not possitive about the Instrument Panel. I dought it will extract anything from BMS.
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I think the instrument panels are for FS only.
http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/fip.html
"Featuring a stunning 3.5” colour LCD screen, the Instrument Panel can display 6 of the main cockpit instrument panels from Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X. "
but
“Ships with Software Development Kit (SDK) allowing programmers to create interactions with other flight simulations and applications”
Hope this helps.
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I know this is an old thread, but I figured you guys might want to know that I did create a tool that allows MFD images from BMS4 to be displayed on the Saitek FIP (using Lightning’s MFD Extractor and the Saitek DirectOutput SDK):
http://www.raptor007.com/falcon-4-to-saitek/
Enjoy!
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Very nice work!
Does it allow other than MFDs? The FIP config in the picture says it can? Screenshots?I already have the MFDs, but this could be used very well for physical dials and the RWR! If this works well, it’s time to go buy some FIPs! Since I don’t know FIP configuration: how about those knobs, can they be used for instrument control? Changing with the instrument shown?
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Very nice work!
Does it allow other than MFDs? The FIP config in the picture says it can? Screenshots?I already have the MFDs, but this could be used very well for physical dials and the RWR! If this works well, it’s time to go buy some FIPs!
Sure, here are some examples of non-MFD stuff (sorry my camera sucks):
It can extract several things from the shared textures, including RWR:
- tex_mfd1
- tex_mfd2
- tex_rwr
- tex_ded
- tex_hud
- tex_hmcs
It also has some rudimentary gauges that I made using the .NET drawing tools:
- attitude
- gear
- airbrake
- ils
- rwr_simple
- throttle
- warning
- pitch_trim
- roll_trim
- yaw_trim
Implementing more gauges (and better-looking gauges) is on my “someday” to-do list. Also, any text you could put on the X52 Pro MFD can also go on the FIP. The full list of options is in the Customizing section of the ReadMe.
Since I don’t know FIP configuration: how about those knobs, can they be used for instrument control? Changing with the instrument shown?
The knobs can be used to emulate keypresses. By default the left knob is set to counter-measure program inc/dec, and the right is master arm on/off. Normally the S1-S6 buttons along the left change the display, but these buttons can also be bound to emulate keypresses instead. You could bind the knobs to go to specific pages, but I didn’t implement page next/prev yet… that’s a good idea though. I’ll add that to the next version.
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Aah. Thank you very much for the explanation! Good work!
Good solution(s)! I guess these are very useable for us. I am now placing orders for 1-2 FIPs and create the central pedestal instruments (HSI,alt,speed,RWR at least) out of them.Wouldn’t it be simpler to use more of those extracted textures, and allow/pack them directly as instruments? Does a FIP page need much implementation per page?
At least standby attitude indiator, fuel cauge(s), HSI, altimeter, speedometer, (clock), trim panel, would be directly useable as FIP instrument information. Much like we use them as separate windows in MFDE itself. We just needed to have them (=that picture information) available as a page selection in the FIP. Is this possible?
Oh, I highly value your “natice” implementations as well.Am I correct that your rudimentary cauges are generated from the shared data, and not using the extracted textures from the MFDE?
So the FIP input controls can change based on the page used? Is it hard to implement or hard to configure ourselves? (I have done extensive Cougar, Warthog and Cougar Pack programming, so I guess I could create those page-dependencies if they are user configurable.)
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Aah. Thank you very much for the explanation! Good work!
Good solution(s)! I guess these are very useable for us. I am now placing orders for 1-2 FIPs and create the central pedestal instruments (HSI,alt,speed,RWR at least) out of them.Wouldn’t it be simpler to use more of those extracted textures, and allow/pack them directly as instruments? Does a FIP page need much implementation per page?
At least standby attitude indiator, fuel cauge(s), HSI, altimeter, speedometer, (clock), trim panel, would be directly useable as FIP instrument information. Much like we use them as separate windows in MFDE itself. We just needed to have them (=that picture information) available as a page selection in the FIP. Is this possible?
Oh, I highly value your “natice” implementations as well.Am I correct that your rudimentary cauges are generated from the shared data, and not using the extracted textures from the MFDE?
You’re correct, my rudimentary gauges are all generated from the shared data. There’s actually only a very limited set of shared textures available from BMS4 via MFD Extractor. The RWR in my second picture is another shared texture; for some reason, it doesn’t get the green circular background.
I’d love to find a way to get all of Lightning’s beautiful gauges available to the FIP, but F4TexSharedMem doesn’t seem to provide access to these. I think LightningGauges is what I need, but it has some .NET 4.0 dependencies, and I’m using VS 2008 because it supports IntelliSense for C++/CLI. Getting these to play nice together somehow is on my to-do list, but I’m not sure what the best way is yet.
So the FIP input controls can change based on the page used? Is it hard to implement or hard to configure ourselves? (I have done extensive Cougar, Warthog and Cougar Pack programming, so I guess I could create those page-dependencies if they are user configurable.)
Yep! This is do-able. If you check the ReadMe under “binding keys to buttons”, you’ll find:
It’s also possible to bind events per-page, which overrides the global bind
while that page is active.FIP example:
screen 1 bind “left_minus” “a”
screen 1 bind “left_plus” “b”In that example, the left knob emulates the A and B keys when you’re viewing page 1. You could bind the knobs to do different things on each page. In the next version, I’ll make it so you could bind one of the knobs to next/prev page, and then you could have the S1-S6 buttons do something different on each page.
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Copy all. I am starting to understand. You are not getting the MFDE textures, but the exported BMS textures. Well, the instruments you have, are worthy as themselves! Worthy of getting me a pair or those. And yes, the programming sounds exactly as reasonable. Thank you for your work.
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with those 2 encoder dials on it, looks a good solution for EHSI (encoders doing HDG & CRS) and for the non-fullpit options you can then have mach meter & altimeter on another page and have the encoders emulate the mach index & pressure setting.
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Actually it just occurred to me, you could use one of the knobs to select the page like so:
screen 1 bind “left_plus” “@2”
screen 2 bind “left_minus” “@1”
screen 2 bind “left_plus” “@3”
screen 3 bind “left_minus” “@2”
screen 3 bind “left_plus” “@4”
screen 4 bind “left_minus” “@3”
screen 4 bind “left_plus” “@5”
screen 5 bind “left_minus” “@4”
screen 5 bind “left_plus” “@6”
screen 6 bind “left_minus” “@5”Then you’d be free to bind S1-S6 to whatever you want for each page.