DCSFlightpanels (DCSFP) thread. Saitek Pro Flight Panels & DCS

[Hawkeye60]

When you mention Saitek MFDs, are you referring to the Flight Instrument Panels (FIPs)? If so, I have those working fine in X-Plane, but not in DCS.

Yes.

 

Working in DCS although waiting for a update.

 

Use This thread,

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=94174&highlight=saitek+fip

[pdmarsh]

@Hawkeye60 -- Thanks for the info. I tested this software once a while ago and thought I was having conflicts with other programs, maybe even Flightpanels, and never got back to it. I'll have to try again. It would be great to have my FIPs working in DCS.

 

Paul

[Elphaba]

Code update

 

Hi

 

Firstly, please let me say a HUGE thank you to ArturDCS & pdmarsh for this app, and for supporting it for so long.

 

I'm going to use it for DCS, but I also wanted to use it for Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, and whilst I managed to get it to work, the 'Manual LEDs' option does not work correctly, resulting in 3 RED's showing when the gear is up.

 

Despite it being almost 8 years since I played with C#, I've just created a new Pull Request on the GitHub repository that fixes this; the lights now immediately go to RED, to show gear transition and then change to either GREEN or DARK depending on gear selector position.

 

I've tested it, and I hope if ArturDCS sees it and can incorporate it into the release build / downloadable EXE.

 

However, in case someone wants the change, it is only the 'NonVisuals.dll' file that has changed, I've uploaded it here in a zip file. Just extract it and replace the original one (keep a backup in case!)

 

Hope this is of use to someone else!

 

Elphaba

NonVisuals.zip

Edited March 27, 2017 by Elphaba
privacy

[No.111_Darky]

To change the writing on the panel i use sticky labels for my Vape Juice so i used the sticky labels and selected borders and shading using word and white colour for the writing, the black background becomes invisible on the switch panel.

 

[Pac-Man]

Logitech Radio Panel and Mirage 2000 and F5

 

Has anyone been able to configure the Mirage 2000C/F5 to work with the Radio panel

[ArturDCS]

Minor release.

I can't test it, don't have DCS/panels any more but I hope you guys can try it out.

Thanks to those that contributed!

[ArturDCS]

Has anyone been able to configure the Mirage 2000C/F5 to work with the Radio panel

Flightpanels has no support for that airframe. Does DCS-BIOS even have?

[Hawkeye60]

Minor release.

I can't test it, don't have DCS/panels any more but I hope you guys can try it out.

Thanks to those that contributed!

 

Thank you sir!

 

I did not think you were supporting this program anymore.

 

Does the Ka-50 work in this version?

[pdmarsh]

Flightpanels has no support for that airframe. Does DCS-BIOS even have?

 

This is from the DCS-BIOS GitHub site:

 

Currently, DCS-BIOS supports the following aircraft modules:

 

A-10C

UH-1H

Mig-21Bis (contributed by wraith444)

Ka-50 (contributed by airtom)

 

If you want to add support for another module, please get in touch.

 

It seems the addition of new modules to the DCS-BIOS library has stalled. It's a lot of work to tease out the commands and get them in a format that DCS-BIOS can use. I tried and immediately got in over my head. It's really a shame that it has to be this hard. It would be nice if module developers would provide a list of commands and code similar to what is currently provided for keyboard commands, e.g. for "Nose Wheel Up" use this code (in lieu of keyboard command).

 

Paul

[pdmarsh]

@Pac-Man -- I have been trying to respond to your PM, but no messages are showing up in my sent folder. Did you get my response?

 

Thanks,

Paul

[Hawkeye60]

DCS Bios is getting a update to version 2.0!

 

This will allow easier implementation of new modules.

 

See the DCS bios thread.

 

Waiting..........................

[Pac-Man]

@Pac-Man -- I have been trying to respond to your PM, but no messages are showing up in my sent folder. Did you get my response?

 

Thanks,

Paul

 

Yes, I did. I apologize for not responding sooner. Thank you for that!

[pdmarsh]

Yes, I did. I apologize for not responding sooner. Thank you for that!

 

No problem. For some reason my sent messages are not getting saved, so I just wanted to make sure my response went through.

 

Paul

[Brk195]

Greetings. First of all thank you for this great tool and the continuous efforts.

 

I'm a very new user of the saitek flight panels specifically the multi and radio panels.

 

I followed the installation for both DCS panels and DCS bios and assigning buttons to command on DCS works as far as I can tell.

But I have a few issues i hoe someone can help me out with. The display on the multi panel doesn't seem to do anything and I can't control the radios with the radio panel turning the knob changes the frequency but when pressing the ACTt/STBY nothing changes in game.

 

Keep in mind I am a total mood at this so sorry if I missed something easy. Your help is much appreciated.

[ArturDCS]

Isn't Saitek going to support DCS?

[pdmarsh]

Isn't Saitek going to support DCS?

 

In time, I believe Saitek, now Logitech, will support DCS. However, I don't believe they do as yet. I just checked their downloads for the radio and multi panels and DCS is not shown as supported. X-Plane is, which is relatively new. To be honest, the third party software I have been using for X-Plane is still better than what Logitech offers. I hope that in time Logitech will offer software with the same flexibility that the third party software offers.

 

Regarding the problem Brk195 is having, the first thing I would check is the DCS-BIOS installation.

 

Thanks,

Paul

[Brk195]

Thank you for your reply I followed the DCS Bios installation process fully to the best of my knowledge I copied the DCS bios folder to saved games scripts folder and added the line to export.lua.

 

To give a little bit more detail the radio panel displays the frequencies at least for the mig-21 for the A-10 the displays seem to show random numbers that don't match with the sim.

Turning the knob and pushing the stby button does nothing as I stated before.

 

For the multi panel the display only shows ALT and VS with nothing else but the buttons seem to work fine and execute commands in the sim.

 

Is there a way to know that my DCS Bios installation was done correctly ?

 

Thank you again

[pdmarsh]

Hi Brk195,

 

In the interest of covering the basics, have you created and saved profiles for the specific aircraft you want to control, e.g. A-10C and/or MiG-21? Also, are you sure the profile is loading into Flight panels when you open the program? If and A-10C profile was in Flightpanels when it was last closed, that same profile should load automatically. However, this does not always happen. My newer profiles that don't use DCS-BIOS, the Viggen for example, have to be loaded manually every time.

 

You can tell if Flightpanels is communicating with DCS by looking at the gear symbol toward the top of Flightpanels. You should be in the cockpit in DCS before checking. If the gear is spinning, the programs are communicating. Also, within Flightpanels you can see if DCS-BIOS commands are available by configuring a switch or button. I'm not at a PC where I can get more details, but right click on a button or switch field and see what programming options are available.

 

Paul

[Hawkeye60]

the Viggen for example, have to be loaded manually every time.

Does this mean you have a DCS Bios profile?

Or are you just using a generic profile.

I did not think there were any more aircraft included in DCS bios.

The last one I found was for the KA-50.

 

Hawkeye

[pdmarsh]

Does this mean you have a DCS Bios profile?

 

Sadly, no. It is just a generic profile using Flightpanels as a keyboard emulator. Even if more modules were added to the DCS-BIOS inventory, Flightpanels would not get updated at this point. However, I don't believe there has been much updating of DCS-BIOS itself.

 

Even though Logitech says that they intend to write drivers for DCS, I doubt they will go beyond keyboard emulation as well. Unless DCS and their third-party developers can standardize on command structure, it's just too much work to develop control input programs for every module. I think that's why DCS-BIOS has stalled.

 

What's needed is something along the lines of Fly-With-Lua that is very useful in programming Saitek (Logitech) panels for X-Plane aircraft.

 

Paul

[Brk195]

Hi Brk195,

 

In the interest of covering the basics, have you created and saved profiles for the specific aircraft you want to control, e.g. A-10C and/or MiG-21? Also, are you sure the profile is loading into Flight panels when you open the program? If and A-10C profile was in Flightpanels when it was last closed, that same profile should load automatically. However, this does not always happen. My newer profiles that don't use DCS-BIOS, the Viggen for example, have to be loaded manually every time.

 

You can tell if Flightpanels is communicating with DCS by looking at the gear symbol toward the top of Flightpanels. You should be in the cockpit in DCS before checking. If the gear is spinning, the programs are communicating. Also, within Flightpanels you can see if DCS-BIOS commands are available by configuring a switch or button. I'm not at a PC where I can get more details, but right click on a button or switch field and see what programming options are available.

 

Paul

 

Hello and thank you again.

 

so far I only made two profiles for A-10C and for the Mig.

 

here is what I did :

 

I loaded up the Mig-21 profile launched DCS. The wheel never turned (it only turned when I first launched DCS flightpanels)

 

The radio was not working like I said previously but I have the flaps switch on the multipanel set as a gear lever that part worked fine.

 

when right clicking on the switch field it gives me two options "Edit sequence" and "Edit DCS-BIOS Control"

[pdmarsh]

OK, it sounds like the DCS-BIOS link between Flightpanels and DCS is not working. I'm assuming that you have the flap switch programmed as a keyboard emulator, i.e. with "G" for gear. If so, let's try to program it with the DCS-BIOS command instead and see if it works in-game. Again, right click on the field and select "Edit DCS-BIOS Control." You can use the dialog box that comes up to search for the command and program the lever. If this does not work in-game, then it will pretty much confirm it's a DCS-BIOS communication issue. Let us know how it goes.

 

Also, if no DCS-BIOS commands are available, then DCS-BIOS is most likely not installed correctly, although it doesn't sound like that's the problem.

 

Paul

Edited August 16, 2017 by pdmarsh

[Brk195]

Hello.

 

First off you are correct about the flap switch I have it setup to the key command "g" for up and "Lshift +g" for down.

 

I tried what you suggested here is again what I did :

 

I right clicked on the AP button field selected "edit DCS-BIOS Control" I then clicked on New and searched for the "SAU Recovery mode" command I then set Input type at "Set state" and value sent to DCS-BIOS to 1

 

Tried it out on the sim and the button did nothing as you expected.

[ArturDCS]

Looking at the dev guide, DCS-BIOS seems to do a lot of the work for you to create a new module for the airframe you wish to have support for. The problems with these projects are that there is a neverending need of support, a neverending giving and no getting.

I don't know how many use Flightpanels but it can't be many considering there is no support by those that would have it working and knows how to configure it, getting it going, helping out newcomers.

 

Some more information, to be able to develop support for some of the airframes I had to buy them from DCS, DCS said that they do not give away anything to anyone. Airframes that I never played myself. The donations I got did not cover all of that. Saitek on the other did support me with panels which was very kind of them.

 

DCS-BIOS is very well made, Jan Böcker is a pro in regards of coding and DCS-BIOS as such supports new airframes/modules without need to make changes to the core library. Flightpanels started as a not-so-good desktop hack type of application and for every new supported airframe it needs to be changed, code added & compiled. This is a problem but I do not know better how to make a core that supports new modules from example text files. It's just too much variables included for all of the cockpit functions, radios and such. So that is the single biggest problem with this project.

 

The never tiring pdmarsh who was one of the core people behind Flightpanels do show a remarkable level of engagement considering the number of people he has helped, including me.

Edited August 18, 2017 by ArturDCS

[Hawkeye60]

ArturDCS,

 

I would be willing to Gift you the Module of your choice if it inspired you to add it to flight panels!

 

Yes, FREE!

 

Worth every penny!

You deserve to get something for this program!

 

I can not fly the Rift without it!

 

So a HUGE THANK YOU! is in order.

 

Perhaps another donation page could be set up to support this?

 

I for one am on board!

 

pm me if interested...........

 

Hawkeye