FFB implementation

[chromium]

That holding the trim button depressed does not disable the forces ... is "ok" (as in, we all suffer from this, but I haven't seen this confirmed as a bug by PC).

 

But the main issue ... that is really strange. You say, you deflect the joystick, see the cyclic do the same, but when you release the trim button, the cyclic returns to the center, but your joystick remains where you trimmed it?

 

Almost sounds as what someone else stated somewhere here: seems that the trim does not set the stick position and the helo follows the stick, but that trim sets the desired attitude and the stick follows the helo. (This sounds even stranger as I type it ...)

 

I have to experiment more, but I can not recall seeing this behaviour. Or perhaps the effect is not as pronouced as it seems to be in your case? I mean, I DO find that flying the helo is ... somehow weired - but I have not exactly figgured out, why it feels that way for me.

 

Understood and that's clear. What I don't understand then is if there are conditions that reduce the force on the stick or not.

 

As per descritiption, I start manouver whitout trim pressed, cause the helo won't "fight against" as Ka-50 and Mi-8 does. I simply move the cyclic and at the end of manouver I will press fastly trim once to set the new helo attitude. Then the AP will try to hold that attitude, teorically moving the stick accordingly. Should I see the FFB move also to perform corrections?

[Hypnos]

That holding the trim button depressed does not disable the forces ... is "ok" (as in, we all suffer from this, but I haven't seen this confirmed as a bug by PC).

 

But the main issue ... that is really strange. You say, you deflect the joystick, see the cyclic do the same, but when you release the trim button, the cyclic returns to the center, but your joystick remains where you trimmed it?

 

 

 

This is not ok! In real heli if you press the trim button you have an artificial feeling (like in cars with hydrauilc power steering) that simulate the reaction forces of the rotor (reducted), but the forces that mantain in position the cyclic are disabled. The result is a very soft cyclic.

 

 

When on the ground... joystick remain in the trimmed position

Edited October 30, 2017 by Hypnos

[Drakoz]

My normal tecnique is: push trim button - make attitude changes - release trim button.

With heli on ground is almost normal, i make my inputs , control indicators are ok, but the virtual cyclic come back to center position...

 

Yes, this is normal, but not correct. When you release the cyclc brake button, the FFB stick should stay where you left it, and the virtual stick in sim should also stay where you left it. But in both 2.x and 1.5.x the virtual stick returns to center. I would call this a bug. But it should not affect your flight as the Gazelle follows the real stick, not the virtual stick.

 

You can see what the Gazelle follows by bringing up the controls indicator (R-CTRL+ENTER). The indicator should match your FFB stick position.

 

 

not only, during my movements with trim button pressed, I don't have a force gradient reduction.

 

Yes, when you release the brake button, the stick should release it's force and remain still, not push back to center. If it pushes back to center (which is what I think you are saying), that is a problem.

 

Are you sure you have the cyclic brake button mapped to your stick? Try using the keyboard command for Cycke Brake (press and hold T, move your stick, release T and your stick should remain where you left it). Then press L-CTRL+T and it should recenter your stick as this resets the brake to center.

 

Also, you (or someone else) mentioned that when you press and hold the brake button, the stick does not go limp. Yes, this is a bug. As long as the brake button is pressed, the FFB stick should be limp (no force).

 

The effects I describe above are true with the Gazelle using either a G940 or a MS FFB2, and on DCS 1.5.x and DCS 2.x. So it is not related to the particular FFB stick - assuming you have the invert axis setting set correctly of course.

 

 

In flight is very difficult for me to describe what happen, however when my inputs are very little, the helicopter reactions are almost good but, when I have to manouver hardest, the FFB motor react in the opposite direction of my imput, seems like it want to mantain the previous attitude but with a violent and uncontrollable reaction.In all this confusion I don't have a force gradient reduction when I press and hold the trim button.

 

The G940 is not a very good FFB stick unfortunately. I think it's forces are too strong (not subtle enough) and lack precision (the motors, gearing and gimbal for the G940 were not well designed). Plus there is a very non-linear center force dead zone with the G940. I think this is what you are feeling. What you describe above is what I feel as well I believe.

 

Regarding the force dead zone, this allows you to move the stick a small amount and feel little to no force, but then push it a little harder and the force is very strong, too strong. The dead zone isn't a control dead zone (the stick actively controls the helicopter in the force dead zone), but a force dead zone (the FFB does not push the stick hardly at all).

 

Because the Gazelle has some odd flight characteristics due to it's stability control and how you have to use the stick to compensate for it, I believe that it creates more difficulty flying with a G940 and stability control on the Gazelle vs. other helicopters. But the problem is a G940 problem, not a Gazelle problem.

 

It is so bad that I don't like using the G940. I have reduced the Trim Force in DCS to 30% and it improves things, but does not get rid of it. I tried less than 30%, but now the force dead zone gets so large that it won't hold the stick using the cycle brake.

 

I used simFFB with the G940 and it improves things significantly, but that's because simFFB is mimicing things like friction and hydraulic feel as well as spring force. DCS does not mimic friction and hydraulic feel, though. DCS only mimics spring centering force and that is the worst effect to use on the G940 because it is too strong and too much like a light switch (no return force in the force dead zone and then hard force as you move outside the dead zone).

 

Have you loaded up the G940 software? If so, go into the Logitech G940 software to the menu that lets you set amount of spring and effects forces (the "Global menu" that has 4 sliders to control the % of force for each type of force). Uncheck the "enable spring force" at the bottom of the menu. If this is enabled, then both DCS and the G940 software are implementing a centering spring force, but you need to turn it off so only DCS implements the spring force. It should still work with the G940 spring force enabled, but to me, it felt much better to turn this spring force off.

[Drakoz]

OK, I think I figured out what is going on with the G940 and it happens with the Gazelle and Huey (and I assume other helos). In the G940 software setup you can change the spring forces.. But this is conflicting with the DCS setup and under certain circumstances, you'll see really strong spring force, but in other circumstances, you'll see soft spring force as the two conflict with each other. This is not a DCS problem. It is a G940 software problem, maybe related to Windows 10. I will explain below.

 

I have loaded the G940 software which includes the Logitech Profiler which allows setting custom key functions for the G940 buttons. But the menu we care about is the Options -> Global Device Settings. You can find this either from running the G940 Logitech Profiler and going to Options -> Global Device Settings or by going to the windows Game Controllers dialog, doubling clicking on the Logitech G940 in the controller list and clicking on Settings. The two dialogs are similar, not exact. But they both perform the function we care about.

 

This dialog allows you to set the Overall Effects Strength, Spring Effect Strength and Damper Effect Strength. It also allows you to enable or disable the Centering Spring in Force Feedback Games and change the spring force. With this last item enabled, the spring force is very strong in DCS (too strong making it no fun to fly the Gazelle or any helo and making it seem like the cyclic brake is fighting you). So I disabled it. I also set Sprint Effect Strength to 50%, leave Overall Effect Strength and Damper Effect Strength to 100%. Then in the DCS FF Tune dialog, I set Trimmer Force to 100% (default) and leave the other settings at default (Shake 50%, Swap Axis, Invert X, Invert Y unckecked as it should be for the G940). With these settings the G940 feels pretty good and the cyclic brake function works pretty well also - the amount of force resistance with these settings is very similar to the forces I feel using an MS FFB2.

 

But the problem is, certain events cause the G940 FFB driver to reset which enables the full spring strength or otherwise messes up the settings set in the G940 Profiler software. In my case, sometimes alt-tabbing out of DCS and back in would cause the forces to get messed up. Or, for some reason, I have a problem in Windows 10 that causes the USB ports or the game controllers to reset every 10 minutes or so and this resets the G940 driver and makes it all go back to full spring force.

 

When it gets messed up, I found that pressing the Cyclic Brake button (T) or resetting the brake function (L-CTRL+T) would reset the G940 back to the correct force settings. But in some other testing, this did not work consistently. Sometimes I had to go back to the G940 Gloobal settings and click OK on the menu again to enable the proper settings. Play with it yourself to see what happens.

 

Note, the every 10 minute reset I'm experiencing is not a DCS problem. I'm pretty sure it's something wrong with my Windows system or a bad USB device causing that problem. I've had this issue ever since the major Windows update last year. So I hope nobody else is having that issue. It causes DCS to hesitate badly twice in a few seconds as it reacquires the USB devices or something like that. Anyway, my point is, anything that causes the G940 Profiler or driver software to reset will make the G940 go back to full force.

 

Hypnos, when you said that you could get your G940 tp work, but then when you restarted DCS (or reboot your computer or ???) later, it would not work again. I'm pretty sure the above explains why it works sometimes and not others. Because the Logitech driver is being reset and enabling the full spring force. Check it out and let me know.

[Hypnos]

After countless attempts, I tried my MS FFB2... same issue!

I'm going to uninstall the Gazelle, thanks to everyone for help

[ben1101]

G940 FFB still doesn't work correctly for me regardless of settings.