6DOF FSX

Hi guys, I'm interested in making a 6DOF simulator for FSX or any other flight sim program that comes out in the future e.g. X-Plane 10. For now the focus is FSX. I'm a total beginner with all this so all advice is more than welcome.

1.) Should I build a mini 6DOF platform with for example RC servo motors initially or is that just a waste of time? The way I see it, if I can make a smaller version then the upscaling to the real deal won't be too difficult?

2.) I had a read of what X-Sim is all about but I didn't quite understand it's purpose, if you could guide a layman as to what it does in the context of FSX that would be much appreciated.

3.) I understand FSUIPC is absolutely necessary in order to be able to get data from the game?

Welcome

I planing start a 6dof project in near future. I will use the heavy model of SCN6 actuators, i see it the best solution, and more simple (litle bit expansive) but using aluminium profiles, you can finish the project maybe in 2 days. Think about it.

FSUIPC is necessary for the plugi in work's fine.

With best regards

Awesome... thanks for the suggestion. Do you think that 200mm/s is enough for a flight sim? What does that translate to in terms of maximum G that can be generated? How would you calculate that?

I'll definitely be getting FSUIPC I just don't quite understand how X-Sim fits in. Or does FSUIPC produce some sort of dll which then can be used to drive the 6dof platform and x-sim is the program that does the communicating?

To answer your questions:

-Building a smaller scale platform is never a bad idea, especially when you are dealing with a 6DOF platform.

-X-Sim is the main output of the simulation data. It takes raw information from the game, you do all the necessary math in the Profiler, then output it to the physical hardware. The hardware will translate the data into motion, forces, position etc.

-FSUIPC is just an other software layer between FSX and the Force Sender plugin.

My advice: Start with something simple, a 2DOF joyrider type frame for example. That way you have a much better chance of getting it finished.
There is a lot of information on this forum as well as all over the internet, so make sure to check it out. :thbup:

What sort of maths are we talking about? I thought that whatever model of the aircraft is present in FSX is what you'll get in the motion platform.

If you ask that question seriously, you are not doing your homework. X-Sim is technically part of the motion platform, so you are right: whatever model of the aircraft is present in FSX is what you'll get in the motion platform. What happens in the motion platform is a lot more complicated than that.

I won't waste my time and explain X-Sim basics, someone already did that writing the USER's MANUAL.

I'm not sure what I interpreted this comment as meaning before but it must have been anything but the washout filters, weight distributions etc type considerations. I think at that stage I thought that X-Sim was purely an intermediary program between FSX and the final program that will run the motion platform itself but it appears that you are able to incorporate all these factors within X-Sim or am I mistaken once again?

No offense but I think the manual is written poorly. Similarly, imo X-Sim uses terms for it's various features that aren't very intuitive, hence my confusion with what has been said. The level of detail of the user manual is also a big negative, as a lot of questions that I have, could have been answered already had the amount of detail been greater and explanations clearer.

If by X-Sim basics which are presented in the manual you are referring to the diagrams that show how all the different parts of the whole setup are meant to be connected, well, I think anyone with a bit of common sense could have figured that stuff out themselves. The problem is that it has taken me a very long time just to figure out what each part of the software is meant to do and I still don't fully understand what each tab within the windows and what each of those windows is aimed at doing.

Anyway, after looking up tutorials on the internet etc etc, I'm still unable to figure out how FSX sends the data to X-Sim and where that data is stored/displayed so I don't think I'm getting any acceleration data going from FSX to X-Sim. In fact, I'm unable to get a connected status in the Force-Sender program (although at least now it tries to connect every few seconds whereas before it would just constantly be in the not connected state). I've set the ip to the 127.0.0.1 or whatever its meant to be if everything is running on the same machine and I was finally able to get some sort of coordination between X-Sim software and FSX today by actually being able to run it form the Force-Sender whereas before nothing would happen when I clicked play game. Also, what is supposed to happen when you click try send data? I don't appear to get anything visible happening anywhere. Also, what's the point of Yoda? I click play game and it opens up but based on my interpretation of the manual, Yoda is there for games that don't have proper support for particular games so the fact that it is opening is kind of confusing for me.

Also, is Force-Profiler meant to be running while all this happening? Because the way I see it is that Force-Profiler is there only to send the data to the motion platform itself? So since I don't have any kind of platform atm, there's no point running it?

I haven't had issues getting started with the program back in the day, I do think it is fairly straight forward and logically structured.

Force Sender is only responsible for extracting information from the games, and transmitting it to the Profiler.
No computations done here, it only allows the game PC to be separate from the motion PC. Sooner or later the Sender can be ported over to the PS3 and Xbox360, in that case the separate motion PC will be a must.

Force Profiler is the program responsible for everything that is done with the game data. It can run on a second PC to reduce CPU load and maintain high update rates.

In the Profiler, just imagine data coming in at the top and flowing down. Starting at the very top we have the Input Setup tab. Just what it says, it shows you all of the incoming data from the Sender and Yoda.

Under Input Setup, you have the Math Setup. Here you can take the data from the above input data and create your physical axis for the simulator. This is where you mix, scale, limit, filter, washout the data for proper movement. This is where you fine tune the profile for each car or airplane to get the best feel.

Logically under Math we have the Output Setup with Synaptrix and USO. This section you can set up the hardware interface and send out the information to the actuators and tell them to move to the actual position.

Interface Settings will take you to plugins for specific hardware, for example the SCN5 actuators.

Yoda monitors feedback information of joysticks, wheels, etc. independent of games.


There is a TestPlugin in the Force Sender. It will give you 20 sliders where you can simulate forces and values of a game where you can also adjust the endpoints/range of these numbers.
Try send this data to Profiler, which should indicate on top that the Sender is connected.
In the Input Tab you can observe the values change as you move the sliders.

From here you can create an axis in the Math Setup, add Output 1:1 G-Force effect with appropriate range (or auto range). You should see the graph change as you move the slider assigned to this axis.

I hope this helps to get you going.

@atomic_sheep

There is an app to drive a 6DOF stewart platform with X-Sim from Robin. Below the video is the link to the file.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaNFkTVA8Oc
post16723.html#p16723

If you need help to adapt it to your needs, you may get help from Robin or mboRacing, if you ask them kindly. ;D

Regarding FSX: copy Peter Dowsons FSUIPC plugin out of the X-Sim directory into the corresponding FSX plugin directory, and then active simulator data output in the FSUIPC plugin. This has to be done in FSX. There is a key combination to activate it in the game. I cant remember.

After enabling simulator output in FSX, you need to select FSX in the Force-Sender as well.

If you press Send in the Force-Sender while the game is running, you will get data in the profiler finally.

regards

Thanks Frakk, makes much more sense now. I'm reading that part in the manual right now and it makes perfect sense. I think I just had the issue of trying to figure out which program to run first as I wasn't getting any forms of life from them so I thought I was just totally off somewhere.

Will do a bit more reasearch on FSUIPC I think, I only really plan on making it for FSX, although with time, if new versions of Flight Sim come out like MS Flight, well hopefully it will have a similar FSUIPC idea behind it although I somehow doubt it.

Thanks ego, I recently purchased 2 more servos to get my count up to 6 as I was planning on initially creating a model Stewart Platform but now I've been thinking that since you need to set up each Stewart platform individually I thought I might as well go for the real deal straight away but I've once again changed my mind I think although I'm not sure how compatible the code will be between a servo based platform and whatever form my final Stewart platform will take so yer, still not 100% on which route I should take.

I do however still have an issue with trying to get values from FSX. Do you HAVE to create a profile in order to be able to see values in X-Sim and for it to connect FSX? Because that would mean I'm unable to do anything with it until I actually have a motion platform plugged into the computer somewhere. Egoexpress, I tried doing what you suggested but in the plugins folder, there were 2 files that I felt I could have potentially copied i.e. the MSFlightSimPlugin2.dll which is the way I see it, just the file that sender uses when you select MSFlightV2 or whatever, so really, did you mean for me to copy the FSUIPC.FSI file? And to which folder am I supposed to copy it to in FSX? I don't think there such a folder as plugins in FSX and FSUIPC gets entirely installed under Modules. Based on the Plugins manual for FSUIPC it says that FSUIPC recognised .lua files but I don't see any .lua files in the X-Sim plugin folder. I tried copying the FSUIPC.FSI, FSUIPC-Helper (application) and the MSFlightSimPluginV2.dll into the Modules folder but that didn't appear to do anything. I'm still unable to connect.

No, you dont need a motion profile to see data.

Ok, let's approach it step by step. Install FSUIPC4.exe from this directory...
C:\...\X-Sim\other stuff\MicrosoftFS\FSUIPC-FSX

There is a manual and a readme file for FSUIPC included.

Report back when you have FSUIPC running in FSX, and we will go further from there.

Give it a try, and ask Robin about your issue in the thread I have linked above, or send him a PM.

Regards

Hi egoexpress, I've had FSUIPC for quite some time and I've also paid for the fully activated features. The thing that isn't quite right is the connection. I realised today that in fact I was getting values from the simulator, it's just that I was solely paying attention to the connection status before, which was and is still being capricious. It connects and sends values for say 5 seconds, then disconnects for around 5 seconds and then does this over and over again. I'm not sure if it's Kaspyrsky's doing but I've given X-Sim full privileges, I've also got that Windows 7 Admin popup thing turned off, so I have constant Admin privileges.

I dont know what is causing this. But you may try out the following:
-Disable all firewalls and virus scanners while disconnected from the internet.
-Disable/reduce the performance demanding features (weather, grafic details and resolution) in FSX to check if it is a cpu load issue.

regards

Hi, tried what you suggested but it didn't seem to work. I put all the setting to absolutely bare minimum and with 690fps, I was still getting drop outs. I then turned off my internet and Kaspyrsky, still was getting the same result.

I do have another question, is it possible to export the live data feed into an excel document or something? I want to start playing around with the figures... see the types of accelerations that I'm going to be dealing with.

FSUIPC logger - excellent idea, thank you, will start playing around with it.

EDIT: Hmm... interesting, looks like my logger doesnt work either. I've added the sources that I can see get values in Input setup and I've named the exact path for the .csv document to get created but when I click start logging (even if I make sure that i do so when my connection is in fact on and has a chance of logging something before it disconnects again). Unfortunately, all that happens is a csv document with the name that I've specified gets created, but apart from the sources that I've added to be logged getting inserted into cell A1 (I assume it's in the comma delimited format hence they are not placed in individual columns), no values get added to the document and it remains at 1kb.

Will now try to play around with FSUIPC logging. Thanks for the help guys, really appreciate it. Some simple ideas but which would have otherwise taken me ages to figure out for myself!

Hello, I tried logging using FSUIPC and as I suspected, there weren't any dramas. As you can see in the attached image, there are no gaps in the data. It's just acceleration along the Z axis, I specifically did some accelerations and decelerations in order for it to be obvious if there were gaps in the data but after probably a no more than 2 minute flight, as you can see, no problems. So the problem is definitely in the connection of X-Sim to FSX or FSUIPC or whatever it connects to. In the same time frame X-Sim would disconnect probably 2-4 times for around 3 or 4 seconds each so the gaps would be obvious.

The last wierd looking bit was the touchdown with handbrake on and breaking to a halt.

Sorry, didn't have time to figure out how to get a nice plot in excel. The data in the log file as you probably know, if exported to excel has 3 rows of gaps between each entry and inserting a line graph simply plots nothing if you don't get rid of the gaps so I had to use plot.

You raised a valid point in relation to sender hanging... I just opened it up and clicked and dragged it in circles and it hung up on me... then let go... so I did it again... and it hung up again and I think the timings between the hangs is in line with what I'm seeing in Profiler status... so I think that's whats happening. I think it's sender hanging up constantly. What could be causing this?

The other point I wanted to raise was the fact that I've got 127.0.0.1 in sender and my computers IP set in Profiler... not sure if they are meant to be the same (I'm running everything on the same computer)?

Well I'm not sure how much more I can say in relation to the disconnects. It disconnects in a digital signal fashion... first its connects... then it disconnects... its connected for a bit (maybe 5-6 seconds), then disconnects for a bit (2-4 seconds) and keeps doing this.

Yes, the symbol in the top right corner of profiler, it says connected, the not connected with the crossed out circle. Also in the Input setup, the acceleration values are updating when it's connected and static (at last available value) when not connected.

I have the community edition. Sender has been behaving strangely from the get go. As long as I don't play around with it too much, it's sort of fine, but it's quite fickle for me - yes it keeps hanging.

I have selected MSFlightV2

I exported 3070 (addr 3070: Z(Lon)Accel FS2000+) in FSUIPC.

The FSUIPC window that pops up when I open up sender had 4 original values put in:

Effect 31 037C addr 037C: TurnRate
Effect 32 2F70 addr 2F70: Attitude Ind. Pitch
Effect 33 2F78 addr 2F78: Attitude Ind. Bank
Effect 34 31D0 addr 31D0: Z(Lon)Accel FS2002+

and I input an addition one for accelerations to see what would happen as this is the one that I was trying to log:

Effect 35 3070 addr 3070: Z(Lon)Accel FS2000+

Yep, carbon black borders. And I've had the same result every time that I've installed it (i.e. the same issue with sender hanging and profiler has my computer ip up top). I think I've reinstalled X-Sim 3 or 4 times since I found out about it. Pretty sure I've just had it on this same computer every time though (I deleted the installed folder each time).

The other interesting thing that I'm quite confused about is... yes I'm getting data in profiler when it's connected, but it's not getting logged for some reason. That seems somewhat peculiar to me.

Can you elaborate on this whole ip issue? Are you saying that if I open up sender and profiler on the same computer then it should automatically detect this? I've always wondered why my profiler has my computer ip up top rather than not having anything related to networking. I was quite confused by this.

EDIT: Sorry had to delete a lot of the detail in the image to get it under 256k

When Profiler and Sender are running on the same computer, the Force Sender symbol should look like this.



As well there is no need to assign the local IP adress of your computer in the Force Sender' network cluster dialog. The Profiler will detect the Sender automatically, if running on the same computer. Just in case you entered anything, delete any entries, and use the X-Sim registry cleaning tool after.

Force Sender picture for single computer


Regards

Well, I just uninstalled X-Sim, deleted all registry files with registry cleaner, reinstalled it and got the same result. I opened up Force-Profiler, it had the same connection logo straight away. I then opened up Force-Sender and the first thing that popped up which didn't pop up previous is a window that has a few selections to chose from... which simulator, so I selected MSFlight or whatever the option was, 6dof and then in the final drop down menu I selected Logitech G25 even though I don't have one/plan on buying one as I'm making a flight simulator after all. Anyway... after that was done, Force-Sender opened up with the chat window and a small calibration tray which I closed but the force-sender looked as I showed in my screen shot i.e. it has the same i.p. window. hmm... confused now.

EDIT: I will say that I did download this X-Sim software a while ago and if I remember correctly, there were a few different versions of 2.1.0.3. Maybe back then there were two different versions? i.e. Networking one and a Local one? I can't remember though. I'll download it again and see what happens.