So what is FSUIPC and these Offset thingys ? - Sim
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1. own use You need to know about offsets and memory if you are going to be interfacing with Flight Sim via your only application or maybe via some I O interfacing software or perhaps you want to start enhancing your sim setup by adding a few extra buttons A flat pack Offset is born Each piece of FS data is placed in the memory block at a certain location This is it s offset You can think of the memory block as a huge empty shelf ioe And this shelf is divided into 65535 compartments OE And each compartment represents a single byte FSUIPC then takes individual pieces of flight sim data and places then in separate compartments in the memory block So put in simple language it s like saying I ve put the landing light data in compartment 42 If you wanted to read the landing light data you would read the value in compartment 42 Offsets are usually specified in Hex format byte 42 in decimal Offset 002A in Hex Written down in a table it might look like this Description Offset Size Landing Lights 002A 1 Engine Oil Temp 002B 2 Airspeed 002D 4 Altitude 0031 8 And this is how the memory block would look Byte 40 41 42 Lnd Lights Eng Oil Temp Airspeed Altitude For those wanting to read the values from the memory block you would normally want to read the data into the same sized variable as it2. else Set I O Light 1 ON If Offset 53C1 1 ADIRU Set I O Light 2 OFF else Set I O Light 2 ON Using FSUIPC within FS to assign offset values to a Joystick Button If you have dedicated hardware controller software like InterfacelT from FDS or SIOC then you will assign functions from their own software But if you have an interface that emulates joystick buttons or want to assign you current joystick buttons to functions then you can use the Buttons Switches utility within the FSUIPC module To do this Start FS and under the Modules menu select FSUIPC Then select the Buttons Switches tab Next press the Joystick button you wish to assign to a function FSUIPC should detect the button press and display the Joy and Btn in the window In this example have pressed button 2 on the joystick O FSUIPC Options and Settings About Register Winds Visibility Clouds Miscellaneous Logging Hot Keys Buttons Switches Key Presses Axis Assignment Joystick Calibration Choose the action for this button ether keypress or FS control Select for key press Joytt 0 2 Btn Select for FS control Fieload all buttons Aincraft specific T Include Project Magenta L Press the key s to Control sent when button pressed be sent when you TT O O A press this button E Parameter E E Control sent when button released Fress the key s to be sent when you relea
3. no conflicts Most current interface solutions are able to read write with FSUIPC so a typical setup to map a battery switch might be Step 1 Press a button in your sim Step 2 This is detected by your I O card and it s software writes a 1 to a specified offset Step 3 In the Sim Avionics FSUIPC_1IO ini file you have assigned the specified offset to the Battery Switch Step 4 The Server reads the specified offset and enables the Battery Switch Assigning SwitCh Inputs There are 2 methods of using FSUIPC to control system switches in the server The first is the Direct Offset method Meaning each function monitors a specific offset FSUIPC_INPUTS BATTERY SWITCH 5320 ADIRU_ SWITCH 5321 Pe This tells the server to monitor offsets 5320 and 5321 for the Battery and ADIRU switch positions A value of 0 Switch OFF and 1 Switch ON To assign the offsets to the BATTERY switch and ADIRU switch you must edit the FSUIPC_1O ini The second method is via a MultiFunction Offset this is also assigned in the FSUIPC_lO ini This time instead of assigning a different offset for FSUIPC_MULTI_FUNCTION every function you just assign the MultiFunction offset MULTI_FUNCTION 53FE 2 byte WORD The server then monitors this offset and functions are trigger depending on the value set at this offset 704 BATTERY SWITCH OFF 705 BATTERY SWITCH ON 722 ADIRU SWITCH OFF 723 ADIRU SWITC
4. H ON Once the function has been trigger the server sets the MultiFunction offset back to a value of O ready for the next command A full Multi Function list can be found in our User Manual Assigning Outputs Just like the switch inputs an FSUIPC offset can be assigned to an output function This is again made in the FSUIPC_1O ini file After the FSUIPC_INPUT section there is an FSUIPC_OUTPUT section And it s here you can assign an offset to a function Please note at this stage the output value represents the status of assigned system and not the overhead light state To clarify on an aircraft overhead a light usually illuminates when a system is inoperative or there is a failure In this example offset 53C0 will 1 when the battery FSUIPC_ OUTPUTS system is ON and 0 when the battery system is OFF BATTERY 53CO Se This is likely to be the opposite of what you want your battery light to do on your overhead panel Therefore you can either allow for this in the code for your interface solution or use some of the additional assignment options in the FSUIPC_IO ini file Item offset Sinvert 1 or 0 b bit 0 7 BATTERY 53C0 if Battery ON then offset 53C0 1 BATTERY 53C0S1 if Battery OFF then offset 53C0 1 BATTERY 53COb2 if Battery ON then offset 53C0 4 bit 2 BATTERY 53C0b00000100 if Battery ON then offset 53C0 4 bit 2 BATTERY 53C0S1b3 if Battery OFF then o
5. enter the value you want the offset to have For a Direct Input offset this will usually be 1 For the MultiFunction offset this will be the function value found on the multifuction list in the User Manual IF you want something to happen when you release the button then you can also fill in the Control sent when button released fields by Mark tlastinge 2009 10
6. es data to an offset that is already being populated by FSUIPC or one of your other FS addons it will probably get overwritten How many offsets do J require If you are reading values from FSUIPC then you will need to reference the documentation for the product that is populating that offset to understand how many bytes to read If you want to use FSUIPC to store your own value you will need to decide how many bytes it requires Ask yourself Do need to store a large number negative number or floating point decimal number For info e 1 byte can store a number between 0 and 255 this could also be an ascii char e 2 bytes known as a WORD or SMALLINT can store a number between 0 65535 unsigned or 32767 32767 signed e 4 bytes known as a DWORD or INTEGER or FLOAT32 or SINGLE depending on the usage can store a whole number between 0 4294967296 or decimal values e 8 bytes known as a FLOAT64 or DOUBLE can hold large decimal values e f you need to store a string character this is held as it s ASCII character code 0 255 therefore a single character is stored in a byte Cim AvioniCs Specific Information As a base for Sim Avionics offsets usually recommend starting with the 5300 53FF range These 255 bytes have been reserved in FSUIPC for this project and no other official application should be using them But it doesn t really matter which offsets you use as long as there are
7. ffset 53CO 8 bit 3 BATTERY 53C0 1b00001000 if Battery OFF then offset 53C0 8 bit 3 FSUIPC_OUTPUTS This would invert the offset value Now 53CO will 0 BATTERY 53C0 1 when the battery system is ON and 1 when the am battery system is OFF In your interface solution you can now say something like if 53C0 1 Battery _Light ON else Battery_Light OFF Don t Panic Using Offset bits A BIT is a single number or a virtual switch It can either be OFF O or ON 1 A BYTE contains 8 bits 00000000 In normal decimal notation we count in 10 s Each column is a multiple of 10 and each digit can by 0 9 As anumber gets more zeros added to it we multiply by 10 so One Ten One Hundred One Thousand etc Binary work slightly different as a bit can only have a value of O or 1 As a bit moves left in the byte it s value doubles then just like in decimal you add up all of the ON bits to calculate it s decimal value Value 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 13 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 75 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 255 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 SO What does this mean A single byte or fsuipc offset can hold a value of 0 255 so if you want to hold a value like a battery voltage 0 24v you would need to use the whole byte to store this value but if you want to hold basic ON OFF states for switches you can ass
8. ign each of the 8 bits separately The result is exactly the same as assigning a whole byte to a function An advantage is that you require less offsets To assign an offset bit to a function you use the additional assignment option bits are numbered from right to left 0 7 FSUIPC_INPUT BATTERY_SWITCH 5320b0 ADIRU_SWITCH 5320b4 ee This is how the offset value will look as the two switches are changed Both OFF 00000000 0 in decimal Battery ON 00000001 1 in decimal ADIRU ON 00010000 16 in decimal Both ON 00010001 17 in decimal This example will set the battery switch when bit 0 1 and the ADIRU switch when bit 4 1 In Summary Direct Offset Method On Switch Change If 1 O Switch 1 ON BATTERY Set Offset 5320 1 else Set Offset 5320 0 If 1 O Switch 2 ON ADIRU Set Offset 5321 1 else Set Offset 5321 0 7 FSUIPC_INPUTS BATTERY SWITCH 5320 ADIRU_SWITCH 5321 I O Code FSUIPC_lO ini Sim Avionics Server 7 MultiFunction Method On Switch Change If 1 O Switch 1 ON BATTERY Set Offset 53FE 705 else Set Offset 53FE 704 If 1 O Switch 2 ON ADIRU Set Offset 53FE 723 else Set Offset 53FE 722 7 FSUIPC_MULTI_FUNCTION MULTI_FUNCTION 53FE FSUIPC_1O INI FSUIPC_OUTPUTS BATTERY _SWITCH 53C0 ADIRU_SWITCH 53C1 mer Se I O Code If Offset 53C0 1 BATTERY Set I O Light 1 OFF
9. o What is and these set thingys So you ve got no programming skills and you ve only just discovered that your PC has a calculator but you re not stupid after all you went to school you know how an engine works and heck you even know how a jet engine works roughly But as you start to read all of the documentation that you ve found on the net for Flight sim and Interfacing it all starts to blur and sound like the most complicated thing on the planet ever memory offsets floating point x axis config files button assignments eventually it all starts looking like mem floating offset blah blah blah So I ll stop you there and try to clear a few things up In the beginning So you ve heard of FSUIPC and people keep on mentioning offsets but what are they and what do you need to know about them FSUIPC is a utility developed by Pete Dowson and originally created by Adam Szofran in the form of FS6IPC In simple terms FSUIPC allows external applications to access many of the Microsoft Flight Simulator internal variables from simple data like pitch roll altitude and heading right through to weather and acceleration values In a Nutshell The FSUIPC module reserves a 65535 byte block of memory and then populates part of this memory with various pieces of data extracted from FS External applications then have read and write access to the data in this block of memory for their
10. se this button Parameter Create Mouse Macro You then need to fill in the details on the right hand side to assign an offset and value to the joystick button To do this select the Select fo FS control checkbox FSUIPC Options and Settings About Register Winds Visibility Clouds Miscellaneous Logging Hot Keys Buttons Switches Key Presses Axis Assignment Joystick Calibration Set up or review the action you want for this button Clear Select for key press Joytt 2 btnt Select for FS control Reload all buttons Aircraft specific Include Project Magenta Fress the keple to 9 00 Control sent when button pressed be sent Wher ou Otsetword 5e gt press this button Offset Word Set Clear a Offset B3FE Parameter r05 i Control to repeat while held Control sent when button released ees the Revs ta Offset word Set e sent when you release this button Clear Offset 5SFE Parameter U4 Create Mouse Macro To assign a MultiFunction Offset In the Control sent when button pressed box select Offset Word Set from the drop down list To assign a Direct Input Offset In the Control sent when button pressed box select Offset Byte Set from the drop down list Then in the Offset box enter the offset that you wish to update This could be the Direct or MultiFunction offset Next in the Parameter box
11. was initially written By this mean that you would read an 8 byte altitude value into an internal variable defined as 8 bytes Otherwise you will not have all of the data bytes need to correctly format the value and the value that you read will be incorrect The bottom line is FSUIPC stores data from Flight Simulator in a memory block Each piece of data is assign a number of bytes depending on the size of the value that needs to be stored The starting location of the data is noted and known as it s offset in the memory block This memory block is then made available to external applications WideClient also sends a copy of this memory block across your network to other client pc s Which Offsets Can J use All of the memory values that are extracted from Flight Sim and populated by FSUIPC are listed in the FSUIPC SDK The usage of each offset is clearly stated in the documentation e Some FSUIPC offsets are read only and cannot be written to e Some offsets can be written to but not intended for this purpose and your data will be overwritten during the next FSUIPC data load e Some offsets are read write and you can write a value to these offsets to modify a function in FS McHUNeR Therefore you should only used the offsets P publisged in the FSUIPC SDK as documented or you might get some unexpected results Othwise you can use virtually any spare offset in the range But Remember If your application writ
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