DCStoF4 (Standalone version)

[jjbravo]

how you get connected to DCS like BMS shared memory?

That's exactly what DCStoF4 does.

I fail to see why the wheel needs to be reinvented? I'd rather see better cooperation towards a comon goal rather than a plethora of small initiative that ultimately fail or are used only by 1 ppl.

It's the whole story of VP. in 20 years hardly a few project federated and even today it's still a nightmare for newbees to join up and know where to start, where to get drawings and what interface to use.

IMHO, this DCStoF4 is a real Gem.
It should be pushed way forward and we should try to provide Sharknoir as much help he can get to perfect the software rather than trying to do the same on the side

Sorry for the rant, going back to my own hole now

I guess I need to explain a little more. @Red Dog I hear you and I feel exactly the same, however...here is my story.

I was 3 USB issues away from being done with my pit and join the wing of Marwin. My pit was pretty much working in theory, however, once I sat in it and started flying, all kinds of issues started showing with USBs restarting, ground loop issues and Keystrokes not being sent to the sim. I tried to fix it for many months and I got 12 USB restart issues down to 3. However, I have not been able to fix these 3 issues, so my pit was basically unusable. I also hate that I have 22 USB interfaces as it creates a wiring mess.

I want a pit I can just startup and start flying without having to spend 3 hours before each flight to troubleshoot. From the start I wanted to implement a canbus system for all my panels and gauges. My friend owns a robotics company and he told me how they use it in their robots and he thought it would be perfect for a pit. I started down the road of doing this from scratch which was daunting...

This is when I met Beau. He convinced me to help him on F4ToPokeys. He was very convincing, so I started buying pokeys and helping him with the development side of things. I really enjoyed working with him and learned a ton from him. At this time I also got to know Lightning's tools, especially SimLinkup. I was/am amazed at the architecture he had come up with for his implementation and I begged Beau to redo F4ToPokeys with Simlinkup as a foundation, but Beau insisted to keep it original to honor the developer of F4ToPokeys.

So 3 months ago I decided to take what Lightning has done and pretty it up, then add the canbus functionality I wanted. So I'm not starting from scratch, I'm building on top of a product that has already proved to work and now it's not so daunting. Lightning's tools have everything we need for a solid product, I'm just adding a user interface on top and enhancing the modularity of his product so anyone can develop a hardware module for it and drop it in and start using it. I'm still in early stages, so I have not put the code in public yet until I have a beta, but it will all be open source as it's basically the same code as Simlinkup. Lightning has access to all the code, so in case something happens to me, he can make it public.

The features of Lightning's foundation has many benefits. It adds a Simulator interface so if someone wanted to make one for the DCS F-18 or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, they can just implement this and drop in the DLL and it should work. He has ways to map signals from your hardware to the simulator already built in. There is callbacks for sending keystrokes directly to BMS etc.

I commend @SharkNoir for what he's doing, I wanted to do the same, but my main issue is getting rid of USB plugs, so this approach does not solve my issue. His software will be great for some people who is not in the same boat as me. As much as I want to help with this, I just want to get flying, and going down the canbus path is the best option for me. I am trying to make it work for the community as well, and I'm trying to get Martin to help me interface with his hardware, so I can also get rid of his USB interfaces, however this is going to be tough as he's is not open source.

Sorry for my rant, I will now go back in my basement...

[SharkNoir]

My program does not use USB, CAMBUS, I2C, etc ...
It retrieves the variables from DCS and places them in the shared meory to the standard of F4 BMS.
It only makes a shared memory.

So if your program reads shared memory, you are already compatible with DCStoF4.

After DCStoF4, only does the F-16.
Because on DCS, to my surprise, does not export the data in the same way for all aircrafts (That's why I can't find the HSI and RWR info).

My program retrieves the data from the F-16 in LUA and sends it over the network in UDP. Then the main program retrieves the UDP and transcribes it for the Shared Memory.

What seems to interest you is the LUA part. What I advise you is to recover DCS-BIOS which has a substantial library with a search engine on all DCS aircrafts and their main extractions.

https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/118289-dcs-bios-overview-and-announcements/

Once installed, the library is accessible in its web interface. then use it to find the specific LUA code for the machine you are looking for.
If it's the F-16, then DCStoF4 has the LUA codes you're looking for ...

[SharkNoir]

Someone would know how to configure "RTTClient64_FakeBMS" so that it generates a false BMS and thus fool YAME64 with DCStoF4?
This is to avoid having BMS running in the background while we are using DCS...

Some programs like YAME64 verify that F4 BMS is working, it doesn't just verify that Shrared Memory is present. An annoying check for DCStoF4.

[morek99]

A working YAME with DCStoF4 would a real treat!! I hope you succeed!
Thank you very much for your work on DCStoF4, a great tool!!

Best regards
Mirco

Someone would know how to configure "RTTClient64_FakeBMS" so that it generates a false BMS and thus fool YAME64 with DCStoF4?
This is to avoid having BMS running in the background while we are using DCS...

Some programs like YAME64 verify that F4 BMS is working, it doesn't just verify that Shrared Memory is present. An annoying check for DCStoF4.

[SharkNoir]

A working YAME with DCStoF4 would a real treat!! I hope you succeed!
Thank you very much for your work on DCStoF4, a great tool!!

Best regards
Mirco

Someone would know how to configure "RTTClient64_FakeBMS" so that it generates a false BMS and thus fool YAME64 with DCStoF4?
This is to avoid having BMS running in the background while we are using DCS...

Some programs like YAME64 verify that F4 BMS is working, it doesn't just verify that Shrared Memory is present. An annoying check for DCStoF4.

Hello,
currently DCStoF4 works with YAME64 and DCS. you just have to let F4 BMS start in the background on the main menu.
That's why Fake BMS would be better. but otherwise it works fine with DCSToF4, like MFDE.

[jjbravo]

Someone would know how to configure "RTTClient64_FakeBMS" so that it generates a false BMS and thus fool YAME64 with DCStoF4?
This is to avoid having BMS running in the background while we are using DCS...

Some programs like YAME64 verify that F4 BMS is working, it doesn't just verify that Shrared Memory is present. An annoying check for DCStoF4.

Check out lightningtools, he has a shared memory program which simulates BMS and can record and replay shared memory.

https://github.com/lightningviper/lightningstools/tree/master/src/F4SharedMemMirror

[lightning]

@jjbravo, F4SharedMemoryMirror just replicates the data shared memory areas from one PC to another (similar to RTTServer/RTTClient, except it doesn’t replicate the RTT graphical shared memory area).  It does not recreate operational/runtime aspects of BMS like faking the running BMS process details (process name/path, window handle, global mutex, etc.) Without looking at YAME source code, it’s not clear which runtime aspects of BMS that it’s looking for to check of BMS is running.

Using  RTTClient with FakeBMS settings would more likely be the right way to go.

[jjbravo]

Ok, thanks!

[Knight]

Im in the exact same moment.  BMS display extraction is covered with YAME.  For DCS I used a workable solution with Helios.
It’s basically very simple (if you know the trick).  You import the newest F16 profile,  create virtual screenparts.  Than you cut and past the parts you need out of the virtual Helios cockpit to that particular new created screen part.   Move that part to the hardware screen you use and push and pull to fit it. 
But yes.  How nice would it be to use one extraction program for BMS and DCS.   That’s the main reason I’m fully going to use PsCockpit for BMS and DCS.
I’m building my pit whit the main goal to reduce the USB usage.  So for Pokeys perhaps create a matrix solution?  Or do I use the PsCockpit satellite boards (which I also need to find out how).  So same question,  What is my best solution to prevent a lot of USB connections and the same look and feel for display extraction. 

Question questions.   

Regards

Knight

[Viper47]

Very Nice Tool.
mostly everything works fine.
Only unable to export the MFD´s  with MFDE.

BMS is running in UI.

[malpaso]

I plan to build my home cockpit with F4toserial(Arduino Mega 2560), also using Pokeys, but a question I have been asking myself!
What is the best solution to avoid too many USB connections?
So far I haven't found an answer to this question!

[Viper47]

Someone would know how to configure "RTTClient64_FakeBMS" so that it generates a false BMS and thus fool YAME64 with DCStoF4?
This is to avoid having BMS running in the background while we are using DCS...

Some programs like YAME64 verify that F4 BMS is working, it doesn't just verify that Shrared Memory is present. An annoying check for DCStoF4.

What do you want to configure ?
Some Options can be changed in the RTTClient.ini Maybe i can ask Dunc (the creator of RTT)

Suggest to make a copy of the entire RTTRemote Folder, change the RTTClient.ini in there, and start RTTClient64_FakeBMS from that folder.
Tried it out with MFDE but didnd work. Have to run BMS in the background.

[Pegasus]

What for an amazing idea and great program! It's fantastic to have this nice solution as interface program. 
I have test this now with my own cockpit and DEDCapture and the 1st tests are great. Thank you so much for this amazing program!!!!

Thanks Olivier!!
Martin "Pegasus"

[nebuluski]

Wow this looks great! Well done SharkNoir! 

Would I be right in assuming that this would allow the following to work with DCS F16:

• Lightnings CPD software and hardware with the screens etc (moving map probably will not work)
• Arends AIC software combined with the Hardware
• Leos' Gammmaray plus the various gauges that were produced by him for the community etc
• Ghosts software for his DED and PFL OLED displays

[SharkNoir]

Wow this looks great! Well done SharkNoir! 

Would I be right in assuming that this would allow the following to work with DCS F16:

• Lightnings CPD software and hardware with the screens etc (moving map probably will not work)
• Arends AIC software combined with the Hardware
• Leos' Gammmaray plus the various gauges that were produced by him for the community etc
• Ghosts software for his DED and PFL OLED displays

Hello,
On my tests, I'm waiting for feedback, for me all work except the 2 black spots (RWR and eHSI) which I continue to research and harass the devs (besides you can too).
For the map, the plane moves on the map, but someone has to generate a DCS map at the correct scale.