Simulation rate awkward

[jimkeir]

Hi,

It seems to me that there's no direct way of setting the simulation rate via SimConnect. The "SIMULATION RATE" variable is read-only, and there's no "SIM_RATE_SET" event.

I've faked it by getting the "SIMULATION RATE" value and then working out how many "SIM_RATE_PLUS" or "SIM_RATE_MINUS" events I need to get it to a given value, but this seems clunky. Am I missing something?

Cheers
Jim

 

[Pete Dowson]

It seems to me that there's no direct way of setting the simulation rate via SimConnect. The "SIMULATION RATE" variable is read-only, and there's no "SIM_RATE_SET" event.

There's one it the CONTROLS.DLL tables, definable as follows in Gauges.h terms:

#define KEY_SIM_RATE_SET (KEY_ID_MIN + 505)

However, it doesn't work. I reported this before FSX's release and it's been in the "to be fixed" bug list ever since. Just never made it near implementation priority I guess -- probably only me complaining about it.

I've faked it by getting the "SIMULATION RATE" value and then working out how many "SIM_RATE_PLUS" or "SIM_RATE_MINUS" events I need to get it to a given value, but this seems clunky. Am I missing something?

No, that's the way FSUIPC has to do it too.

Pete

 

[jsdratm]

What function do you call to decrease or increase the simulation rate? Or how can you send an event to tell the simulation to pause? I couldn't find anything about it in the SDK documentation...

 

[jimkeir]

Hi,

It's all done using events - there's a link at the top of the SimConnect page in the SDK. You need to send an event to the sim; there are separate events for SIM_RATE_INCR and SIM_RATE_DECR, and another called PAUSE_ON.

Something like this:

SCn_MapClientEventToSimEvent(hSimConnect, EVENT_SRPLUS, "SIM_RATE_INCR");
SCn_MapClientEventToSimEvent(hSimConnect, EVENT_SRMINUS, "SIM_RATE_DECR");
SCn_MapClientEventToSimEvent(hSimConnect, EVENT_SET_PAUSE,"PAUSE_ON");
...
// Increase the sim-rate
SCn_TransmitClientEvent(hSimConnect,SIMCONNECT_OBJECT_ID_USER,
                  EVENT_SRPLUS,0,
                  SIMCONNECT_GROUP_PRIORITY_DEFAULT,
                  SIMCONNECT_EVENT_FLAG_GROUPID_IS_PRIORITY);
// Pause
SCn_TransmitClientEvent(hSimConnect, 0, EVENT_SET_PAUSE, 0,
                  SIMCONNECT_GROUP_PRIORITY_DEFAULT,
                  SIMCONNECT_EVENT_FLAG_GROUPID_IS_PRIORITY);

Cheers,
Jim

 

[flying-w]

I am trying to track the simulation rate, but the value seems to hit a ceiling of "4" when the simulator is set to 8x or more. This is unfortunate, because I wanted to detect 8x specifically as the event at which AI stops being simulated. All values below 8x are reported just fine.

In manged code, this is what I do:

_simconnect.AddToDataDefinition(DATA_DEFINITIONS.SIMULATION_RATE, "SIMULATION RATE", "number", SIMCONNECT_DATATYPE.INT32, 1.0f, SimConnect.SIMCONNECT_UNUSED);

_simconnect.RegisterDataDefineStruct<INTEGER_SINGLETON>(DATA_DEFINITIONS.SIMULATION_RATE);

_simconnect.RequestDataOnSimObject(DATA_REQUEST.SUMUATION_RATE, DATA_DEFINTION.SIMULATION_RATE, 0, SIMCONNECT_PERIOD.SECOND, SIMCONNECT_DATA_REQUEST_FLAG.CHANGED, 0, 0, 0);

Notes:
1) Using Doubles instead of integers to retrieve the data shows the same problem.
2) INTEGER_SINGLETON is a struct that contains just a single integer value.

If you have this working, even if it is C rather than C#, I'd be glad to see an example.

Thanks
Simon

 

[Pete Dowson]

I am trying to track the simulation rate, but the value seems to hit a ceiling of "4" when the simulator is set to 8x or more.

I'm reading the correct value (to populate offset 0C1A (the old FS98 offset)) in FSUIPC4.

I am using the fSimSpeed value returned with the frame event, in the SIMCONNECT_RECV_EVENT_FRAME structure. You also get the FS frame rate (fFrameRate) with that event.

Regards

Pete

 

[ahuimanu]

Things are really Kluge-y with accessing FS internals it seems.