| ** Introduction |
| This document describes what I managed to discover about the protocol used to |
| specify force effects to I-Force 2.0 devices. None of this information comes |
| from Immerse. That's why you should not trust what is written in this |
| document. This document is intended to help understanding the protocol. |
| This is not a reference. Comments and corrections are welcome. To contact me, |
| send an email to: deneux@ifrance.com |
| |
| ** WARNING ** |
| I may not be held responsible for any dammage or harm caused if you try to |
| send data to your I-Force device based on what you read in this document. |
| |
| ** Preliminary Notes: |
| All values are hexadecimal with big-endian encoding (msb on the left). Beware, |
| values inside packets are encoded using little-endian. Bytes whose roles are |
| unknown are marked ??? Information that needs deeper inspection is marked (?) |
| |
| ** General form of a packet ** |
| This is how packets look when the device uses the rs232 to communicate. |
| 2B OP LEN DATA CS |
| CS is the checksum. It is equal to the exclusive or of all bytes. |
| |
| When using USB: |
| OP DATA |
| The 2B, LEN and CS fields have disappeared, probably because USB handles frames and |
| data corruption is handled or unsignificant. |
| |
| First, I describe effects that are sent by the device to the computer |
| |
| ** Device input state |
| This packet is used to indicate the state of each button and the value of each |
| axis |
| OP= 01 for a joystick, 03 for a wheel |
| LEN= Varies from device to device |
| 00 X-Axis lsb |
| 01 X-Axis msb |
| 02 Y-Axis lsb, or gas pedal for a wheel |
| 03 Y-Axis msb, or brake pedal for a wheel |
| 04 Throttle |
| 05 Buttons |
| 06 Lower 4 bits: Buttons |
| Upper 4 bits: Hat |
| 07 Rudder |
| |
| ** Device effects states |
| OP= 02 |
| LEN= Varies |
| 00 ? Bit 1 (Value 2) is the value of the deadman switch |
| 01 Bit 8 is set if the effect is playing. Bits 0 to 7 are the effect id. |
| 02 ?? |
| 03 Address of parameter block changed (lsb) |
| 04 Address of parameter block changed (msb) |
| 05 Address of second parameter block changed (lsb) |
| ... depending on the number of parameter blocks updated |
| |
| ** Force effect ** |
| OP= 01 |
| LEN= 0e |
| 00 Channel (when playing several effects at the same time, each must be assigned a channel) |
| 01 Wave form |
| Val 00 Constant |
| Val 20 Square |
| Val 21 Triangle |
| Val 22 Sine |
| Val 23 Sawtooth up |
| Val 24 Sawtooth down |
| Val 40 Spring (Force = f(pos)) |
| Val 41 Friction (Force = f(velocity)) and Inertia (Force = f(acceleration)) |
| |
| |
| 02 Axes affected and trigger |
| Bits 4-7: Val 2 = effect along one axis. Byte 05 indicates direction |
| Val 4 = X axis only. Byte 05 must contain 5a |
| Val 8 = Y axis only. Byte 05 must contain b4 |
| Val c = X and Y axes. Bytes 05 must contain 60 |
| Bits 0-3: Val 0 = No trigger |
| Val x+1 = Button x triggers the effect |
| When the whole byte is 0, cancel the previously set trigger |
| |
| 03-04 Duration of effect (little endian encoding, in ms) |
| |
| 05 Direction of effect, if applicable. Else, see 02 for value to assign. |
| |
| 06-07 Minimum time between triggering. |
| |
| 08-09 Address of periodicity or magnitude parameters |
| 0a-0b Address of attack and fade parameters, or ffff if none. |
| *or* |
| 08-09 Address of interactive parameters for X-axis, or ffff if not applicable |
| 0a-0b Address of interactive parameters for Y-axis, or ffff if not applicable |
| |
| 0c-0d Delay before execution of effect (little endian encoding, in ms) |
| |
| |
| ** Time based parameters ** |
| |
| *** Attack and fade *** |
| OP= 02 |
| LEN= 08 |
| 00-01 Address where to store the parameteres |
| 02-03 Duration of attack (little endian encoding, in ms) |
| 04 Level at end of attack. Signed byte. |
| 05-06 Duration of fade. |
| 07 Level at end of fade. |
| |
| *** Magnitude *** |
| OP= 03 |
| LEN= 03 |
| 00-01 Address |
| 02 Level. Signed byte. |
| |
| *** Periodicity *** |
| OP= 04 |
| LEN= 07 |
| 00-01 Address |
| 02 Magnitude. Signed byte. |
| 03 Offset. Signed byte. |
| 04 Phase. Val 00 = 0 deg, Val 40 = 90 degs. |
| 05-06 Period (little endian encoding, in ms) |
| |
| ** Interactive parameters ** |
| OP= 05 |
| LEN= 0a |
| 00-01 Address |
| 02 Positive Coeff |
| 03 Negative Coeff |
| 04+05 Offset (center) |
| 06+07 Dead band (Val 01F4 = 5000 (decimal)) |
| 08 Positive saturation (Val 0a = 1000 (decimal) Val 64 = 10000 (decimal)) |
| 09 Negative saturation |
| |
| The encoding is a bit funny here: For coeffs, these are signed values. The |
| maximum value is 64 (100 decimal), the min is 9c. |
| For the offset, the minimum value is FE0C, the maximum value is 01F4. |
| For the deadband, the minimum value is 0, the max is 03E8. |
| |
| ** Controls ** |
| OP= 41 |
| LEN= 03 |
| 00 Channel |
| 01 Start/Stop |
| Val 00: Stop |
| Val 01: Start and play once. |
| Val 41: Start and play n times (See byte 02 below) |
| 02 Number of iterations n. |
| |
| ** Init ** |
| |
| *** Querying features *** |
| OP= ff |
| Query command. Length varies according to the query type. |
| The general format of this packet is: |
| ff 01 QUERY [INDEX] CHECKSUM |
| reponses are of the same form: |
| FF LEN QUERY VALUE_QUERIED CHECKSUM2 |
| where LEN = 1 + length(VALUE_QUERIED) |
| |
| **** Query ram size **** |
| QUERY = 42 ('B'uffer size) |
| The device should reply with the same packet plus two additionnal bytes |
| containing the size of the memory: |
| ff 03 42 03 e8 CS would mean that the device has 1000 bytes of ram available. |
| |
| **** Query number of effects **** |
| QUERY = 4e ('N'umber of effects) |
| The device should respond by sending the number of effects that can be played |
| at the same time (one byte) |
| ff 02 4e 14 CS would stand for 20 effects. |
| |
| **** Vendor's id **** |
| QUERY = 4d ('M'anufacturer) |
| Query the vendors'id (2 bytes) |
| |
| **** Product id ***** |
| QUERY = 50 ('P'roduct) |
| Query the product id (2 bytes) |
| |
| **** Open device **** |
| QUERY = 4f ('O'pen) |
| No data returned. |
| |
| **** Close device ***** |
| QUERY = 43 ('C')lose |
| No data returned. |
| |
| **** Query effect **** |
| QUERY = 45 ('E') |
| Send effect type. |
| Returns nonzero if supported (2 bytes) |
| |
| **** Firmware Version **** |
| QUERY = 56 ('V'ersion) |
| Sends back 3 bytes - major, minor, subminor |
| |
| *** Initialisation of the device *** |
| |
| **** Set Control **** |
| !!! Device dependent, can be different on different models !!! |
| OP= 40 <idx> <val> [<val>] |
| LEN= 2 or 3 |
| 00 Idx |
| Idx 00 Set dead zone (0..2048) |
| Idx 01 Ignore Deadman sensor (0..1) |
| Idx 02 Enable comm watchdog (0..1) |
| Idx 03 Set the strength of the spring (0..100) |
| Idx 04 Enable or disable the spring (0/1) |
| Idx 05 Set axis saturation threshold (0..2048) |
| |
| **** Set Effect State **** |
| OP= 42 <val> |
| LEN= 1 |
| 00 State |
| Bit 3 Pause force feedback |
| Bit 2 Enable force feedback |
| Bit 0 Stop all effects |
| |
| **** Set overall gain **** |
| OP= 43 <val> |
| LEN= 1 |
| 00 Gain |
| Val 00 = 0% |
| Val 40 = 50% |
| Val 80 = 100% |
| |
| ** Parameter memory ** |
| |
| Each device has a certain amount of memory to store parameters of effects. |
| The amount of RAM may vary, I encountered values from 200 to 1000 bytes. Below |
| is the amount of memory apparently needed for every set of parameters: |
| - period : 0c |
| - magnitude : 02 |
| - attack and fade : 0e |
| - interactive : 08 |
| |
| ** Appendix: How to study the protocol ? ** |
| |
| 1. Generate effects using the force editor provided with the DirectX SDK, or use Immersion Studio (freely available at their web site in the developer section: www.immersion.com) |
| 2. Start a soft spying RS232 or USB (depending on where you connected your joystick/wheel). I used ComPortSpy from fCoder (alpha version!) |
| 3. Play the effect, and watch what happens on the spy screen. |
| |
| A few words about ComPortSpy: |
| At first glance, this soft seems, hum, well... buggy. In fact, data appear with a few seconds latency. Personnaly, I restart it every time I play an effect. |
| Remember it's free (as in free beer) and alpha! |
| |
| ** URLS ** |
| Check www.immerse.com for Immersion Studio, and www.fcoder.com for ComPortSpy. |
| |
| ** Author of this document ** |
| Johann Deneux <deneux@ifrance.com> |
| Home page at http://www.esil.univ-mrs.fr/~jdeneux/projects/ff/ |
| |
| Additions by Vojtech Pavlik. |
| |
| I-Force is trademark of Immersion Corp. |