Ruggbutt

This year has been a great year for flight simmers. Announcements of new software and new hardware piqued the interest of the flight sim community. Of all the products we were promised nothing generated the buzz that the Logitech G940 did. It was promo'd at E3 earlier this year. With E3 being an industry show many people just didn't get the chance to see it, touch it or talk to someone who had. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the G940 and run it through it's paces. Those of you that know me know I'm a gadget guy. I love to make periodic additions to my cockpit to ease the "workload" when I'm flying online with my squadron. I own a couple of Logitech mice (510's) and two Logitech 5.1 surround systems, one for my pit and the other for my FPS (First Person Shooter) desk. My main mouse has been going for 5 years. The G940 is a HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) and rudder pedals. The stick itself is FF (Force Feedback). I haven't "flown" with FF for years. I was anxious to see how well I'd be able to fly the jet and use the weapons with a stick that was alive, shaking and shuddering and doing it's best to spoil my aim. That's a common misconception that I'll touch on later in this review. I was promised the G940 sometime in August as soon as the eval copies were to be made available. Sure enough I received a box that was shipped "next day". How's that for service?!! I immediately broke out my camera and started tearing into the boxes. The outer box was your standard brown cardboard with the Logitech logo, taped on all the corners with clear tape. Fitting tightly inside was the store display box. I thought to myself, let's see how well these are packed. After all, we know that our boxes get thrown around by UPS and FedEx. I hoped that nothing was broken. I know that some of you like the unboxing part and like it documented, so I attempted that for you. The first parts I pulled out were the HOTAS itself, packaged up nicely and covered with thick protective plastic. Logitech did it's homework with it's packaging, the G940 arrived in pristine condition despite obvious abuse on it's outer packaging. I'd heard from a friend who was at E3 (sadly, I wasn't able to make it this year) that the stick had a nice feel to it. He said it was kind of rubbery to the touch. I unpacked the stick and set it down on the counter, I wanted to handle it a bit first. My friend was right, it felt great in my hand. I have medium size hands and the stick fit just right. The hand grip part of the stick is smaller in diameter than sticks from some of the other high end manufacturers. I liked it. I also liked the coating that was on it. It was slightly rubbery to the touch. I don't think you'd lose your grip with sweaty hands. After imagining myself in a dogfight with an adversary (and making the appropriate machine guns sounds with my mouth) I set the stick down and took a quick look at the how many buttons and switches it had. Two stage trigger, POV (Coolie) hat, another hat, several buttons, and three rotators. There's also another button that lies under your pinkie on the stick that can be programmed as a "Shift" button. Excellent! That's absolutely mandatory and doubles the programmability. You'll notice mounting holes on all four corners of the HOTAS. There are rubber feet on the bottom but I'll bet that a lot of you out there will want to secure the HOTAS via the mounting holes. Shot of the front of the stick so you can see the trigger, shift button and connectors for the throttle and pedals. Trim rotators on the base of the stick. I couldn't stand it any longer, I unpackaged the throttle and set it up on my left side. In my mind I was back in the dogfight, chopping throttle and maneuvering my imaginary aircraft to keep on my bandit's six. Immediately I felt the afterburner detent. Gotta love that! There's an idle detent too. Well done! There's some major cool factor going on with this throttle, it seems like Logitech did it's homework and listened to it's potential customers. I'm seeing all kinds of things that I'd want on a HOTAS and it's on the G940. You'll only need one open USB port for the G940. The stick has the USB connector, the throttle and pedals connect to it via gameport-type connectors. There is also a power cord that plugs into a wall outlet with an ac/dc converter. The converter itself is about 4 inches long, 2.5 inches wide and an inch or so in height. The wiring is fairly robust and I found that all cables were long enough to string around my cockpit without having to tension them. I take a closer look and there's a rotator in the front of right throttle. Right throttle you say? Did I forget to mention that it's a split throttle? You can lock the left and right side together or disengage them and adjust them separately. This feature is one of the most wished for features in the combat flight sim community. If you're flying an F-16 you just lock the throttles together, but hop in that Su-33 and you have total control over both engines. There's another rotator on the side of the right throttle. There's also a POV switch, another 8 way hat, several buttons and a mode sliding switch. Remember me talking about programmability? The mode switch lets you program 3 times the amount of commands. You could use mode 1 for Navigation, mode 2 for Air to Air and Mode 3 for Air to Ground. In this manner you could fly any number of aircraft and not have to load different profiles for each plane. Front side of the throttle: On the bottom of the throttle there's an adjustment rotator so you can adjust the tension of the throttle. I set the HOTAS aside and pulled the pedals out and removed the plastic. The pedals look nice, they have stainless steel foot rests. I particularly liked the "humps" that fit where the arch of your foot goes. There's a dial tension adjuster in between the pedals as well. I personally like a little bit of resistance. I turned the pedals over and found a nice surprise, carpet spikes. They normally sit recessed into the base but you can extend them (by pushing in on the locks) and they'll keep the pedals from moving forward as you push on them. They work great, I use a lot of rudder flying the A10 and they didn't move an inch all the time I used them. I took a closer look at the connecting rods for the pedals and was happy to see that they seem to be built very thick and heavy. This is good because pedals take huge amounts of abuse compared to their HOTAS buddies. You can plug the G940 in and play. For the first time user this is great. You're up and running with little to no effort. I recommend that you take the time and use Logitech's software to create profiles for your sims. It's more time consuming but you'll be pleased with the end result and you'll find you'll be using your keyboard much less should you go this route. Now that all the exploring was done it was time to install the software. Installation went without a hitch and walked you through every step of the installation. You plug in the G940 during the software installation, it'll tell you when. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) was fairly straight forward and similar in nature to Saitek's software. If you're a first time profile creator there's a bit of a learning curve. You'll catch on quickly though. It worked just fine in Lock On/Flaming Cliffs and Black Shark. You have to tell both sims which axis is assigned to which command but the buttons and POV hats worked right off the bat. The Profiler software (as it's called) is well thought out. You can pull up a graphic of each controller in the GUI and when you press a button, move a hat switch, dial a rotator or move an axis the software automatically highlights that particular part for you to command. No guessing involved. You click with your mouse on the command panel and another menu opens with multiple choices. When you choose to add a keypress or a cycle command another menu opens (depending on which of those you chose) and you can give custom names to your commands. For instance, if you're programming Flaps and there are three levels of flaps (full up, half flap, full down) you can add all of these commands to your new flap command and every press of the button will change the position of your flaps. The Profiler software allows you to record macros, keybinds, bands, etc. I played around with the software quite a bit and after a couple of days I had a nice Lock On/Flaming Cliffs profile that I was content with. Remember where I discussed "Shifted" commands? You can do that as well and Logitech has changed the color of the shifted commands so that there will be no mistake when the user is creating his/her profile. I know you're all dying to know how well the hardware works so I'll move on to that. I love the pedals. They feel great. They're accurate. They feel solid. Don't let anyone tell you that cuz the G940 is made of plastic that it's "cheap" or isn't a quality product. I've put quite a few "miles" on my G940 so far, but it seems to be built sturdy. The throttle is just plain sick! (that's means awesome for some of you old folks). I programmed the rotators for radar elevation and for wide/narrow scan. The buttons seemed to lay nicely underneath my fingers and even though I'm used to using a different HOTAS I found I got used to the G940 fairly quickly. To unlock the split throttle you reach around to the lever on the left throttle. There's a raised metal "button" that you push in which separates the throttles. To lock them you align the throttles and push the metal button in on the right throttle shaft. During combat you'll find it a bit difficult to lock the throttles back together. At least I did because my stick and throttle sit at my waist in my pit. The stick was "different". I haven't flown with force feedback in a long, long time. I found that I liked being able to feel buffeting on the wings of my A-10 as I pulled into a tight turn. In the F-15 I could feel I was at corner speed and I found myself quickly pulling just hard enough to feel the buffet. It made me fly better and the force feedback was a better cue than the visual one I was used to. The stick has a dual stage trigger, I messed around with programming it for jet sims but found that it just didn't work as well as it would in a sim like IL2 where some aircraft can fire machine guns and cannon at the same time. The dual stage trigger would really pay off in that sim. I flew several different types of aircraft in Lock On/Flaming Cliffs with the G940, just like I do with my old kit. I wanted to see how well I could adapt to a stick that "kicked back" at me. I spent countless hours using unguided rockets and GAU 8 to see if I could shoot as well with the G940. To my surprise I can. The stick doesn't spoil your aim even if you're in a turning fight against other jets. It makes you fly smarter. The stick is as accurate as anything else I've used. I'm told that Logitech uses Hall Sensors in this stick. I was able to tone down some of the centering forces in the stick as I found that my wrist became tired after flying for a while. I found the perfect adjustment and that pain went away. You can also adjust other parameters of the force feedback without affecting centering strength. I try to be completely honest with my reviews and with that usually comes some criticism or suggestions that would make for a better product. Some of these are based strictly on preference and I would like you readers to take that into consideration. I only have a couple things I'd like to point out and see changed. Hat switches. There are two kinds on the G940. The "coolie" hat and the one that's shaped like a cross. The cross hat is too smooth. It needs a bit more texturing. I mapped the rotators on the base of the stick to trim pitch and roll and rudder. They really need a center detent. There are marks for center on the rotator but over time I can see them being rubbed off. Besides, tactile beats a graphic any time and being able to feel center is better than seeing it. I mapped the rotator on the front of the throttle to the elevation axis for my radar. I had to roll the rotator to the max end of travel both ways before it would auto-calibrate and work correctly. I'm not sure if this is a component of the software or if it's a hardware issue. Either way, I'm sure that those coming from an X-45 or X-52 will miss that detent. Lastly (and most importantly), stick center compared to elevator position. With most of the sticks I've owned I found that stick center related to elevator center. Not so with the G940. I found that if flying straight and level that if I let go of the stick that I could expect a 10 degree nose down attitude. Upon mapping the rotators to trim I found that I could correct this situation. If you look at the close up of the rotators you can see about where the trim has to be to rectify the situation. The stick still jumps around a little when trimmed and doesn't work as well as it should. The good news is that I've been in contact with Logitech's support and it's a software issue. I've been told it can be fixed and that the Logitech software guys hope to fix issues like this by working with the developers of the sims we play. Edited 8/31/09 by ruggbutt Mark from Logitech posted this on another forum: The issue described is from the slight force dead zone, which allowsthe stick to lean forward against the force feedback "spring". Thestick centers perfectly, but when you let go, the optical dead manswitch turns off game force and substitutes the default centering.There is some looseness, to avoid high power usage of the motors atrest. We are looking at tweaking the driver to have the stick rest atcenter. Its not a difficult fix. We are also working with sim developers to improve the in-gamelooseness of forces. There hasn't been a good reason to put in extraeffort on force feedback until G940. We find that the developers areeager to incorporate better feedback now that the work will berewarded.. It's nice to see that Mark is active in the community and that Logitech will work on the centering. There's nothing better than being able to interact with the developers on a product that you would like to purchase. Out of My three criticisms of the G940 Mark shot the important one down in flames. Nice shooting Mark, I'm glad to see that you're on this. As are the slew of potential customers. End edit The last thing I'd like to discuss isn't a criticism. It's more just FYI. It has to do with the colored buttons on the throttle. I'm sure many of you have seen the flash movies on Logitech's site showing how the buttons can show the state of landing gear with colored lights. Currently this isn't available. From what I understand software is being written that reads the state of gear, flaps, etc that would translate into the colors you see on the buttons. I would also imagine that the sim you're playing would have to be able to send that info (probably via LUA programming) for that function to be available on the G940. However, you CAN run the joystick SDK (Software Development Kit) to change the color of the buttons or turn them off completely. Retail price on the G940 is $300 U.S. This may seem steep for some but the G940 is built sturdy and should provide many hours of use. I'd like to thank Sarah at Logitech for providing me with the G940 to evaluate. Mark at Logitech answered my questions and walked me through the use of the SDK. My e-mails were answered promptly and this tells me that Logitech is on the ball with their customer service. IMHO Logitech did their homework and released a product that mid to hardcore flight simmers would be happy to have as part of their kit. I predict that Logitech will sell a whole slew of G940's to satisfied customers.

I have a Warthog HOTAS which I like very much, and the X-65 by Saitek has been a good performer.

The G940 has been canceled by Logitech. Seems they couldn't fix the problems nor did consumers want a flawed product.

Godspeed!

It sounds like you don't have any modules for DCS: World. Flaming Cliffs 2 needs an install of original Lock On for it to install, it just checks to see that you have the game. You can then remove Lock On. Black Shark is a stand alone so you can install it in whichever order you like. BS and FC2 don't work with DCS: World. You'd have to buy Black Shark 2 and Flaming Cliffs 3 to be able to use those aircraft in DCS: World.

Not if you buy it today!

Semper Fi. Printing this out for my favorite Marine, who is 96 years old. He gave 22 to the Corps.

70 is a great body style for the "new" body Novas.

G940 has been discontinued by Logitech. Read my review here about it's performance. And to follow up Logitech never fixed the software that caused the nose of the jet to pitch 10 degrees down when centered. If you can afford the Warthog I recommend it highly.

Rumor has it with the next 1.2.3 update. The only thing is, HungaroJet's (3Go) model has tons and tons of skins for it. ED's will most likely ship with 4-6.

That's a sexy Chevy II.

I would bet soon.

Google SweetFX. Only works with 32 bit executables.

Suicide is cowardly and shows a weakness of mind and spirit. If she killed herself because of a prank then maybe it's for the best. Don't want those inferior genes floating about, do we?

The mod sounds amazing! I can't believe how much this changes the sim. It's like the difference between Flanker and Flaming Cliffs 2.

The AI has always been not so good in LOMAC/FC/DCS. Multiplayer is where it's at.

I'm here to help, Topcat!

The auto updater will put your mods into a temp folder. To "reinstall" you'd just drag those files back into the correct folders.

I use Notepad++, it opens all the DCS files and doesn't corrupt them. It's free to download. Google it.

Excellent job HungaroJet! Thanks for spending the time to do this and to make it right.

Thanks for converting this, HungaroJet. I know how difficult it was to get everything right. The community will appreciate your hard work.

A quick heads up, HungaroJet's Su-27 has been released. It's in the downloads section.

That's good news. I'd like to see all the flyables taken care of first. That means Su-33 and Mig-29 are the last two.