FFB Combined Thrustmaster and Moza setup. Will it work?

[IckyATLAS]

I have at the moment a Hotas Thrustmaster Warthog and the Thrustmaster Pendular Rudder Pedals.

It is a long time I wanted to have some force feedback in my flight stick.

 

Unfortunately we have no product from Thrustmaster. But after having spent some serious money for the whole Thrustmaster setup I was not keen to buy a complete new setup, and hoped they would do something over time. But it never happened.

 

Then came Flight Sim Expo 2024 and the Moza FFB base demo and then some reviews on Youtube.

 

One thing catched my interest is that it is completely mechanically electrically and software compatible with the Thrustmaster warthog Joystick. It is recognized by the Moza software and I suppose can then be programmed for all the buttons hat etc. functions. 

I have not tested that but I suppose so.

 

I have a few questions before buying one:

 

1) Has IL2 GB "direct force output" for Force Feedback operation. Is IL2 GB sim sending force information to the peripheral according to what happens on the plane surface controls, this means progressive force reaction according to the flight profile, as well as gun firing effects etc. Some FFB's are simple shakers when you fire your guns and that's all, and I am not interested in that.

 

2) I will keep the Throttle and the Pedals. So I will have two software running in parallel, the Thrustmaster one that will manage throttle and pedals and the Moza one that will manage the Joystick. Will this work? One has to know that to run the Thrustmaster Target software you need to launch it and then internally from there you launch the IL2 sim that gets somewhat connected to the peripherals. Now the Joystick being separated and managed by the Moza software I do not see how this will work.

 

If anyone has some experience with that thank you for your comments.

 

 

[Aapje]

According to the VPForce Rhino manual:

 

Quote

IL2 implements FFB for dynamic stick forces and some very basic shake effects. 

 

The Rhino replaces the shake effects from IL-2 with better shake effects generated by their software. But as far as I can see, the forces from flight are modelled well and are not replaced.

 

So the answer to 1 is that you will have good flight effects and mediocre shake effects, unless/until Moza implements their own shake effects based on IL-2 telemetry.

 

And people mix and match hardware all the time, so that should work fine, if the hardware is compatible. Trustmaster seems to implement their grip protocol in a pretty simple and well documented way, so this seems to always just work. The challenge is more with Virpil grips, which use the same connector, but with a more complicated protocol that doesn't seem to be publicly documented.

 

But I would advise to just wait a little bit for the bases getting delivered to customers, which should be any day now. Then we'll surely get a ton more information. What's the hurry?

Edited August 28, 2024 by Aapje

[Tonester]

I use 6 different input devices from 4 different manufacturers with no issues at all. that being said, i dont use the programming software from any of the manufacturers at all i just assign all axis’ and button pushes within the game…never a problem…so rest assured i cant imagine you having any issues

 

[Aapje]

For a lot of hardware, the official software programs the firmware in the device anyway, and they don't actually have drivers or need to have the software running to work. So for the computer, it is just a bunch of input devices with no real difference if they are from 1 manufacturer or multiple.

[IckyATLAS]

On 8/28/2024 at 9:41 PM, Aapje said:

What's the hurry?

I have all my time. Sim Hanger made a review and indeed it seems that the software is being update weekly. So let's have Moza Iron out all the issues.

Maybe a Christmas gift? 😉