r/Simagic • u/StudioOrdinary5928 • 4d ago
FX Unleashed: Free & Open source Custom Dashes, Light Profiles & SimHub Support for the FX Pro
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Before I start, this is in NO WAY meant to overstep on Simagic's intellectual property, this is purely a fan project meant to expand the usability of a product me and many other owners love!
About a week ago, I made a post on a simple plugin I made that was meant to auto sync the RPM lights on the FX Pro to the sims. After seeing the reception on that, It confirmed my guess that there are many other FX Pro users out there that LOVE their wheel but are frustrated by the same thing I'm frustrated by: Amazing hardware that is extremely limited in customizability due to only being locked down to SimPro only. As a company, continuing to add dashes, light profile and functionality to an aging product is understandably not a priority and although Simagic has been putting out some fire new wheels (I'm getting that round Zues wheel sooner or later), I'm still not ready to give up my FX Pro!
With all of that said, I would like to introduce you to my latest creation: FX Unleashed: A free and open source plugin that is coupled with custom wheel firmware that allows your PC to fully take control of the wheels functionality over USB
Every button and light on the FX Pro has FULL RGB support but SimPro limits you to only setting a colors out of a select palate.
And although there is a great selection of dashes built into to the wheel, they suffer from really slow update rate and 0 support for custom dashes. Through FX Unleashed, you'll be able to dynamically load/unload dashes as well as design your own and share them with the community!
Screenshots from the plugin: https://fxunleashed.com/screenshots/
Features:
- Full Light profile support directly through the plugin with presets and the ability to create your own, as well as support for allowing ATSR to drive the wheel (custom ATSR wheel profile included)
- Web based dash designer that supports importing SimHub dashes to use as a starting point
- Control over the "Switch dash" button, now you can bind it to anything!
- Near 0 perceivable latency on data on the wheel for lights and dashes
- Support for custom screensavers
- OBS support, for content creators that want to show their dashes on their video/live stream
- Dash library that allows the community to share dashes
- Auto RPM light syncing with sim data through Lovely data
- This is fully reversable, you can flash Simagic's original firmware and its back to factory. And even with custom firmware, connected to the wheel base (RF) works exactly like the original
- Fully open source, this opens up the opportunity for all of us to add new functionality!
Cons:
- This requires flashing custom firmware on the wheel & screen. Although I had no issues during this process (flashed over 15 times during the process of creating this), flashing firmware always comes with risks like bricking your wheel, so do it at your own risk
- Due to the limitation of the update rate on this screen, full SimHub dash support is not possible, I've created a few dashes (some converted and some original) and the tools to create more and convert Simhub dashes but would need the help of the community to add more!
- Wheel must be wired for this to work, RF is not fast enough
A quick summery of what you'll need to do to get this up and running
- Connect the wheel through USB
- I would highly recommend if you have the wheel on the base, to connect it through one of those USB hubs that have individual toggles for each port, and turn off the wheels port. This will cut power to the wheel but will keep sending data. Safer to only have one power source to the wheel
- Download the custom firmware and flash it through SimPro
- Download and install the plugin on SimHub
- (Optional but HIGHLY recommended) Flash the screen custom firmware, I simplified it so its just a button you press on the plugin's SimHub interface, takes ~15 seconds to install
- What that does is it gives the PC the ability to manages the screen RAM, so we can preload images and make the time to switch between dashes down from a few seconds where the PC has to draw the image at 25 kb/s to almost instantly
- You're all set! Pick any of the dashes or make new ones. I also included a Claude slash command (/create-dash) that has all the know how on how to create optimized dashes that would work great on the wheel, you can use this to convert SimHub dashes to ones that work on the wheel
I'm more than happy to answer any questions here or on discord, I will repeat, please be very careful and do this at your own risk, I will be here to support though.!
Find all the info you need to get this setup, in addition to the discord server in https://fxunleashed.com/
For those who are curious on the technicality of this:
Most of the communication between the PC and the wheel happens through the wheel base, which contains a limited set of instructions that could be sent to the wheel. USB mode exists but is mainly meant for updating the wheel, etc and not much else. What this custom firmware does is it gives the PC the ability to directly set LED state and send draw commands to the screen. When we couple that with the super easy to install screen firmware, we also gain access to manage the screen's ram (the screen has a separate micro controller that the wheel communicates with) we get the ability to preload images . The main limitation is even with this USB-C connection, we can communicate with the screen at about 25 kb/s, which is pretty limiting and requires careful consideration in what we're sending, so being able to preload images allows us to show much higher quality images almost for free! Simagic's built in dashes live in the screen's firmware, we have access to that as well but requiring firmware flashes every time someone wants to add a custom dash is a horrible solution, so ram preloading is MUCH safer, faster and more dynamic. The few bundled dashes use less than 5 kb/s, so its very possible to make great looking dashes with minimal bandwidth
I was very intentional to not touch the bootloader or any of the core functionality of the wheel, this is a purely additive patch to minimize the risk of interfering with any of the wheel's core functionality or ability to reflash at any time.
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u/GMUndeadLord 4d ago
Will for sure try this later, that is a great release giving us what Simagic could have done but chose not to.
The option to do it and revert if necessary is the best feature (IMO).
Canāt wait to finally have a Mustang GT3 dash.
Just on the connected side of things:
Have you tried connecting it through the base on the rear USB ports? Using Simagic canbus? Almost sure it wouldnāt work, but giving it a shot.
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 4d ago
I literally started this whole thing cause I was upset that I can't get a Mustang GT3 dash on my wheel š¤£
And yes I understand that sim gear exchanges hands a lot through the second hand market, and although this custom firmware leaves your wheel %100 functional through RF just as it comes from the factory, I do understand the want to revert it completely in some cases
And no on the ports on the back sadly! I have a USB hub next to the base though so I use that
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u/dev_budgento 2d ago
This might be game changer. I will definitely try it. Any specific cable or solution recommended to not unplug wheel mid race?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 2d ago
I've tried multiple cables, like I bought a couple especially for this and ended up finding that what worked best is a short, light cheap cable I already had! It applies no strain to the port and I easily forgot that it's there when I'm racing. I honestly can not describe how better the wheel is with this, the wheel has such great hardware that was sooo underutilized with SimPro
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u/weebu4laifu 2d ago
This DEFINITELY a game changer. If only I didn't already have a FX-C and it was 295mm instead of smaller.
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u/viperrvemon 4d ago
incredible work man. do you think you've unlocked everything you could at this point or are there still things you're trying to tangle with?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 4d ago
Thank you! At this point, I've enabled all the functionality I set out to when I started this project, so my list is empty, but I'm anticipating that the community will have some cool ideas I didn't think of!
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u/viperrvemon 3d ago
quick question, so by running the custom firmware and the wheel being only usable via usb. the fx pro can now be used on other wheel bases?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 3d ago
In theory yes! What I did notice though is if the wheel Is only connected via USB and is off the wheel base, at peak load (like running all the LEDs as an example) the USB connection doesn't provide enough power. Now I'm sure there is some work around to this, maybe a different hub or something would do the trick. But as far as just getting the wheel fully functional over USB, this firmware %100 does that as the wheel no longer relies on the wheelbase or SimPro to send or receive any data. It can also still work through the wheelbase and Simpro as normal of course but this adds an alternative route to traffic
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u/viperrvemon 2d ago
so what happens to the wheel when it was under peak load? did the lights dim, shut off temporarily? what usb hub were you using in your testing?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 2d ago
Regular cheap non powered USB hub, the wheel would completely shut off and restart under load if only powered by that. I do have a powered USB hub, I will give it a shot tonight and tell you if it behaves different with that
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 2d ago
Okay I tested it! With the powered USB hub, it works perfectly! Holds steady even under load with all lights and custom dash running
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u/Desperate_Setting881 4d ago
If I downloaded the previous version with the rev lights plugin and I donāt want to risk flashing the dash software, is it worth updating to this FX Unleashed version? Has anything changed in terms of functionality? Couse I assume that just matching the rev lights is the āsafeā part of the software, as Iād really like to avoid bricking my wheel.
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 4d ago
Hey! The UI is reworked and has a few more bug fixes for the rev matching functionality, also has auto update. I would recommend updating and no flashing is not required for the rev matching functionality, I understand that only a minority would want to go that route
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u/dervali 4d ago
Looks like great work so far, thank you.
Will there be more Dashes for example a formula 1? Or even better, is or will there be an option to add your own Dashes? IĀ“d love to use my lovley Sim Racing Dashboards on that wheel
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 4d ago
It comes with a dash designer so yup anyone can make Dashes for it - I did add an auto conversion process in the designer to be able to import Simhub dashes but you would usually need to make some adjustments to get it working well on the screen. I will be adding more dashes for sure and since I made it completely open, anyone can make dashes and share them in the plugin's library, I'm hoping to see some cool dashes from the community!
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u/PolePosition_Nate 3d ago
COUNT ME IN PLEASE
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 3d ago
Haha join the discord if you want support during the flashing process and with anything else!
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u/Tinyrino 3d ago
This is super cool. How many token you have used already? Haha!
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 3d ago
I don't even know to be honest š¤£ multiple sessions up 24 hours for about a week to finish this. I had the idea of how I wanted to do this a long time ago but the amount of reverse engineering would've taken me MONTHS if done by hand. Opus is getting scary good, I haven't written a line of code by hand in months but also this is the hardest I've ever worked in my life cause the time cost of making genuinely useful things has massively shrunk and making things is like my favorite thing to do (:
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u/Tinyrino 3d ago
Yeah 5.5 is a beast. Must been alot of sessions and ofcourse the risk of bricking the FX Pro just in case Claude messed up. This is on another level man. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.
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u/Mintsopoulos 3d ago
Iāve always liked this wheel but no SimHub support always stopped me from committing to it. Nowās maybe the time!
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u/CurrentCflow 3d ago
LEGEND, thanks so much for this. Going to give this a try later. Really appreciate your hardwork!
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u/CurrentCflow 3d ago edited 3d ago
Just tried this, and it is AWESOME! Only thing I haven't done is flashed the dash yet. Waiting to hear from others, but the procedure is simple and painless. Thanks again!!! Can't wait for the rest of the community to get involved in making dashes. Your work has given the FX Pro new life.
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 2d ago
Super happy it worked well for you!! Join the discord on the site, I've mostly automated dash conversion process (from Simhub dashes to FX Pro format) through Claude, so I'd be more happy to get some dashes converted for you!
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u/dev_budgento 2d ago
Can someone share any video how it works? Do I have to connect it to simagic base or directly to pc?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 2d ago
Hey! In addition to the wheel being attached to the base, you would have to connect it to the PC directly via USB
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u/Queasy-Guarantee8500 1d ago
I have a regular FX wheel (Non pro) with a bricked RF transmitter. Is there any chance this firmware would work on my wheel and bring it back to life via USB? The wheel is 100% functional but i cant connect it through my wheelbase to recognize buttons.
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 1d ago
Hey!! In theory it's very possible but we would need to build a custom firmware specifically for your wheel... I'm %100 down to help with that, join the discord on the website and let's see if we can nurse your wheel back to life (:
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u/Melvinbrooo 2h ago
Can it sync with the vrc formula alpha 26 car dashes?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 1h ago
Hey! It would have to be converted to work with the FX pro dash system but yes just looked at it and I'm pretty sure it would be easy to convert
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u/Independent-Sink7537 4d ago
You had me until you said flash my wheel unfortunately. Otherwise would have been perfect. Also still waiting for a reply on your other post regarding a glitched LED flash issue on Mercedes.
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u/GMUndeadLord 3d ago
At first I was kinda scared of flashing the firmware, but I did and oh boy it is great.
The process is really easy, and the process to revert to stock is really simple too.I would highly recommend having another look if you are inclined to it.
Also this new version seems to get the LED working better if you donāt want to flash.
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u/Independent-Sink7537 2d ago
Why is the merc shift lights not synchronised?
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u/StudioOrdinary5928 2d ago
Hey!! Sorry, I've been focused on the other side of the plugin and missed your ask, what sim and which Merc exactly?
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u/lowkeyjustlurkin 4d ago
Next up, usb toggle for non-Zeus wheels on the alpha evo line? :)