Using Simulator Controller - SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller GitHub Wiki

Using Simulator Controller is quite easy. The most difficult part will be the configuration, but fortunately, this has to be done only once. Please see the extensive Installation & Configuration guide for more information about this task.

Once you have configured everything for your simulation rig, there are two applications, which you will use while having fun with your simulations. Both applications are located in the Binaries folder. Normally, you will run Simlator Startup.exe to set the stage for everything. Depending on your choices during your initial installation, you will find a link to this program on your desktop and/or the Windows Start menu. Using the configuration tool you can also decide, whether Simulator Startup will be run automatically whenever your PC is started. When you run Simlator Startup.exe, you will see the following window:

This window will give you access to all applications of Simulator Controller. You will get some information about a given application, when you hover with the mouse above the icon. Beside starting any of the applications and tools of Simulator Controller, you can continue the startup process of all the components you need, when running a simulation, by clicking on the top left icon. Depending on your concrete configuration, Simulator Startup will then start all the configured component applications including Simulator Controller.exe, which will be responsible for the essential part, the control of all your simulation applications and simulator games using your hardware controller. Put a check mark in the check box in the lower left corner, when you want the launch window to be closed automatically, when you enter your simulation.

The two applications on the lower left and on the lower right side of the launch pad are a little bit special. With the left icon, you can run the monitoring dashboard which will normally be configured in the settings to start automatically, when starting the simulation. The icon on the lower right lets you start the update process, which checks whether a newer version of Simulator Controller is available and installs it for you. This check is done automatically once per day, so under normal circumstances there is no need to trigger it manually.

If you want to download and install a new version of Simulator Controller, it is important that none of the applications of the suite is running during the update. Please use the button "Close All..." in the lower right corner just before running the update.

Note: If you don't want to use the launch window and want Simulator Startup to run through, create a shortcut and add the option "-NoLaunchPad" to the Target field. When you use this shortcut file, no launch window will be shown, unless you hold down the Shift key, while running Simulator Startup. The other way around can also be used: If you press the Shift key while running Simulator Startup normally, no launch window will be shown and the startup process will run directly.

Startup Process & Settings

Before starting up, Simulator Startup checks the configuration information. If there is no valid configuration, a tool to edit the settings and supply a valid configuration will be launched automatically. You can trigger this anytime later by holding down the Control key when clicking on the Startup icon in Simulator Startup. The following settings dialog will show up:

With this editor, which can also be opened by clicking on the small button with the cog wheel icon in the upper right corner of the window of Simulator Startup, you can change the runtime settings for Simulator Controller. In contrast to the general configuration, which configures all required and optional components of your simulation rig, you decide here which of them you want to use for the next run and onward and how they should behave. Please note, that you can click on the blue label of the dialog title, which will open this documentation in your browser.

Beside maintaining this startup settings, you can jump to the configuration tool by clicking on the button "Configuration...". This might be helpful, if you detect an error in your simulation rig configuration or if you want to add a new simulation game, you just installed on your PC.

Customizing Startup Configuration

In the first group, you can decide which of the core applications configured in the Applications tab of the configuration tool should be started during the startup process. Normally you want to start all of them, after all they are core applications, right? A special case might be the "System Monitor", which gives you a great overview of the health state and the activities of all system components, but it needs some screen space and can therefore only be used during a simulation, if you have a second monitor in your setup.

The second group lets you decide whether to start the different feedback components of your simulation rig. In the configuration, that is part of the standard distribution of Simulator Controller, feedback is handled by the "Tactile Feedback" and "Motion Feedback" plugins, which on their side will use the SimHub and SimFeedback applications to implement their functionalities. These two applications may be started in advance during the startup process, but they also can be started later from your hardware controller. Me, myself and I, for example, almost always start SimHub in advance, since I will always use vibration effects to get a better understanding about what my tyres are doing, but I will start motion feedback later depending on the track and the kind of driving, I am in (training, racing, having fun with friends, and so on).

Customizing Controller Notifications

In the next group, you can decide, how Simulator Controller will notify you about state changes in your simulation rig or in the applications under control of Simulator Controller. Two types of notifications are supported, for Tray Tips (small message windows popping up in lower right corner of your main screen) and for Button Boxes, the visual representation of your controller hardware. Depending on the situation you are in (in simulation game or not), you might want to use different notifications or no notifications at all. You can configure, how long in milliseconds the Tray Tip or the Button Box windows will stay open. For the Button Boxes, a duration of 9999 ms will be interpreted as forever, so the window will be kept open all the time. Also, you can decide where the Button Boxes will appear. To do that, choose one of the corners of your main screen in the dropdown list below the notification duration input fields.

Some applications of Simulator Controller show you the progress of long-running tasks with a progress bar or popup some information windows as overlays in the foreground. You can choose the position where the overlays appear on your screen in the correspondinig dropdown list. If you are using a hardware dashboard, which hides the lower part of your screen, you can choose the "Top" position, for example.

Configuration of the Controller Mode automation

If you click on then button "Controller Automation...", a new dialog will open up, where you can select predefined Modes for your connected hardware controller.

You can choose the context with the first two dropdown menus, for example 1. when no simulation is running or 2. when you are in a given simulator and there in a practice session. Then you select the Modes (see the documentation for Plugins & Modes for more information), which will be automatically activated for this context. Please note, that more than one mode will only make sense, if you have more than one hardware controller connected, and when each mode only use one of these hardware controllers exclusively.

Theme and Splash Screen configuration

In the lower part of the settings dialog, you can choose one of the color schemes to be used for all applications and you can select one of the splash screens, which will be used for your entertainment during the startup process. Please see the installation guide on how to install your own media files in a special location in your Documents folder and hot to use the splash screen editor. If you decide to play a song while starting your Simulator Controller applications and even your favorite simulation game, the song will keep playing until you press the left mouse button or the Escape key, even if Simulator Startup has exited already.

Last, but not least, you can choose a simulation game from your list of Simulators and start it automatically, after all other startup tasks have finished.

More Settings & Configurations

Here is an overview for the all settings and configuration options for the various parts of Simulator Controller:

Simulator Settings

Maintained by the "Simulator Startup" application and is stored in the Simulator Settings.ini file in the Simulator Controller\Config folder in your user Documents folder. As described above, these settings influence the startup process of Simulator Controller and where on your screen the visual representations of your Button Boxes will appear.
Simulator Configuration

Maintained by the "Simulator Configuration" and the more simple "Simulator Setup" applications and stored in Simulator Configuration.ini, Button Box Configuration.ini and Stream Deck Configuration.ini files in the Simulator Controller\Config folder in your user Documents folder. This configuration contains the complete configuration of all your hardware and software with regards to Simulator Controller. Typically this will be very static, once you have found a satisfying configuration, at least, until you add another piece of hardware or new software. See the documentation for the configuration tool for more information.
Race (Assistant) Settings

Maintained by the "Race Settings" and "Session Database" applications and stored in the Race.settings file in the Simulator Controller\Config folder in your user Documents folder. Whenever you start a race (or even a training session), the Virtual Race Assistants will use these settings to control various functionality, for example, how to react to damages, when to change tyres after a severe weather change, and so on. You can edit these settings with the "Race Settings" application just before each session, or you can manage a lot of the setting values by using the "Session Database" application and store default values depending on a given car / track / weather combination. See the corresponding documentation for more information.

Using Simulator Controller

After closing the configuration dialog, the actual startup process begins. Normally, you will be greeted by a splash screen and will see a pogress bar which informs you about what the system is currently doing. If you decide to stop the startup process, you can do this by pressing Escape anytime. If you decide that you want to start your favorite simulation (the first one in the Simulators list (see the General tab in the configuration tool) after the startup process has finished, you can do this by holding down the Control key during the startup process, even if you haven't checked the startup option in the configuration dialog above.

After the startup process has completed, the splash screen of Simulator Startup may stay open still playing a video or showing pictures, unless a simulation has been started as well. You can close it anytime by pressing Escape or it will disappear automatically, when a simulator starts up. But the background process Simulator Controller.exe including all the configured plugins will keep running and now is in complete control of your simulation rig. Depending on your configuration, you will see the visual representation of your controller hardware, i.e. a Button Box.

Normally, the active mode on your hardware controller will be the "Launch" mode, so that you can launch additional applications by the touch of a button. For a complete documentation on everything available in the "Simulator Controller" application, please consult the documentation about Plugins & Modes.

Normally, it is not necessary to close Simulator Controller.exe, since it is very efficient and does not use many system resources. But if necessary, you can locate its icon, a small orange cog wheel, in the System Tray (at the lower right side of the Windows taskbar), right click the icon and choose Exit.

Enabling and disabling functions

Simulataor Controller is a modular software and consists of many functions, which can be enabled or disabled during runtime. Beside using buttons on your hardware controller to enable or disable these functions, for example the connection to the Team Server or whether Track Automations will be active during the current session, you can also control most of them from the tray menu of the "Simulator Controller" application. Please don't touch the options in the "Support" submenu, unless told you so when tracking down problems.

Beside manually enabling and disabling functions when enterring a session, you can also manage your preferences using the so called startup profiles as described in the following section.

Startup Profiles

Managing the different functions, as well as some function specific configurations and settings can be quite time-consuming, when you participate in very different kind of sessions. The setup for a team race using the Team Server is very different from running a local practice session or a race against the AI of a given simulator. Therefore, Simulator Controller provides the possibility to manage the most common settings as a profile and you can choose and activate a given profile while starting Simulator Controller by clicking on the green triangle. You can open the startup profiles editor by either exactly hitting the small cog wheel icon in the "Startup" button or by holding down the Control key while clicking on the "Startup" button. The following window appears:

In this editor you create as many different startup profiles as you want. Only one of them will be active as indicated by the checkmark in the list and will be used during the startup process. The profile named "Standard" is special, as it indicates no startup profile (all settings will be loaded normally from the sources described above).

If you want to create a startup profile, click on the button with the small "+" and give this profile a unique name. You may also use the copy button to create a copy of an already existing profile, but make sure that you change the name afterwards, so that all profile names are unique. And you can also export and import profiles to share them with your team mates, for example, using the corresponding buttons. Also take care here that all your profile names are unique before leaving the dialog.

Good to know: If you hold down the Control key when clicking on the "Download" button, only the currently selected profile will be exported, otherwise all your profiles will be in the export file.

You can choose whether a profile will start a solo or a team session and you can decide whether you want to run the "Practice Center" or the "Race Center" automatically during startup. Please note, that running the "Race Center" is only useful in a team session.

You can choose furthermore, which Assistants will be available and whether they will talk and listen to you.

Setting	Description
Default	The Assistant will be configured as defined elsewhere in your configuration (for example, in the settings in the "Session Database").
Disabled	The Assistant is fully disabled (i.e. will not be started when you enter a session). But: This also disables all their services like collecting telemetry data, calculating ideal cold tyre pressures or handling track automation events. Therefore, this is not recommended, with the exception of the Driving Coach, which does not participate in this stuff.
Silent	Using "Silent" disables the voice interaction of the given Assistant completely. The Assistant will perform its actions normally, as long as no permission must be granted by the driver (unless fully autonomous mode is enabled).
Muted	"Muted" means, that the Assistant is fully active, including voice capabilities. But the Assistant will not contact the driver pro-actively, for example, to inform about an upcoming weather change. The Assistant will, however, react to voice commands and will allow full voice interaction, as long as the dialog is opened by the driver.
Active	This is the normal operation mode of the Assistant with all voice capabilities enabled.

Note: Although it is technically possible to configure an Assistant with enabled voice output, but disabled voice recognition, this kind of configuration is not offered in the startup profiles, since in environment with an active Push-To-Talk button, this configuration is not necessary.

Additionally, you can activate the "Autonomous Mode" for strategy handling by the Assistants, if required. "Default" is available here as well.

If the Team Server is part of your configuration and if you have chosen "Team" as the Mode of the startup profile, you can configure all team session related stuff on the second tab.

If you are the team manager, you can open up the team configuration editor in "Simulator Configuration" by clicking on the "Manage..." button. When you have created and saved a new team session there it will be loaded into the startup profile automatically. Otherwise, if you participate as a driver in a team session, you can either use the application "Race Settings" to manage your driver credentials, or you can enter them directly into the startup profile by chosing "Save with Profile" in the Credential drop down. The input fields below have the same meaning and behaviour as those in the "Race Settings" application.

On the last tab you can select or deselect several functions provided by the different plugins of Simulator Controller. What is available here, totally depends on your overall configuration.

The checkbox for each function has three states - selected, deselected and indeterminated. The later means that the setting for this function will be used that has been defined elsewhere in your configuration (for example, in the settings in the "Session Database"). See the following list for a description of each function:

Module	Function	Type	Description
Driving Coach	Performance Analysis	Setting	If enabled, the standings data, lap and sector times and so on are collected and are provided to the Driving Coach for further analysis.
	Handling Anlaysis	Setting	If enabled, information about over- and understeering are collected during driving and are provided to the Driving Coach for further analysis.
Race Spotter	Track Automation	Controller Action	Enables or disables the Track Automation for the given session.
Race Strategist	Telemetry Collection	Setting	If enabled, general telemetry data is collected by the Strategist during the given session.
	Traffic Analysis	Setting	If this setting is enabled, the Strategist will use a Monte Carlo simulation model to create a probability distribution for the further race development, thereby finding the best possible lap for the next pitstop (see this Wikipedia entry for an introduction to Monte Carlo methods). WARNING: This will consume lots of CPU cycles and can take quite some time. It is strongly advised, to let this setting disabled, unless you own a really powerful PC. In team races, it is possible to run the Monte Carlo simulation in the "Race Center", thereby offloading the computational load from the drivers PC.
Race Engineer	Pressure Collection	Setting	If enabled, pressures (hot and cold) are collected by the Engineer during the given session.
	Fuel Warning	Setting	If enabled, the Engineer will issue fuel warnings during the given session.
	Damage Warning	Setting	If enabled, the Engineer will issue damage warnings during the given session.
	Pressure Warning	Setting	If enabled, the Engineer will issue pressure loss warnings during the given session.
	Pressure Correction by Temperature	Setting	If enabled, the trend of the air temperature will be considered to apply a small correction to the setup pressures at the next pitstop.
	Pressure Correction from Database	Setting	If enabled and if cold tyre pressures are available in the pressure database for the current environmental conditions, these values will also be used to calculate the setup pressures at the next pitstop.
	Pressure Correction for Pressure Loss	Setting	If enabled, a detected pressure loss of a tyre will be considered and a correction to the setup pressure at the next pitstop will be automatically applied.
	Pitstop Service	Setting	If enabled, pitstop service handling will be available during the given session. You won't want to disable this, right?
Motion Feedback	Motion	Controller Action	Enables or disables the motion of a motion rig.
Tactile Feedback	Pedal Vibration	Controller Action	Enables or disables the pedal vibration motors.
	Front Vibration	Controller Action	Enables or disables the the vibration motors at the front of the rig.
	Rear Vibration	Controller Action	Enables or disables the the vibration motors at the rear of the rig.

Finally, if you are ready to start, choose the profile you want to start with and close the startup profiles editor. Then click again on the green triangle to start Simulator Controller with the selected profile. As a shortcut, you can hold down the Control key while saving and closing the startup profiles editor, which will trigger the startup process automatically.

Note: If you want "Simulator Startup" to use a specific startup profile independent from what is chosen in the configuration of the startup profiles, you can run "Simulator Startup.exe" with the "-Startup [Profile]" option, where [Profile] is the name of the profile you want to use (possibly enclosed in quotes). This is especially helpful together with the "-NoLaunchPad" option, when running "Simulator Startup" from a Stream Deck, for example.

Managing common team settings

In many cases all drivers in a given team want to share the same configuration. And in many cases, there is a member of the team, who took the role of the team manager. He will prepare races, configure the Team Server and will have the deepest understanding of Simulator Controller in his team. This team manager can prepare a package for all his team mates which can be imported by every driver using a special preset in "Simulator Setup". This package must be a folder, which can contain the following components:

Startup.settings

This file contains the Startup Profiles as described above. It can be found in the Simulator Controller\Config folder in your user Documents folder.
Race.settings

This file contains all the choices you have made in the "Race Settings" application. It can also be found in the Simulator Controller\Config folder in your user Documents folder.
Session Database.ini

Contains information about the Team Server connection of the local telemetry database. If you have configured a data replication with the Team Server, you will want to enable it for all your team mates as well. This file can also be found in the Simulator Controller\Config folder in your user Documents folder.
Exports from the "Session Database"

You can prepare any number of exports from your session database you want to share with your team mates. Normally you want to use the Control key while exporting the settings from your "Session Database", so that everythig is included. You can also export telemetry data, track maps and other stuff from the administration page of the "Session Database". Put all the export folders into the folder of the team package.

The content of a typical folder of common team settings should look like this:

Now you can zip this folder and send it to your team mates. They have to unzip it, start "Simulator Setup" and use the special preset "Import Settings for your team" to import the stuff. For settings, telemetry data and so on, you can select item by item, which you want to import.

Voice Commands

The Simulator Controller framework supports a sophisticated natural language interface. This capability is used by the Race Assistants Jona and Cato, thereby allowing a fully voice enabled dialog between you and these Assistants, but the voice recognition can also be used to control parts of your controller hardware by voice commands.

With the introduction of a new Race Assistant in Release 3.1 there are now several different communication partners and it is very important that the system understands, to whom you are talking. Therefore an activatiom command, very simular to other digital Assistants like Alexa or Cortana, has been introduced. For the Assistants Jona and Cato this is the call phrase "Hey %name%", where %name% is the configured name of the Assistant. For example, if you say "Hi Jona" or "Jona, can you hear me?" for example (as long as you sticked to the preconfigured name "Jona"), the Virtual Race Engineer will start to listen to the following commands. Jona will give you a short answer, so you know that the activation was successful. Beside this activation, the dedicated listen mode will also be activated, when any of the Assistants has asked you a question and is waiting for the answer. The listen mode of the Simulator Controller itself, which allows you to trigger controller actions by voice, must be activated by an activation command as well, if you have more than one dialog partner active. This activation command can be configured in the voice control tab of the configuration tool. When this activation command is recognized, you will hear a short chime tone as confirmation and the system is ready to activate controller actions by voice. Please note, that you also hear a different short tone, when you have pressed the Push-To-Talk control in order to tell you, that you can issue your voice command.

Activation commands vs. normal commands

Before version 5.5.8 of Simulator Controller, it was necessary to press the Push-To-Talk button twice (like a double click with the mouse) to initiate an activation command. This is no longer necessary in most cases, but there is an exception. If you have configured the Virtual Driving Coach and you are using the voice recognition which comes with the Windows operating system (not "Azure" or "Google"), you will have to use the following method to activate another dialog partenr, once you are talking with the Driving Coach:

You have to press the configured Push-To-Talk button twice like double-clicking a mouse button, you will activate a special listener, which only accepts the activation phrases. The last button press of the double-press must be held down as long as you speak, if you have configured the "Hold & Talk" behaviour as described below.

Good to know: You can alter the speed for the two clicks or presses (Windows default is 500 ms) in the core settings.

As said, this way to initiate an activation command is only required for the voice recognition services that are run locally (part of the Windows operating system) together with the Driving Coach. When using Azure or Google voice recognition, you can simply push the Push-To-Talk button once and issue a normal command or an activation command as you like. The double-press method is supported everywhere as well, though, to keep things consistent.

Push-To-Talk Behaviour

Beside the behaviour of the Push-To-Talk button described above, where you need to hold down the button as long as your are talking, there is an alternative mode available. This mode allows you to release the button while you are talking. Once, you have finished your voice command, you press the Push-To-Talk button again, to indicate that you have finished and that the command should be executed. This alternative mode can be enabled voice control configuration.

Please don't forget to press the Push-To-Talk button at the end of your speech, even, if the command had already been recognized, because you made a long pause. If you don't push the button, the sequence will get out of sync and you will end up being very confused.

Testing voice configuration and voice commands

After you have finished all the required installation and configuration steps (especially for the voice support of the Assistants), you can test the dialog with two different Assistants. To do this, please open a Windows command shell (type Windows-R => cmd => Return), go to the Binaries folder of the Simulator Controller distribution and enter the following commands (or go the the Utilities folder in the installation folder and double-click the file "Voice Test.bat"):

D:\Controller\Binaries>"Voice Server.exe" -Debug true

D:\Controller\Binaries>"Race Engineer.exe" -Debug true -Speaker true -Listener true -Language DE -Name Jona -Logo true

D:\Controller\Binaries>"Race Strategist.exe" -Debug true -Speaker true -Listener true -language EN -Name Cato -Logo true

Both, the Virtual Race Engineer and the Virtual Race Strategist will start up and will listen to your commands (Jona will be a german personality, while Cato will use English to talk with you). Please note, that if you configured Push-To-Talk in the configuration, you need to hold the respective button, while talking. Since no simulation will be running during your test, the functionality of Jona und Cato will be quite restricted, but you may switch between those Assistants using the activation phrase and you may ask some questions like "Is rain ahead?" or "Wird es regnen?". You may also start the Virtual Race Spotter here, but this will be of no big use, since the Spotter does not answer many questions.

Note: When using the voice test, it is necessary due to technical reasons to use the double-press for activation commands. If there is only one dialog partner configured, this will be activated for listen mode by default. In this situation, no activation command is necesssary.

Beside the builtin voice recognition capabilities, you can still use specialized external voice recognition appplications like VoiceMacro as an external event source for controller actions, since these specialized applications might have a better recognition quality in some cases.

Non-standard voice configurations

Normally you will use a standard configuration for voice control, which means, that voice output is enabled for the Assistants and voice input is enabled to issue commands to the Assistants. In this case, you can give your commands and answer questions of the Assistants with "Yes" or "No", dpending on the situation. But all other combinations are also possible, even using the Assistants fully silent will work, for example in a Team Race, where everything is controller by the "Race Center". Below you find a detailed description for all non-standard configurations.

Muted Assistant(s)

"Simulator Setup" provide a preset for each Assistant, which will let the corresponding start in the so called muted mode. In this mode, the Assistant will not talk unless a very critical situation occurs, or if you actively address the Assistant with a command. For example, the Engineer will not inform you about damages and will not call you to the pit, when the time loss is to high. You can always unmute the Assistant later on, using the corresponding voice command.
Silent Assistant(s)

For this purpose, "Simulator Setup" also provides a corresponding preset. Using this will completely disable voice output and input for the given Assistant. Commands issued by a Button Box or Stream Deck will still work and especially the remote control of the "Race Center" will work as well.
No voice control for one or more Assistant(s)

You can disable voice input for one or more Assistants. It can either be done for all Assistants by disabling voice input on the voice control page in "Simulator Setup". Disabling it for an individual Assistant is also possible, but requires low level configuration in "Simulator Controller". When voice input is disabled, I recommand using the corresponding actions on a Button Box or a Stream Deck to interact with the Assistant. And you may want to configure the confirmation behaviour as described below.

Confirmation behaviour

This is more or less independent of the voice configuration. There are many cases, in which the Assistants ask you a question and wait then for your confirmation. In this case, you can either answer using a voice command or by pressing the "Accept" action button on your controller. But there are also a couple of settings in the "Session Database", with which you can customize the behaviour in case of a question/confirmation for different situations. For example, using the "Engineer: Confirm Pitstop Preparation", you can specify, how the Engineer should behave, when he wants to prepare a pitstop. Three options are available:

Setting Value	Description
Never	The Assistant will not ask you for confirmation, but will directly perform the task, as if you have answered with "Yes". This choice is very helpful, if you have fully disabled voice control and want the Assistants to be as autonomous as possible.
Listening	This choice will let the Assistant ask for confirmation if, and only if voice input is enabled. If this is not the case, the corresponding task is NOT performed. This is a good setting, if you want to use the Assistants only for information purposes or if the car is fully remote controlled by the "Race Center".
Always	This is the default for all confirmation settings. "Always" means, that the Assistant will ask for confirmation, even if voice input is disabled. In this case, you can either ignore the question (the task is not performed by the Assistant), or you can answer using the "Accept" or "Reject" actions on your Button Box or Stream Deck.

Jona, the Virtual Race Engineer

Release 2.1 introduced Jona, an artificial Race Engineer as an optional component of the Simulator Controller package. Since Jona is quite a complex piece of software with its natural language interface, it is fully covered in a separate documentation chapter.

Cato, the Virtual Race Strategist

Using the technology developed for Jona, Release 3.1 introduced an additional Race Assitant. This Assistant is named Cato and is a kind of Race Strategy Expert. It is also fully covered in a separate documentation chapter.

Elisa, the Virtual Race Spotter

The third Assistant, Elisa, is not so much of a dialog partner, but gives you crucial information about the traffic, your opponents and the current race situation. See the separate documentation chapter for more information.

Aiden, the Virtual Driving Coach

The fourth Assistant, Aiden, is a little bit different. You can talk to this Assistant after activating it and ask any question in the area of car racing, both in the real world as well as sim racing. See the separate documentation chapter for more information.

Controller Commands

If you have configured one or more hardware controllers (Button Boxes, Stream Decks or even your steering wheel), you will have the possibility to trigger almost all commands for the Virtual Race Assistants and other functionalities of Simulator Controller with your hardware. Sometimes it will be much more convenient (and faster) to tell Jona to plan the upcoming pitstop with a simple press of a button. You will find a complete overview and instructions on how to configure all those controller actions in the documentation about Plugins & Modes or you can use "Simulator Setup", which provides a graphical point and click environment to configure controller actions.

Please note, that you can mix voice commands and commands triggered by the controller hardware freely, so choose your weapon depending on the current situation on the track.

External Commands

There is also the possibility to trigger actions in Simulator Controller from other applications. There are several ways to do this, but the most easy ones are:

Keyboard commands

As you have seen in the chapter about Installation & Configuration, every action or command in Simulator Controller can be activated from any hardware controller like Button Boxes, Stream Decks or your steering wheel, but you can also define keyboard shortcuts, called Hotkeys, to achieve the same effect. These keyboard shortcuts can be triggered not only from the keyboard, but also from other applications, as long as they are able to send events to other applications.
Command scripts

Not every application can easily send keyboard commands to other applications, for example Windows .BAT or .CMD scripts. A second method exists therefore, that uses a script file as an interface. You can create a file named "Controller.cmd" in the Simulator Controller\Temp folder which resides in your user Documents folder. This file is checked every 100 ms, and if it is not empty, it will be processed and afterwards truncated. Here is in example for a "Controller.cmd":

2WayToggle.1 On Button.1 Button.2 Dial.4 Decrease Custom.37

This will achieve the same effect as pushing or rotating the corresponding controls on your hardware controller. See the corresponding documentation to see which controller functions (1WayToggle, 2WayToggle, Button, Dial and Custom) are available and especially how to define Custom controller functions (which are typically not assiciated with a Button Box or a Stream Deck) using the configuration tool. As you have seen in the above example, you must use On and Off as a second argument for 2WayToggle, and Increase and Decrease for Dial, to specify the desired change.

A last note for experienced users: Together with the execute controller action function, you can create powerful macros. Create a Custom controller function, which can be triggered by a button, for example on your steering wheel. This Custom function executes a Windows command script wich the writes a "Controller.cmd" file as described above.

Audio Routing

Simulator Controller allows you to direct sound output (for example the voices of the different Race Assistants) to different audio devices, as long as the additional software SoX is installed and configured. This is mainly of interest to those of you, who are streaming their races, or when you want maximum immersion by directing car sound to a 5.1 sound system, but the assistant voices to your headphone. Since this if not of widespread use, there is no user interface to configure this. Instead, a simple text file is used. If you want to configure your audio routing, create a text file with the name "Audio Settings.ini" and place it in the Simulator Controller\Config folder which is located in your user Documents folder. Open it with a text editor and enter the following content:

[Output]
Driving Coach.AudioDevice=Headphone
Race Spotter.AudioDevice=Headphone
Race Engineer.AudioDevice=Headphone
Race Strategist.AudioDevice=Headphone

Supported output routes are:

Route	Description
Activation	The short acknowledge sound, when the Push-2-Talk button is pressed.
Driving Coach	All voice output by the Driving Coach.
Race Spotter	All voice output by the Race Spotter.
Race Engineer	All voice output by the Race Engineer.
Race Strategist	All voice output by the Race Strategist.
Controller	The short acknowledge sound, when the Controller itself received a voice command or was activated for voice control.
Analyzer	The feedback sound of the Telemetry Analyzer for over- or understeer handling events.

Headphone is only an example for any configured audio device which is named "Headphone" in the standard Windows settings. You only have to enter those lines, where you want to configure a non-default audio device. If nothing is configured here, the currently in the Windows settings selected default audio device will be used.

As you might expect, you can configure voice input as well. There are some additional things to consider, though, as you can see in the example below.

[Input]
Default.AudioDevice=Streaming
Activation.AudioDevice=Headphone
Driving Coach.AudioDevice=Headphone
Race Spotter.AudioDevice=Headphone
Race Engineer.AudioDevice=Headphone
Race Strategist.AudioDevice=Headphone
Controller.AudioDevice=Headphone

Supported input routes are:

Route	Description
Default	Default audio input device, which should be active whenever no voice input is captured by Simulator Controller.
Activation	Listens to the activation phrases, as you might expect. Typically you will use here the same input device here, you use to talk to the Assistants.
Driving Coach	All voice input for the Driving Coach.
Race Spotter	All voice input for the Race Spotter.
Race Engineer	All voice output for the Race Engineer.
Race Strategist	All voice output for the Race Strategist.
Controller	Listens to the voice commands directly issued to the Controller, for example to switch between track automations.

First you have to identify the default audio input device, which should be active whenever no voice input is captured by Simulator Controller (i.e. the Push-To-Talk button is not activated). This may be important, when you are using different microphones, for example, because you are streaming your race on a video platform. In the example above, this microphone device is named "Streaming". This setting must be identical to that you have chosen in the Windows settings, otherwise you won't get the desired results.

All other input routes are typically set to the same input device, normally the microphone of your headset. Don't be confused here, because, similar to the output settings shown above, you only have to enter those audio devices, which differ from the default audio device. Please note, that changing the input audio device is only supported when the additional software NirCmd is installed and configured.

A final note here: Make sure, that all your audio devices are named differently, even when they belong to the same type of equipment, for example a headset. Otherwise you will have unwanted effects. Example: Name the speakers of your headset "HeadsetSpeaker" and the microphone of your headset "HeadsetMic" in your Windows sound settings. Doing this you can activate them seperately.

Keyboard shortcuts & modifiers

Many applications of Simulator Controller provide modifier keys for several functions. You can find a list of all modifiers and their functionalities here.

Fixing problems

Windows is an operating system with many, and sometimes confusing, security features. In many situations, Windows will prevent execution of executables and DLLs, which have been downloaded from an unknown location. This can be prevented by digitally signing those files, but this comes with some cost and is therefore not an option for free Open Source software.

If you encounter problems during runtime, for example, that application cannot be started or that voice commands cannot be registered, this can be due to WIndows preventing the execution of components of Simulator Controller, especially, if you have downloaded the software as a ZIP and installed it manually. In this case start "Simulator Setup" and unblock the files following the instructions on the second page of the wizard, or start "Simulator Startup" while holding down the Control together with the Shift key. In both cases, the software will elevate the privileges (you will be asked to run the software in Admin mode) and the runtime components will be unblocked.

Monitoring health and activities

Simulator Controller is a complex system with lots of different processes and even uses cloud-based servers when you are using the Team Server. In such a complex system, lots of things can go wrong and it is therefore important to understand the internal state and activities of all parts of the system. This is, where the "System Monitor" comes into play.

This tool, which either can be startet on demand by using the launch pad described above or automatically whenever you enter a simulation with Simualtor Controller (check "System Monitor" in the Core section of the settings as described above), provides you complete information about all the components of Simulator Controller. In order to give you a quick graphical clue, "System Monitor" uses color-coded traffic lights for each component and process.

Color	Meaning
	Not started currently. An example is the current simulation, if no simulation game is currently running.
	Started, but waiting to become active. For example, you have started the game but you are in the main menus.
	Component is up and running. No known operation problems.
	Component is up, but no normal operation is possible. Example: The Race Assistants have a cool down time after the end of a session.
	Somthing is wrong and might need your attention. Example: The connection to the Team Server cannot be established.

The "System Monitor" is divided into several pages of information:

Dashboard

This page gives an overview over the most important functions and background processes. You can see, when a running simulation has been detected, whether the Race Assistants are active, whether the connection to the Team Server has been sucessfully established and so on. The traffic lights will show you the health state at a glance using the color coding described above and a couple of important detail informations will be provided as well.
Session

On this page you will find important information about the currently running session, be it the remaining stint time and remaining laps or the tyre temperatures, and so on.

The following information components are available:
- Session
  
  Shows you information about the car, track and session mode. Not so important.
- Duration
  
  Gives information about session length, remaining session, stint and driver time, and so on.
- Conditions
  
  Shows the current weather and temperatures as well as an outlook for the next 30 minutes.
- Stint
  
  Information about the current driver, the position, the current lap, lap times and the number of laps driven in this stint so far.
- Fuel
  
  Detailed information about fuel consumption, remaining fuel and remaining possible laps.
- Tyres
  
  Shows the current pressures and tyre temperatures, and tyre wear, if available.
- Brakes
  
  Shows the current brake temperatures, and brake wear, if available.
- Standings
  
  Gives you detailed information about your most important opponents, the leader, the car in front of you and the car behind you. For each opponent, the number of laps, the gap in seconds and the lap time is shown.
- Strategy
  
  This component give you a summary about the active strategy, if any. Most important is the summary about the next pending pitstop.
- Pitstop
  
  When an upcoming pitstop has been planned, this component will show you all relevant settings like fuel amount, tyre compound and pressures, as well as selected repairs. If no current pitstop is planned, this component shows a forecast for the next pitstop.
- Damage
  
  Shows the information about the current damage of the car, if any.
In most cases, redundant information is suppressed. For example, if the remaining session, stint and driver time are identical, only the remaining time is shown.

The components, that will be shown, as well as the update frequency of the information can be configured by clicking on the settings button in the upper right corner of the "System Monitor" window.
Team

Since it is such an important part of the operation in team events, the connection to the Team Server has its own page of information. Beside monitoring your own connection to the Team Server you will see which other drivers are currently successfully connected to the Team Server and who is currently driving the car. You will also be warned if there is a mismatch in driver names, since driver name match is a very important aspect of the operation of the Team Server.
Modules

A more detailed view than the Dashboard, since a list of all components of Simulator Controller and their current health state will be shown here. In the "Information" column, you will get a short summary of the current state of operation, but you will also see detailed error messages here, when a component is in a critical state.
Logs

Provides a very low level view into the operation of Simulator Controller. All applications write log information, especially when errors or other unexpected situations occur. The recent log entries of all applications will be displayed here in this list. You can switch between log levels for all currently running applications with the dropdown menu in the lower right corner, but be aware that chossing "Info" might slow down the applications significantly. So use this only when tracking down problems.

Final note: The information provided by "System Monitor" is asynchronous by nature, in order to not interfere with some time critical operations of other parts of the system. Therefore it can take a couple of seconds before problems will be visible. If you loose the connection to the Team Server, for example, it might not become evident, when no requests against against the Server are currently being issued. Also it is possible that state information is not updated anymore, when central backgroud processes, first and formost "Simulator Controller.exe" have been terminated manually.

And now it's time

...to have some fun. If you like Simulator Controller and find it useful, I would be very happy about a small donation, which will help in the further development of this software. Please see the README for the donation link. Thanks and see you on the track...