This tool of a very unimaginative name is mainly intended to test implementation of Force Feedback on Linux systems. It has a Qt5-based GUI that allows the user to set up parameters of the effects and play them back on their devices. Only Linux Force Feedback API and SDL2 is supported at the moment. Support for other interfaces such as DirectInput might be added in the future.
Choose the device on which you want to play the effects from the Devices combobox. If the desired device does not appear in the menu, try clicking Refresh to update the list of detected devices. Devices that you do not have access to due to insufficient privileges will not appear in the list. Once the device has been selected and successfully opened by FFBChecker you can set up effect parameters using the entry fields below.
- Effects of finite duration will still be listed as Playing by the GUI. Most Linux Force Feedback drivers do not report back when a finite effect has finished playing and FFBChecker does not currently check for respective event anyway.
- Clicking the Start button will upload the effect automatically if the effect has not been uploded before. Similar thing applies for the Remove button which stops the effect before it tries to remove it from the device.
- Clicking Upload/Update button on a playing effect will issue "live" update of the effect's parameters.
- Clicking Start when the selected effect is listed as Playing has no effect even if the parameters of the effect have changed or if the effect has finished playing. Use the Stop button to stop the effect and then Start again to restart it.
- Clicking Start when the selected effect is already listed as Uploaded does not update the parameters of the effect. If you adjusted the parameters after the effect had been uploaded, use the Upload/Update to pass the new parameters to your device.
cd into the source directory and run:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make
Note that at least CMake 3.1 is required.
SDL2 is an optional dependency on Linux. On distributions that ship CMake-enabled SDL2 builds, SDL2 gets configured automatically. In other cases the SDL2_XDIR variable must be set to point to a valid SDL2 library installation. Such a directory must contain include and lib directories with appropriate content.
To launch FFBChecker, run:
./FFBChecker