X52 Pro: Clutch function never shows button functionality on MFD

[Mike A. Harris]

Got a new X52 Pro with rudders also. Created a new profile, programmed the buttons and whatnot to do what I wanted and have loaded the profile and tested it in the game (X-Wing Alliance) and it works pretty decently, so I know the profile is actually loaded into the joystick and throttle.

The MFD on the X52 Pro's throttle however never ever shows anything other than:

MODE <1, 2, or 3>

+------------------------------------+
|Mode 1 |
| |
|No Profile |
+------------------------------------+

and the clock/date.

Note that it *always* says "Mode 1" in the center part of the display,
even when the joystick mode switch is moved to Mode 2 or 3, however
the Mode number at the very top of the display always reflects the
correct mode number.

I'm also unable to use the clutch button to use the "on the fly" profile
selection, and the clutch does not actually seem to do anything at all
period other than flash 2 of the LEDs. ie: The ability to have the
name/functionality of the button press show up on the display does not
work at all for me, even though I've named every single one of the
buttons I programmed. ;o/

The box the X52 Pro came in, claims that you can change the colour of
the LEDs also, and it is clearly shown on the box that they can be red
or green at least, however there is no visible way to configure the LED
colours anywhere in the control panel software or profile editor that
I am able to find.

I love the Saitek gear so far, but some of the advertised functionality is
totally not working, and so far it doesn't appear to be anything that I've
done wrong. The documentation does not tell how to program the LED
colour either (although you can set the brightness, and that does work).

If someone from Saitek could advise me, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.



(And sorry for the horrible ASCII art above... Even though I chose a
monospace font in the HTML font picker, the actual text you type in is
a proportional font which is non-conducive to ASCII art drawing...)

[GoNz0]

yeh they didnt get the software out with the release of the 52pro, but were all tinkering with the beta software at the mo, although that damn mode bug is there on mine i have got round it by manually editing out the name MODE1 from the config file.

for now though, try the beta suite, grab the pro driver and the SST software from this page http://www.saitekforum.com/showthread.php?t=11552

you can change all the colours about using the new beta control panel. and if the mode bugs still there for you then you can go into

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Saitek SD6 Profiles\xxx.pr0

xxx.pr0 being whatever profile you made and open with notepad.
once in there search for


[button=0x0009001C name='Mode 1' latchable=false]

and change it to

[button=0x0009001C name=' ' latchable=false]

you can do that for modes 2 and 3 if you havn't already deleted the shift modes, i deleted all shift modes as i wanted my pinkie switch back.

let me know how you get on with the beta :)

[Mike A. Harris]

Thanks for the beta software suggestion. I've been reading some of the forums and it seems that the new software should fix a lot of bugs/glitches people have been reporting, and expose more of the advertised but missing functionality.

Here's a recap of what I did since my initial postings, in case someone has the same problem and stumbles upon my posting here:


Update on this problem: I thought I'd try reinstalling the latest drivers and SST software for the X52 by downloading them manually from the Saitek site, so I installed the following current official release (non-beta) items:

ftp://ftp.saitek.com/pub/software/x5..._171006_32.exe
ftp://ftp.saitek.com/pub/software/x5..._191206_32.exe

After installing these, and restarting the SST software, the following problems are now fixed for me:

- MFD display shows "Mode 1/2/3" properly on the first line of the 3-line
display section, not just "Mode 1" all the time.

- MFD display shows the currently loaded profile name correctly on line 3.

- Clutch mode *works* now, both for loading profiles, unloading profiles,
and navigating profile directories.

- Clutch mode *works* for showing the names you've given for the various
buttons, etc. and if they are too long to fit on the display, it scrolls them
by in the middle line of the MFD.

- Even when Clutch mode is not enabled, the button presses show up on
the second line of the MFD, which could be considered a bonus-feature
I suppose.


Problems I'm encountering with current drivers/software (minor):

- Still doesn't seem to be a way to program the LED colors globally or
per profile, or some other more complex method. Other posts in the
forums suggest that this is taken care of to some extent in the current
beta drivers/software, so no big deal.

- The MFD's right hand wheel/button which is used now to set the LED and
MFD brightness, has to be turned forward or backward 4 "bumps" in order
to see the LED or MFD brightness change one single level visibly. This
problem also was previously reported by others in the forums, and Saitek
has mentioned it is much better now in the beta drivers also. Perhaps
they could make the rate-of-change of brightness be controlled in the
control panel. Some users might want to be able to set each individual
level of brightness very fine grained, while others might be willing to give
up some fine-tuning for a more granular shift in brightness that is quicker
and easier to set. Would be nice to be able to please both types of users.



I think the problems that happened for me, is that I installed the X52 Pro drivers and software *first*, and then the Pro Flight rudder drivers and software, only the latter CD says version 1.0, while the X52 Pro's CD says "version 2.0" on it. This probably overwrote the newer software with the older software perhaps.

Having said that though, it was a totally end-user-innocent mistake that I think many people might easily make. As a suggestion to Saitek, I'd suggest when multiple products ship the same software, that every version of the software always checks that there isn't already a newer version of it installed on the system prior to installing itself, or at least tells the user "Version 2.0 is already installed, are you sure you want to downgrade to 1.0?"

Anyhow, just thought I'd post my success with the updated software (non-beta), and my hypothesis as to what might have caused the problems I was having. The current released drivers/software seem to solve these problems, and the other issues I've had are reported to be fixed or at least better, in the current beta drivers/software.

Thanks for your response and suggestions! Hope my post helps others who get stuck as well!

[GoNz0]

you cant program global led colours ? strange that works fine with the beta to me ?

[Mike A. Harris]

Naw, it was with the last stable-release that I couldn't change LED colours.
I'm using the beta2 driver/software now, and can change the LED colours
fine.

Another glitch I have discovered though, is when you enter clutch mode and
the HAT1 LED flashes, when you exit clutch mode, there is a 50/50 chance
that it will leave the LED off because it is flashing. You have to time it
so that the LED is on when you exit clutch mode, or the LED retains its
last state.

They should make it so that clutch mode does the following algorithm:

1) Save the current on/off state and colour of HAT1 LED.
2) Blink HAT1 LED and clutch LED.
3) When clutch mode is exited, restore the on/off state and colour that was
saved in step 1 above.

Hope someone from Saitek sees this.

I wish Saitek had a bugzilla bug tracker set up so we can report bugs in
a real bug tracker. Forums are ok for chatting and finding solutions, but
horrible for bug tracking and searching, etc. ;o)