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On the Introduction page, we hopefully whetted your appetite for more information on the Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar - and that's exactly what we have planned for you here - information overload ;) We've broken this down into several categories, so let's dive straight in!
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Everybody who touches or picks up the Cougar joystick or throttle always comments on the same thing: the heavy, cold, metal feel. The sense of realism that metal imparts to a joystick and throttle is impossible for me to put into words here - you just have to experience it for yourself, but be warned: Once you do, there's no going back to plastic.
- Practically all metal construction - (there's a small component on the throttle that's plastic but not that you'd notice). Even the hats and buttons are metal! Being metal, the joystick and throttle are heavy - weighing in at 8kg together!! Warning - do not drop one of these on your toe!
- Dimensions: For the cockpit builders amongst you, here are the dimensions of the stick and throttle.
- Strong springs provide excellent resistance similar to the older TM F-22 PRO for accurate flying. It will be possible as well to replace these springs with those of different tension should you wish (although this is not recommended as the springs do need to be stiff enough to resist the weight of the metal joystick handle)
- The joystick handle is replaceable and just unscrews from the base. Look out for other joystick handles, like that of the F-18/F-15, for your Cougars in the future.
- The throttle's detentes which delimit the thrust positions for Idle and Full Military Power, are adjustable in position and can be removed completely if preferred.
- Compared to the older TM F-22 PRO, the hats have longer shafts and stand away from the body of the handle more, thus offering a longer throw and greater control. Much easier getting those corner positons first time now.
- Realistic lettering on the joystick and throttle - just like the real thing.
- Modelled directly after the real F-16's joystick and throttle.
There's some serious engineering that's gone into the Cougar resulting in the most realistic controllers available for the PC. This is what made Thrustmaster's reputation in the first place. Welcome back guys, welcome back ;)
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The Cougar is a high speed USB joystick and throttle that combines the information from all of its axes and buttons and feeds that data from the joystick into your computer through a single USB connector. Note that everything - the throttle (and gameport rudders if you have them) plug into the joystick. The advantage of that is that the Cougar is seen as a single device by Windows with lots of axes and buttons. With most sims and games only supporting single devices, the Cougar is able to ensure compatibility with them all. Let's take a look at the specifications then:
- 24MHz internal processor (the F-22 PRO used a 4MHz processor)
- 64KB of external memory for storing flash files, calibration data and downloaded joystick files. Everything is stored on the joystick - this is essentially a driverless system running entirely in hardware. (An F22-PRO chip contains 4k of program memory, 256 bytes of RAM, and 1k of program storage by comparison).
- Flash upgradeable firmware, for any new features and even more programmability.
- 5 Full-Speed USB interfaces (Joystick, Keyboard, Mouse, Data In and Data Out Bulk transmissions) delivering responses 8x faster than classical USB devices.
- Capable of several thousand distinct values on the main joystick axes for much finer control in flying, adjustable via new firmware. Note that all other controllers and previous TM controllers distinguish only 256 distinct values from the joystick X and Y axes.
- 256 distinct values on the remaining axes (Throttle, Range and Antenna knobs, etc.)
- Approx. 30ms frame times
- High precision potentiometers.
- Autocalibrating or manual calibration modes
- Joystick: 2 axes, 4 - 4 way hats programmable in 9 positions, (Up, Down, Left, Right, 4 corners and centre positon), a dual stage trigger and 4 other buttons.
- Throttle: 3 axes, 4 way Radio switch, 3 way dogfight switch, 2 way airbrakes switch with momentary and locking positions, Range and Antenna rotaries with centre detentes on each and incorporating another switch on the depressable Range knob, and a 2 axis microstick iself incorporating another switch. Connects to the joystick through a 1.8m cable.
- Rudders: The Cougar does not ship with rudders, but it does support all compatible analogue gameport rudders (eg. TM RCS, Elite, Simped, CH Products etc.). The Cougar can support 3 axes (rudder axis + Left and Right toebrakes) rudders although no 3 axis rudders on the market at the moment are supported. Thrustmaster are planning to develop their own 3 axis rudders for the Cougar. Note that if you don't have rudders, it's not a problem as any of the other axes or buttons/hats can be used to control your rudders.
- Throttle and rudders are hot pluggable from the main joystick unit as well as the joystick being hot pluggable (hence offering true plug and play) from your computer/USB hub.
Note that the Cougar is a USB controller and not a gameport controller, and as with all USB controllers, is not compatible with older DOS games.
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The Cougar is the most programmable and powerful PC joystick and throttle ever produced. Period. The Cougar has an extraordinarily powerful emulation engine, capable of performing highly complex and innovative keyboard, axis and mouse manipulation through an extensive array of thankfully simple programming statements. Basically anything you can do with your keyboard and mouse, the Cougar can do, and more. Add to this the amazing programmability and manipulation of any axis in real time, and it's easy to see why the Cougar is the ultimate joystick and throttle.
- Complete emulation of anything you can do with your fingers on a keyboard or mouse. The Cougar can do it all, and then some.
- Capable of processing 16 macros at once, and 16 macros more in the Delay buffer.
- Capable of advanced logical programming for the real hardcore amongst you. Only high end TM controllers offer logical programming capabilities.
- Six-layered programming of hats, buttons and axes within a single joystick file.
- Realtime and multi-layer adjusting of axis data (curve, trim, reverse, etc.) - now you can for example damp down the response from your joystick for landing and increase it for dogfighting, all in flight!
- Capable of including different calibration profiles per joystick file.
- Analogue and digital programmability of axes including ability to combine these, or program them separately within a file, and multi layer it ;)
- Can operate in purely Direct Input mode with up to 8 axes, 28 buttons and a POV hat. (Note that this is different to the fact that the Cougar supports 10 physical axes)
- DirectX button programmability within a programmed file, allowing mixing of DirectX input buttons with standard programmed emulation buttons.
- Programmable control of mouse buttons and complex mouse movements, POV positions and directions.
- Capable of outputting 16 characters per frame.
- Capable of processing statements with delays up to 23 hours!
- Capable of releasing active macros in hardware after a state change to prevent sticky keys
- Capable of handling macros of several Kb in length
- Expandable structure ensures new programming capabilities are possible
- Efficient memory design.
- Capable of numerous axis and mouse functions
- Programmable axes even if not physically present.
- Advanced logical programming.
- I'm going to stop here because this list could become stupidly long!
Get the picture? The Cougar is a delight to use and program, and it is unbelievably powerful. If anyone ever gives you the opportunity to help determine the programmability of a next generation flight controller - jump at it. What a blast!
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The Cougar is backed up by powerful and feature rich software, courtesy of David and James. All software is fully compliant with Microsoft Windows '98 Second Edition, Millenium Edition, 2000 and XP. It is important to note that unlike other flight sim controllers, the Cougar does not need a separate TM developed driver/software layer through which to function or be programmed. This means that the software we've provided does not need to be running in the background when you use your Cougar, freeing up all your resources for your sim - we like high frame rates ;) Let's take a look at what ships with the Cougar:
- David's Cougar Control Panel (CCP), Compiler and Firmware updater: Tap into the awesome power of the Cougar directly with the CCP. Perform advanced axis manipulation such as setting individual axis response curves, trim, reverse, deadzones. Disable and swap axes around. Cailbrate your controllers and save all this information in profiles you can incorporate into your programmed joystick files. Change your Cougar Buttons and Axis modes independantly, and monitor them from your system tray. Compile and download joystick files. Flash upgrade the firmware inside your controllers. I think you get the idea :)
- James's Foxy, FoxyMFE, FoxyGUI, Launcher, Windows and DirectX 8 analysers: A suite of applications following on from the Fox Two series to program your Cougar and more. With effectively over 5 years development under it's belt, with many features suggested by users of previous TM controllers, Foxy and its supporting applications will make your life sweet ;) With too many features to include here, you are assured of easy programming of all Cougar statements with extensive GUI components and onscreen help in applications that many will already be familiar with. Features also include full colour printing of programmed files including pwerful and editable graphical layouts. Various analysers and key testers monitor your Cougar's axes and programming in Windows and in true gaming DirectX 8 environments. One click downloading and launching of flight sims with your Cougar programmed for them from a small system tray application, the Launcher. Full help, tutorials and wizards for the beginner right through to the hardcore user. Full intergration with David's applications make programming the Cougar effortless and seamless.
- Files for over 30 different sims are already written for you by various Cougar World members and installed with Foxy. These files also include ReadMe.txt explanations of how to use them, along with printable graphical layouts showing you what the various buttons and hats do in your sims.
- Extensive and complete help, backed up by a 300+ page Foxy manual as Microsoft Word doc, separate from the printed manual.
Note that all software applications are separate executables developed with the latest Microsoft controls, and are not integrated into Windows Explorer.
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The Cougar comes with comprehensive and easily understandable documentation. Apart from the context sensitive help with the applications, and the separate Foxy and Programming manual installed with Foxy (as a Microsoft Word document), there is also a detailed and well presented printed manual. This covers how to use the CCP, written by Mark and David, and an explanation of how to get into programming your Cougar and extensive explanations of all the TM statements, written by James.
- 190+ page A5 printed manual - none of this "Manual on the CD only" crap. Written by Mark, David and James. (Translated versions by bilingual TM users are also available to download from Cougar World - thanks guys!).
- Installation and Getting Going instructions - for those in a hurry!
No other controller ships with such a thorough and exhaustive collection of documentation!
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