FS2024 Display Emulator

Linux prototype for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (FS2024) WASM gauge development

Windows support maybe if I feel like it

A GUI for testing FS2024 aircraft instrumentation without:

• Constant MSFS reloads

• Full WASM compilation cycles

• Simulator dependencies (runtime dependencies)

---

Uses shared library compilation (.so/.dll) in a spec that allows for the same source to be used for both testing and WASM deployment

Features

• ✅ Linux-native gauge testing
• ✅ Direct OpenGL rendering
• ✅ Shared library hot-reloading
• ✅ Same codebase for both emulation and WASM deployment
• ✅ ImGUI-based control panel
• 🔄 Windows support (in progress)

Why This Approach?

• WASM gauges are good, very good. But they are slow to iterate on due to the need for constant simulator reloads and WASM compilation cycles.

• This approach allows for native debuggers (GDB/LLDB) to be used directly on gauge code, enabling faster iteration and debugging.

• Better resource monitoring and profiling capabilities.

How to Use

WASM Project Setup

1. In your existing WASM project, add the compatibility header include/Emulator.h to your gauge source files. This header redefines some rendering functions to use the emulator's OpenGL context instead of the simulator's.

2. define EMULATOR in your gauge source files to enable emulator-specific code.

3. compile your gauge as a shared library (.so on Linux, .dll on Windows) instead of a WASM module. (no changes to your existing build system should be needed)

4. Create a <GAUGE_NAME>.json next to your shared library, this serves as a replacement for a panel.cfg in the sim, the schema is as follows:

{
  "gauge": {
    "size": {
      "width": 800,
      "height": 600
    },
    "string_params": ""
  }
}

Emulator Setup

1. Clone this repo
2. Build the emulator using cmake (see below)
3. Run the emulator and load your gauge using the control panel

Things to Note

• MSFS does not provide a cross-platform shared library for its SDK functions (its built into the sim), so all bindings must be implemented manually in the emulator. As a result, only common rendering and simvars are supported. Networking and events are planned for future updates but are not currently available.