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Old March 9th 05, 01:12 AM
Russell
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Default NaturalPoint TrackIR (mini-review)

I picked up a TrackIR3 Pro w/Vector Expansion. I checked it out with
Live For Speed (since it has native support). During the 1st lap I was
thinking about how much money I wasted. By the second lap I realized
that they were on to something really cool and it was just a matter of
getting used to it. I still have a way to go to get comfortable with
it, but the learning curve is not steep.

I tweaked their default profile and that helped. Let's say from the
left to the right side of your monitor you move your head 45 degrees
(just picking a simple number). With the default setup you can look
into the back seat as you look to the sides of the monitor. Basically
your 45 degree movement is converted to 360 degrees. That's a lot! I
changed that range to only allow me to look full left and full right (45
degrees of real movement equals 180 degrees of sim movement.) It makes
it more intuitive and less jumpy. I also made the curve of the head
turn linear (rather than increasing the further you look). That way the
speed of your head turn is matched directly on the screen. The
NaturalPoint software has a lot of flexibility.

I found that I was looking into the turns and planning for them earlier
than the built in LFS steering look does. Coming out of the corners I
needed to remember to straighten my head out to look ahead (I was used
to the program altering the view for me).

I knew I was getting into it when I tried another sim that doesn't
support TrackIR and I turned my head to look into the turn, nothing
happened and it felt odd .

I think this is another good step into more immersion into racing sims.
Sure it is a trade off, but until something better and cheaper comes
along (3d VR goggles anyone?), this is a step in the right direction.

One thing to note is that the device doesn't like bright sunlight. I
had a bit of bright sun shining through window blinds and the thing
wouldn't track. I put a towel over the blinds (just enough to diffuse
the sunlight, not block it out) and that took care of the problem.

Russell
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