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NaturalPoint TrackIR
Author: Chris Oh
Date Posted: April 25th, 2002
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| Bottom Line: If you’re into cool toys that have functionality, give this a try but don’t rely on it outside of simple tasks, such as deathmatches. |
Pages: 1 2 3 4
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Software
The TrackIR doesn’t work at all without the software running because it is not a native windows device like a mouse or a keyboard but making the software run on start-up isn’t a big hassle. You’ll know when the device is on and working when you see the green light on the top of the camera turns on. The software works with everything in the system and is basically like one of the apps everyone used to have that would move your mouse around a bit every couple of seconds to fool the AllAdvantage program. When you move the real mouse, it would disable the TrackIR program until the mouse stops moving. The software itself reminds me of the mouse control panel in Windows, it lets you control cursor speed, sensitivity, smoothness, etc...Smoothness is unique, when you set it to maximum smoothness, you get a very fluid movement from the cursor but also it seems to lag a bit...I like it because your head can be shaking quite a bit and the cursor would be steady, sort of like the Sony Handycam’s Steadyshot. In constrast, minimum smoothness results in jerky and jittery movements of the cursor. Other functions include a double speed function in which the cursor moves at double the speed. Also, the gravity function lets you hit the hard to hit targets of the close, minimize, maximize, etc...buttons, they snap to a button when the cursor gets close to it so you can easily get the cursor close to the close button and the software automatically positions the cursor over the close button, where it thinks you intended to put it.
The "Game Mode" function overrides the game’s mouse controls so the TrackIR can be used for games. But in games, I found that precision and speed is lacking compared to a mouse and it would pretty difficult to be a champion while using the TrackIR as a game controller. These comments are for FPS and RTS games but for flight simulations, I’ve come to the conclusions from many reports that this is a good choice because of the ability for you to view out of the cockpit with the TrackIR and how it’s a less point and click dependant genre than FPS or RTS.
At this point you might be wondering how you click the mouse, both left and right click can’t be done with your eyes blinking, I’m sorry but I don’t think that function will ever be implemented, unless you would like to stick a few silver dots on your eyelids. Clicking is done through pressing designated keys on the keyboard, so you can have an almost hands free experience, notice the keyword being "almost".
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