Is Track IR actually as good as people say?

[Cobra360]

I'm really considering getting Track IR4 after seeing the BlackShark 6DOF video. I am just wondering how many people here have it and is it really as good as people make out. A problem I can see with it is, if you turn your head to look around you will be trying to look at the screen out of the corner of your eye trying to see what you are looking at. Is this a problem for some users?

 

And is there an option to switch it off and on ingame on the fly, so I turn my head to look around the room without having my view turn aswell ingame?

[kam]

I'm really considering getting Track IR4 after seeing the BlackShark 6DOF video.

 

Im in exactly the same position as you...may have to ask santa for one :p

 

I think FS 2004 also has 6DOF, which is nice.

[Guest ruggbutt]

Playing Lock On without a TrackIR is comparable to playing Lock On without a joystick. Seriously. I gained insane amounts of SA (situational awareness) with it.

[Woodstock]

1. Once you played LO with TIR, you will never want to go back. Consciousness-expanding in any respect!

2. The TIR axis are scalable. You can program an only few degree head movement to be a 100° view movement ingame.

3. There are functions for in-game enable/disable and re-center. You can map those to whatever keys you don´t need for the game.

[walternowi]

I'm really considering getting Track IR4 after seeing the BlackShark 6DOF video. I am just wondering how many people here have it and is it really as good as people make out.

 

Absolutely, you won't regret it. I flew Su-33 primarily, and using Track IR + Vector with the Helmet mode is fun. As Woodstock said, you can scale the axis. In my setting, with the cockpit view at the extreme, my eyes are still pointing at the monitor.

 

You can also disable the unit and center it on the fly. Hope this helps.

 

Nowi :)

[Guest Cali]

Once you play with a TIR you wont go back to a hat switch EVER!!!

[SwingKid]

Playing Lock On without a TrackIR is comparable to playing Lock On without a joystick. Seriously. I gained insane amounts of SA (situational awareness) with it.

 

Well I can certainly agree with this, but I would disagree that it's a good thing.

 

IMHO it's not so much that TrackIR is great (which it is) - rather that Lock On's standard SA without TrackIR is horrible. Texture fonts that are unreadable at default zoom levels, off-screen RWRs, malfunctioning HSI, transparent buildings, unpredictable padlock, and view controls that took over half the keyboard like an invading alien army - it all combines to create an SA-blind, view-manipulation nightmare that doesn't exist in any other sim I've played, that can only be efficiently controlled by TrackIR.

 

I think of TrackIR like the third-party mods for the HOTAS Cougar - yeah they're great, and thank heavens they exist, but it would be nice if they were an option, and everything still worked okay without it...

 

:(

-SK

[Guest ruggbutt]

it all combines to create an SA-blind, view-manipulation nightmare that doesn't exist in any other sim I've played.......... but it would be nice if they were an option, and everything still worked okay without it...

 

Even as bad as LOMAC 1.0 was I never had any problems with SA. I recommend you set the default cockpit view as close as it is in any of the other sims you've played. Of course you can't read it very well zoomed all the way back in the cockpit. But you have a wider field of view than you do in say the stock F4:AF distance from the HUD.

 

I've never played with labels either, and I still (most of the time) can smoke SAMs, or at least dodge them. You have to work a little bit harder with your zoom and POV hat but it's far from being as huge a problem as you say it is. Just because LOMAC doesn't act like the rest of the other sims you've played means that maybe the old dog needs to learn a few new tricks..............................then again, I pretty much kickass in all the sims I fly. Some people just got it............................;)

[emenance]

track ir 4 is on my christmas list or maybe somebodys track 3

 

anyways

 

cheers

[upyr1]

the next item I guess would be a HMD if any one can find any that don't break the bank especially if there is a good return policy please post the link.

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

And is there an option to switch it off and on ingame on the fly, so I turn my head to look around the room without having my view turn aswell ingame?

 

I dont get why you care where the ingame view is when you have turned to look around the room? When you look back at the screen the ingame view follows you back again. If it screws up, you just hit the recenter key and you are good to go again. Once you get one and use it you'll understand what I mean.

 

Trust us when we say that 95% or more of folks would never swap back. Be warned it took me about a week to get used to / tweak to my preference. But suddenly one day I was using it and had been flying for about 5 min and realised I had forgetten it was there.

It is the best d*mn money I ever spent on gaming (apart from the £30 to buy LOMAC in the first place)...

[emenance]

really i cant wait to get the 3 or 4 version as a gift next month. For sure to make fun of this drug i think :)

[Maximus]

I just brought the Track IR4 last week, and it is my very first TrackIR device, for months, I had hard time to decide if I should buy one or not, and I fanally brought it.

 

Dude, BUY it, I felt it is a whole new flight simulator to me, ability to keep eye on bandits, watch out hills just for merely 1 seconds while dog fight in low altitude fighting, keeping eye on ground target while bombing, zooming in to do cannon shooting on targets, and so much to discover :)

 

It is worth the $ for TIR4.

[MonnieRock]

I am not going back. My TrackiR is here to stay, period. Just makes a game turn into more of a simulator to me. Like you are there.

[Ice]

The AYES! have it!

 

Track ir is the bomb

[504MrWolf]

life without TrackIR is hell !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[169th_Dredd]

TrackIR is teh B0mB!!!!

Havn't you seen any videos with TrackIR in use?!?!

You need it now!!

[ViperVJG73]

I'm use TrackIR since LOMAC coming out! ;)

 

Kind Regards

[Cobra360]

Thanks for all the feedback. It sounds like an essential pice of kit from your experiences of using it. Ah what the hell, I'll order one now. :D

[Cosmonaut]

OK well I use the mouse in my left hand to look around and after seeing all the tracks/videos demonstrating TIR I still think the mouse is the best way to maintain SA but after watching that video I can't deny that was more than just a little bit impressed. I will definitely be looking into this further.

 

Now for some questions :) How the heck does that work? Do you sort of slew your head side to side with out turning it or something more like a key command you hold down while you look left and right? What I would like to know is how TIR interprets your physical head movement into knowing that you want look left.. or look around the left side of the HUD?

 

Anyone know??

 

Thanks.

[Guest ruggbutt]

It's pretty simple. There are reflector dots you put on a ball cap. The TrackIR unit reads the movement in these and moves your view accordingly. You can set up how sensitive the movement is, you can set the deadzone, just like a joystick. To look over my right shoulder, I have to look at a point 6 inches to the right of my monitor. You still see whats going on on-screen, cuz your eyes stay on the monitor. Once you've used it for a short time you get used to it and you won't feel disoriented. I was at first, most people are. But now it's so natural. You can drop bombs and jink one way and watch if the target is firing at you as you continue to fly the plane.

 

I'm so used to it that I don't use the mini-HUD any more, nor do I use cockpit lift lines. Both of which I relied on before TrackIR.

[Cosmonaut]

Thanks for the reply ruggbutt,

 

I know about the reflective dot thing but I'd like to know how it tracks your head movements in regards to the "Six Degrees Of Freedom" (6DOF). If you turn your head left then you look left in the sim but how do you look up, over and around the HUD like in the Ka-50 video. What head movements would you have to make to see around things in the cockpit?

[S77th-konkussion]

Think of the standard Track as a... pivoting axis. Like a missile seeker head's eyeball if you will. All movement originating from a single FIXED point- your reflective dot after a "centering". The enhanced versions with multiple axes have the ability to remember that original point and then allow that point to move about.

 

So the limits of motion are still there, but the original fix can be moved around. So pick a number if the limit is 120 degrees you have 120 degrees from well wherever the dot happens to be. (as long as it can still be seen, obviously)

 

 

uggh.. now I have a headache

[Cosmonaut]

Ah ..so you would not only have the ability to pivot your head from left to right but you could also move your head along an X or Y axis with in the limits of the "seeker".. is that close enough lol Ok that is freaking incredible I never new TIR was that complex .. very interesting indeed.

[rasputin]

track ir 4 is on my christmas list or maybe somebodys track 3

 

anyways

 

cheers

 

Same here Santa's gonna bring some situational awareness this year. :icon_jook