Getting Your Head in the Game – TrackIR 5 with TrackClip PRO Review

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] The PC is the leading open computing platform in the world. If for nothing else, you can use all sorts of things with a PC. There are devices for what any user might desire, be it a Gameboard like the G13 or Nostromo, to virtual reality equipment like the Oculus Rift. This puts PC users, especially gamers, at the forefront when it comes to using rather revolutionary input devices. NaturalPoint’s TrackIR has been sailing these waters for a long while. They've been at it since 2001, to be precise. The evolution and diverse set of features in the TrackIR are second to none; even the Oculus Rift is just now incorporating Six Degrees of Freedom (DOF) into its development kits. The last time Techgage looked at the TrackIR was back in 2006, with the TrackIR 4:PRO. This left us wanting for more support in games; we will touch more on this later. For now, let’s take a look at what the newest version, the TrackIR 5, comes with. The TrackIR 5 includes the TrackIR sensor and TrackClip. The TrackIR sensor is placed above your monitor and the TrackClip attaches to the brim of a ball cap. The TrackIR is designed so that the sensor simultaneously transmits a beam of infrared (IR) light and the three reflectors on the TrackClip bounce the light back to the sensor. This makes the provided TrackClip a passive reflector. This is the simplest way to track a person’s movements but environmental factors could degrade your experience. The optional TrackClip PRO is an active IR transmitter; this means it provides its own infrared signal to the sensor. When using active tracking, you generally gain more accuracy and a quicker response to your every movement. Unfortunately this is not included with the standard package. Despite the unit's additional cost, the overall build quality feels a little cheap. I understand NaturalPoint wants to keep the weight down but the plastic is too pliable for its cost. Those concerns were even more evident when I was connecting the TrackClip PRO to my headphones. I felt I had to be extremely careful because the locking teeth for clip could break off if it wasn’t perfectly secured or overstressed. Both the TrackIR and Pro use USB connections. The PRO can be plugged into the sensor and then attached to your head without taking up additional USB slots. I mentioned before the Six Degrees of Freedom, but what is it? To put it simply, whatever direction you choose to move your head, be it yaw, pitch, roll, as well as directional movement, the TrackIR will duplicate that movement into the game. Image you’re playing a racing game and you prefer to play from the perspective of the driver, normally you wouldn’t be able to turn the drivers head unless you pressed a button. Having to think about which button you need to press could mean a crash. With the TrackIR, all you need to do is turn your head, as you were driving your own car, and your perspective changes. This may seem like a small thing without having used it, but once you do use it, you probably wouldn’t want to race without it. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Features and Software][Top Ad] The software is where the TrackIR truly shines. It is very easy to use and almost every little option is customizable. If you need to turn down that LED brightness, you can do that quite easily. If you need to adjust the sensitivity of the sensor due to environmental factors, there is an option for that. The software's only major weak point is when it comes to loading third party profiles. There are options to do everything but import a profile from your computer. The only way you can add one from a third party is to manually copy it into the TrackIR directory. This is more of an inconvenience than anything because the software will pick it up as soon as you restart the application, but it would be nice if the software didn't need restarting. Convenience in software is a very desirable thing, especially in this day and age; when a piece of software is inconvenient to use, it really stands out. The first thing you will notice when you fire up the software is the 3D space where you can see the active tracker and positional data. This testing area allows you to calibrate your hardware for the software. This can also be done while you are in game through the use of hotkeys, which are also customizable. To my annoyance however, I found that I could not save over the default profile and I had to save an alternate profile for my custom key bindings. That minor annoyance aside, the software is very responsive. The Software Development Kit (SDK) by NaturalPoint provides low-level hardware access to the device. This means that when you play a game with TrackIR, it puts very little resource demand on your system. Something you should keep in mind when setting up a custom profile is that every game will have a predefined set of limits and you can only alter the profile within those limits. Take Elite Dangerous for example; the way players interact with the universe is through accessing one of four displays, where you have to turn your head to interact with them. When you use the game's limits, you can turn your head 180 degrees, but should you want that limit to be around 110 degrees, where two of the displays are, that you can do. This subtle but dramatic change can be very important, especially if you’re always overlooking your panels. Unfortunately a game has to have TrackIR incorporated for it to take advantage of all the features it offers. There is an option for the tracker to emulate a mouse, but that's explained a little later. This simple yet powerful device can obviously change the way you play most of your games. There are quite a few titles to choose from; unfortunately, as was the case with the TrackIR 4:PRO, the genre limitations are still here. This doesn’t mean that NaturalPoint hasn’t been supporting newer games, far from it. This just means many developers haven’t had the demand to incorporate this sort of motion tracking before now. I suspect that is all about to change, thanks to the Oculus Rift. I mentioned before that the Oculus Rift is now incorporating Six Degrees of Freedom. With this inclusion, I am hopeful that we will start to see further TrackIR support in more genres, especially FPS. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Testing][Top Ad] The majority of games that you will be seeing here are simulation games. While there are older games that support TrackIR, I’m going to showcase the newer games that support it, including: Elite Dangerous, Dirt 3, War Thunder and Star Citizen. Since most games don’t support the TrackIR, it doesn’t mean you’re out of options. There is a mouse emulation feature and I will demonstrate how that works in Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Tomb Raider (2013) later on. Star Citizen. During the FPS part of my testing, I only used the mouse to turn my body, all the looking around you see, is the TrackIR. When I was dogfighting, I did not touch my mouse once. All the tracking you see with the green circular reticule is done via the TrackIR and to pilot the ship, I was using my X52 joystick. The ship I chose has gimbaled weapons so you can better see how it can provide an advantage in a game like this. I had not previously practiced dogfighting before recording this video, so it took me a little bit to get use to it; once mastered, you can see how this could be a major advantage over those who don’t have a tracking system like TrackIR. Star Citizen is currently in early alpha, it looks damn good for an alpha, right? Elite Dangerous. As in the previous video, I again used my X52 to pilot this ship and used the TrackIR to look around. There are plans to add FPS combat in the future, but that will not happen until well after the game's official release. War Thunder. During this playthrough, I used my mouse and keyboard to control the plane. All of the looking around was done with the TrackIR. There are options to look around in-game, but you have to re-center the camera afterwards, and that can be time consuming. I’ve played War Thunder for quite a while now, so when reviewing the TrackIR with it, I felt using it was a precise, natural and effortless way to control the look of the camera. As it was with Star Citizen, this was my first time flying a combat mission with the TrackIR in this game. DiRT3. I used my Xbox 360 Controller to drive the car and used the TrackIR to look around. A rally game doesn’t always give you the time to look around and admire the view, but when I did need it, it was great to have. At this point, we have looked at games that fully support TrackIR, now we move into the world of mouse emulation. This feature is included in the software package, but do not expect it to be perfectly implemented in your game. Test Drive Unlimited 2. While TDU2 supports someone looking around, you have to press the Mouse Button 1 to engage that option. Fortunately I have a mouse that will lock my MB1 for me but it didn’t do me much good. To re-center the camera you have to let go of the MB1 so I was fighting the camera to go back to center even though I turned my head back to center. The game kept over-correcting my movements and so my head was oddly positioned the majority of the time. Tomb Raider (2013) This one is a mixed bag between the mouse and TrackIR when moving Lara around. Sometimes I had to use the mouse to re-center my third person view, but for the majority of game play and the entire weapon aiming parts, the TrackIR was used. I have to admit using my head to aim and control Lara at first was a little disorientating, but once I started to weed out the particular quirks of the TrackIR, I found I could be almost as accurate with it as I was with my mouse. A game like this could incorporate TrackIR no problem, and it wouldn’t change how the game is played what so ever. I am disappointed that I could not do away with the mouse entirely, since that would have been a truly unique experience...

Getting Your Head in the Game – TrackIR 5 with TrackClip PRO Review

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