I've heard a lot about this Track IR thing, I've seen it in action and I am very impressed. It will be fantastic for F1 2011 and flight sims, but it appears there are three different versions, each with a different price.

So, which one to go for?

Track IR 4 is £61,Track IR 4 Pro Bundle is around £74, Track IR 5 is £93 and Track IR 5 Pro Bundle is £105.

What's the difference with each one? Has anyone here tried the Track IR 4 and is able to compare it with the Track IR 5?

Based on my research, the TrackIR 5 is "smoother" than the 4, and wider field of view as well. The difference between the vanilla package and the bundle is the Track Clip Pro, which is basically 3 LEDs on a clip that mounts on your headphones. How TrackIR basically works is that it sends out an IR signal and this is reflected back by the cap reflectors that is included in the vanilla package (used to be a reflective dot that is placed on the forehead, lots of funny stories there!), but the Track Clip actually SENDS out a stronger IR signal so you have a smoother and stronger signal to work with.

For my money, I would save up for the TrackIR 5 Pro bundle. Well worth the money.

Hope that helps.

BTW, LOL @ "this TrackIR thing..."

TrackIR 5 has a better tracking resolution and field of view than the 4 (I've owned both). I would go with the 5.

Can you mount the Track Clip anywhere other than headphones (I rarely use them while gaming - I don't go online that much)?

Anyone had problems getting used to it? Sounds like the sort of thing that might take a while (like a steering wheel), but once you've got the hang of it, you won't want to go back (again, like a steering wheel - for racers).

Edit: Seems that the authorised UK dealers only have the Track IR 4 for sale.

Proclip on headphones is a must or something on your head like a hat but it has to be fixed and stable to be accurate. Head movement is how you move it so there you go.

No problems getting used to it. You won't go back. You will see things not possible without it

Stuffy, I got my set from RC Simulations. They are a bit expensive but they seem to be the only UK supplier. Decent folk, and you have your gear within the week.

I still use the 4 with the alien antennas. Works great after 3+ years of abuse.

Thanks for that - I'm always a little bit nervous when handing over £100 odd to a new company - that's put my mind at rest. Can you track your order with them? Either way, I'll be ordering it tomorrow, so should be here late next week. Can't wait to try it in RoF and F1 2010!

And Suicidal, you have cleared up the next question I was going to ask: how durable is the device, given that it isn't something you want to have to replace every few years. So, do you have to clip it to a cap, or is there a way of using it without wearing a hat all the time? I heard something about clipping it onto glasses - if that's the case, it might be the only time I'm happy that I'm stuck with the damn things!

I could've ordered it from the States, as the base price is much cheaper there, but the shipping more than makes up for it - it said $60+ when I checked! Sod that...

Gotta say, I really didn't like it with racing sims. Very disorienting. Best I could do was to use X axis only with a good deadzone. Never realized how much I move my head while racing. LOL
For flight though, it's a must-have.

I can see how it might be a bit weird with racers - but you don't need to look up or behind you with racers, so as you said, it probably makes sense to go with X Axis only, so you can look to the side to see where rivals are and for looking in the mirrors, and maybe looking to apex.

Track IR is the best input device I've ever used on a PC and indispensible for flight sims. I used Track IR 1 from the time it was first released until version 4 came out (which I'm using now).

Getting used to it was surprisingly easy and natural. Occasionally I will put my plane on autopilot, disable Track IR and go to the kitchen for a drink. Then I'll sit back down forgetting to enable Track IR again. I'll turn my head expecting my virtual view to change and when it doesn't I get momentarily disoriented - it feels literally that natural.

Cool. I'm going for the Track IR 4 Pro - £99, so not exactly cheap but the next one up would be another £25 or so - money I could save for F1 2011 or a few planes for RoF.

Do you guys find it much better than padlock for tracking an enemy around the sky? Does it literally feel like you're right there in the cockpit, looking out the canopy at all angles to see that he doesn't sneak round onto your tail? Must say I'm really looking forwards to getting it.

Yes

+1

As for clipping it onto a device other than headphones, I cut some slits on the side of an old baseball cap and clipped it on that way. Now I no longer have any need for the standard clip, which I found didn't work well when looking downward at extreme angles.

Stuff, I use the 4Pro with the vanilla cap clip, and it works very very well. Not sure you need to spend the extra on the active LED clip. I'm not sure that thing runs off batteries, so it might mean a cable hanging off your glasses?

I'm sure a 5 with active clip is utmost perfection, but if you - like me - are not spending 100% of your time in flightsims and race sims, it may not be worth the extra.

I use it in F1 2010, and it works very well there, seeing how narrow the standard FoV is. I find it a bit disorientating in NFS Shift, prolly due to the excessive head shake the game adds itself.

For flightsims, it took me all but 15 minutes to shoot down my first AI in a WW1 dogfight with it. I haven't used padlock every since, not a single time.

Thanks for that, Colonel - yes like you I don't spend all my gaming time in sims - RoF might go some way towards changing that, as will F1 2011, but I'll always play Mass Effect, Total War, Fifa and various other games from time to time - so I think for me, the Track IR 4 is perfect.

It's on its way - 3 to 5 days they said.

Enjoy!

Well, I have no "resistance" today. You guys can talk me into anything it seems

First a TM Warthog. Now, you've stampeded me into a TrackIR 5 with TrackClip PRO.

Hey, at least the naturalpoint.com site had a discount for the "bundle"

Actually, I'm working towards a custom built "cockpit" in the Basement. More real than my desktop.

My wife is the treasurer. I'll hear about this month's bills. Not that she doesn't get "her fair share" -- and then some

[/quote]

Thanks! I'm sure I will. Just have to find a baseball cap from somewhere now - used to have lots of the things sitting around.

Does Track IR 4 work OK with Battle of Britain II and CLoD? I'd buy the latter in a heartbeat if word comes they've worked on the optimisation and included a dynamic career.

OK - it's arrived!

First of all, I thought there was something wrong with it, because the green light was flickering and the movement had a mind of its own, but it turns out that due to the window behind me (albeit 8 feet or so away), the light was having an effect on the tracking - thank God I have blinds, otherwise I'd have to completely draw the curtains.

Is there any way round this - any settings I could adjust to make it less sensitive to the natural daylight? That's the only real drawback I've noticed so far, but as I said, closing the blinds a little seems to solve the problem.

It's an excellent little device - and there's no way I'll go back to using the PoV hat on my controller.

Edit: I haven't tried it with F1 2010 yet, but I'm thinking if the sensitivity settings are adjusted to just a tiny bit more than the real movement of your head, it will work brilliantly with racing games - I recall someone posting in the thread to the effect that they found it too disorientating in F1 2010.
Go into the configuration settings and change the speed setting until the 'game' head almost matches the movement of the 'real' head - I reckon that would suffice for racers, after all, you don't really need to look up/down or check your six, eh?

Just found the original post:



Speaking of checking your six, playing like this gives you just a tiny bit of an idea what it must have been like to be always moving your head to see if anyone was sneaking up behind you...

Edit: OK, I've just tried it with F1 2010 - the game isn't reading it. The lights on the device are blue and green (meaning it's reading a supported game), but when I get to the race, nothing is happening.

One other thing that's annoying me a bit is the camera moving up and down - I can do without that, so which axes controls that, is it Y? If I can find out, I can disable it.

Yep, Y. Just uncheck the axis in the profile.

Stuffy I don´t know about the 4 but the 5 does, and the new Software 5 is for all Version from 3+Vector expansion up. Still the TrackIR does not work right so far in IL-2: COD I´ve got massive centering issues I wasn´t able to fix it with a profile so far, as Cliffs of dover still doesn´t have a Profile tab in the TIR software. So far I can´t reccomend it, even if it is getting better.

Overall, I'm happy with it. There is however one fairly large annoyance:

I'm sitting here now though typing this in the broad daylight and the green light is flashing on and off - busy reading that window behind me, I suppose. Is there any way to get these to work properly even in daylight conditions? It's hardly blazing sunshine, just an ordinary bright day - yet the Track IR is picking it up. If I close the blinds the tracking issue will go away, but I'd rather not have to close them. The blinds are a Godsend though - at least with them you can get varying degrees of brightness and it's usually possible to get a good compromise between light in the room and Track IR tracking. Not too long ago, I was stuck with just curtains.

One other thing - it seems that the field of view is significantly wider when moving to my right than to my left - how do I balance that out?

turn up the light filter treshhold in the camera tab and keep the windows in the cameras view closed, Windows in front should be partially covered, as glasses tend to disturb the trackIR. The Track Clip pro seems to be working a bit better in daylight conditions.

Well, the sunshine is IR light, so... hard to get that away if you have a window behind you.

I suppose like Polarwolf says, if you use the Pro Clip you can filter out so much more ambient and still get a decent tracking, but not with the standard clip. For what it's worth, until the recent move to a new place I had ceiling mounted lights behind me, and had to leave my GF sitting in the dark when I wanted to use TIR... it's the one thing that can't really be helped with the way the tech works.

OK, thanks for that gents. Re the Track Clip pro, is there any way to fit that to a cap as well? I don't use headphones.

I suppose you could fit it to a cap if you had a vertical attachement to mount it on. It should be curved a bit inward afaik. So if you could kinda hot glue a vertical holder onto the cap it woul look.........funny but maybe it would work. The Track Clip pro needs to be mounted verticall afaik. I don´t know how comofortable it would be, if it kept pulling your head sideways, or if you would need a counterweight, the track clip pro weights next to nothing, but you can never be sure, and your neck is important.

@Colonel - Yes, I also have a ceiling mounted light behind me and off to one side, but thankfully, the Track IR doesn't seem to mind it - which is good, otherwise I would be on Natural Point's back about why they don't mention ambient lighting issues on the site - I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere at least. As it is though, all is good.

@Polarwolf - I'll stick with the cap, as you said, your neck is important. Might get a visor at some point though, can get a bit uncomfortable wearing a full cap in hot weather indoors.

I took an old baseball cap and cut a pair of slits on the side. Clip the Track Clip on, and you're good to go.

I just switched using the Track IR 4 with ordinary Track Clip from a cap with a flat peak to a visor with a curved peak and the field of vision on the Track IR has massively increased - so anyone using a flat peaked cap or visor, bend it or get yourself a curved one! I recommend the visor - far more comfortable in warm weather. The curved peak also appears to hold the clip in place much more securely.

Hi Stuffy,
I've used a Track IR for over ten years and have had the 3, 4 and 5 versions.

You need to work on your profiles. I wear bifocals, so I adjusted the verticle curves to go the range I want so that the bifocal line doesn't go above the top of my monitor. You can adjust the deadzone also.

For flying I use all axis.
DCS A-10C Profile

For racing I turn off the pitch and roll - its too disorienting.


I knew from the Track IR 3 and 4 that they are affected by backlights, like reflections of sunlight off of the TV. I'm in the basement and bought opaque blinds (they aren't cheap) to cut out the sunlight for a true man-cave. I find the Track IR 5 better at rejecting backlights, BTW.

I switch back and forth between the Track Clip on a ball cap and the Track Clip Pro that is on my headphones. For the Track Clip on the ball cap I use one of those small black and silver paperclip things right in the center of the bill to hold it in place and it doesn't come off.

Unfortunately a few weeks ago I was flying around and drinking and managed to break my Track Clip Pro (I hate it when I do that). So in a fit of panic I downloaded a new Track IR 5 bundle with a new TC Pro. I was able to "fix" the broken one with some scotch tape. My wife wasn't using her computer in the man-cave so I took it over for racing (she has a new laptop) - now I have a racing machine and a flying machine. But the point is that the Track Clip Pro is a bit fragile and has to be handled with care.

(I call my online purchases 'downloads' now, the wife hasn't caught on yet)

Wrecking Crew

Hmmm.

The one major drawback for me with the 4 is the aforementioned sunlight issue - I didn't know that the 5 had better tracking, otherwise I would've gone the extra £25 and got a 5; the information I was getting was that the 5's resolution, field of view and smoothness was better than the 4 - but for all of those things, I'm perfectly happy with the 4 - wish one of you guys had told me about the sunlight issue though! Still, thanks to my blinds, I can get good tracking and at night, the issue goes away completely. How good is the tracking on the 5 - can you have bright sunlight and still get good tracking?

Do you know if your 3 is still working? I'm just trying to figure out the longevity of these devices.

I agree about getting rid of pitch and roll for racing, but the other axis add a lot, especially look to apex - makes driving so much more precise (once you've got used to it). For flying, I swear by it now even though I've only had it a short while - outside of the flightstick, it's the best ever invention for flight sims in my book.

Regarding working on profiles, I find it all really confusing - thankfully the default profiles seem to be working OK for RoF and F1 2010.

I finally hooked up my TrackIR 5 (I've had it a since Monday). Gave it a quick tryout.

Technically, its well made and it works.

Easy to install. Easy to download and set up software (generically). Seems quite precise. All 6 axes work as advertised.

Did not need the included Track Clip Pro -- as the passive hat TrackClip works very well in my room (no back lighting).

I have to "get used to it" to a degree. I can't be moving my head around as randomly as before. For example, in Eyefinity, I tend to look at the screen to either side (a normal and natural action) -- that shifts the entire view substantially. I'll have to develop new "muscle memory".

I'll report back after I get more familiar with it.

I got used to it in no time, but it might take you a little longer if you're used to the Eyefinity's movement. Either way, once you're there, you won't look back. Except to check your six.