I spoke to NaturalPoint a little while ago and they said...

We’ve given the Flight dev team a copy of the TrackIR SDK.

We’re 100% committed to the project and available for technical support if needed.

We’ve been in communication with them for about 14 months and were anticipating support at launch until about a month ago.

Microsoft has since informed us that they’re considering integrating TrackIR in a future patch, so they need to hear from the TrackIR community loud and clear!

IOWs, want to see NaturalPoint TrackIR support in Flight? Let Microsoft know!

Wha-at?? It wasn't integrated RIGHT FROM THE F-ing START???

Oh right... only us simmers have TrackIRs. Gamers make-do with keyboards and mice flying so obviously they won't have TrackIR.

We tried and tried during the beta and it clearly was ignored.

I just don't get it. So long MS, it was good while it lasted

The funny thing is, as someone who has implemented TrackIR support in software myself, Naturalpoint have made their SDK *extremely* simple for a developer to use. I'm sure even Microsoft developers could get this right (despite them screwing up the leap year handling so badly a few days ago that it caused their Azure cloud service platform to fall over globally for an extended period - snigger)

The TrackIR SDK was so simple that it took me about an hour to integrate (read the documentation) and test full head tracking. The only 'hard' part was asking for a license key for your software, since the TrackIR software maintains internally [or used to] a list of what software Naturalpoint have agreed to the TrackIR license. If you don't have the license then the TrackIR library won't give you the data the device measures.

So it won't be technical reasons holding Microsoft back.

What could be happening is *if* Naturalpoint stipulated that using the TrackIR SDK mean *exclusive* support for TrackIR devices only (eg. Kinect would be disallowed later). I am only speculating on a possibility here, I don't know for sure. In this case Microsoft might not want to support TrackIR and they want to push their own technology instead (which IMHO, is what Flight is all about - getting people to sign up to Windows Live, use Bing, Virtual Earth and Windows are possibly of more significance to Microsoft than the mere nickel and dimes for scenery in a relatively small niche).

There is a known precedent for Naturalpoint's licensing being exclusive. The DCS series was working on an open head tracking integration point (to allow alternative headtracking, especially in 64-bit at the time TrackIR didn't do 64-bit) but I understand this had to be pulled due to the (undisclosed) licensing terms they had with Naturalpoint. So the licensing aspect to Flight missing TrackIR support can't be discounted (I'm sure Naturalpoint would help get the technical stuff going, but the terms may not have been palatable to Microsoft, especially with Kinect for PC now released).

I'll just nip this in the bud right now.

While it's true that our API only supports our own hardware, we did not stipulate that Microsoft couldn't also implement their own Kinect API in addition to the TrackIR API.

Well that clears that up, so is there a way we at our end can make it work? I haven't seen a forum for Flight to voice my opinion on it yet which as we all know forums are full of, but if I had to some how to program it myself I would if it was possible as much as I twist my head the screen don't move and it's really annoying.

In the interim, you can explore using the mouse emulation software that accompanies your TrackIR installation. But the best thing you can do is contact Microsoft with your request for TrackIR.

- Seth

Hopefully MS makes an effort to support TrackIR soon, especially if Flight becomes very popular. Maybe as a business decision MS wants to force the use of Kinect by not supporting TIR.

There are also lots of games, like Battlefield, where game companies unfortunately decide not to invest the time to support TIR. That really ticks me off. Just because the user base of TIR is not in the zillions, game companies should still be catering to customers, even if those customers are a segment of their customer base. We are still customers!

Kinect is $250 and too big to sit on top of a PC monitor or laptop screen. At that price, no PC flight simmer that already owns trackIR is going to buy it. And a casual gamer won't see the need. I'm hoping trackIR makes it in in a (not too distant) update.

Also, anyone know where we can go to make our voices heard on the trackIR issue? The beta forums are still open, but otherwise I don't see anyway to contact anyone about Flight issues or questions...

They could, probably had it working but someone in a suit said not enough people have it to warrant supporting it. Console games and making everything simpo is the wave of the future.

To beg for them to add it is silly, they are not making this for SIMMERS.

I think it's because they're trying to get PC Kinect to catch on, too. I see no reason why the system couldn't support either, or both.

It'll come eventually.

No trackir would be very, very disappointing.



It's still open
http://innovation.connect.microsoft.com/FlightBetaDiscussion/discussions

Or email them, I don't remember their email by the way.



Kinect is too expensive and no way people are gonna buy it just for Flight. I hope they are not that stupid to drop their support to TrackIR.

you can email them here:
msflight@microsoft.com

Well, no, they probably wouldn't buy Kinect for Flight, per se (some would... after all, some started buying TrackIR's back in the day.) But have you heard of Windows 8? That's the reason they want to pimp Kinect PC. Flight would be a happy beneficiary of the tech.

I hope that we see some sort of freetrack support also.

By not including TRackIR from the start, M$ made a hugh mistake. They made another one by making M$ Flight a sort of arcade game instead of a sim. Imho that is. I don't care if it's included or not. I'm not interrested in M$ Flight. Period!

Thank you for correcting me Seth. I tried to point out the possibility of why Flight might not have TrackIR support (which is annoyoing for all of us that have one [or more] TrackIR units about). As I said, using your interface is exceedingly easy - so technical reasons are really no excuse for Microsoft.

I hope I also made it clear that my understanding of the situation with the Eagle Dynamics series was only based on what was posted in the ED forums and I was extrapolating from A (the DCS situation in the past, according to their forums) to a possible reason for B (MS Flight). As you know, the community has a long memory of what goes on, even if things (eg. Naturalpoint's position) are now different with regard to exclusivity.

Fortunately we are now blessed with TrackIR 64-bit support, even if ED has not re-started work implementing an alternative tracking interface. It would be very nice if you could clarify whether they are still prohibited from doing so by their agreement with Naturalpoint (so we can ask for this work to be resumed), but it is fair enough if you refrain from commenting.

I went to the Flight Website and after logging in and checking every tab for somewhere to make a comment I ended up on the Xbox Live page and made an entry on the forum there with Attn to Flight Devs, probably not going to be noticed but we'll see.

e-mail sent!

Gotta go wash my nose off now...