TrackIR First Impression Review
Well Tuesday it came in the mail when I got home from work, my first thought was the box is tiny for what I had been thinking. Once opened I saw how small the actual tracker is, just an inch or two in size,which made me quite happy considering I have to deal with it on top of my monitor. Setting up TrackIR was very simple, plug the tracker into the USB port and tape it to my monitor. I had to use my own tape since it wasn't suppled, and because I do not have a thin LCD screen which the unit is setup to clip onto. Getting the TrackClip Pro on my head was another story, first I don't wear caps so I don't have one anywhere, and the headphones I planned on using go around the back of my head and won't allow the LEDs to point at the tracker.
I quickly tried a winter hat knowing in my head that it would only be a10 minute fix since the clip would vibrate ever so slightly and getting it back in the same spot after removing the hat would be incredibly difficult. About 5 minutes of fiddling with the dials I decided to only use the Yaw axis control and I hopped into Live For Speed. Amazing! Thats all there is to it. I drove a few laps in a few cars for about 10 minutes and had to find a better solution, which I endedup using an old roller-blading helmet with just the foam. I went back and set things up a little more properly and used all 6 axis, although was still quite anxious to get into the game and play. So I jumped into the FBM and you can look up at the sky! It really was the first thing I tried while waiting for green lights.
I have only played with it for about 2 hours and still need to tweak the sensitivity a little bit. This will take a lot of time to get perfect but within the two hours it was working very naturally and honestly I didn't feel some of the effects I thought I would. I had read and heard that one of the downfalls to the head tracker is that you move your head to the left but you need to move your eyes to the left. Before buying TrackIR I tried this a bit and while looking at the center of the screen and turning my head I noticed the feeling a bit. However when in game I didn't notice that same feeling, in fact I don't even know if I turned my eyes while playing in the game.
At $200 it isn't the cheapest thing to buy for your Sim-Racing setup, but it has been worth every penny. Just getting in game and looking around was amazing. Its quite obvious that it would be but this actually blew away my expectations and I am very happy with it. Immersion level has increased so much. I had been planning on buying a bigger monitor first, as I play on 17" crt right now and want a bigger screen, although I am very happy that I bought TrackIR first. It is probably the third most immersive item in my setup, falling just behind the Logitech G25 and my computer. I may try writing how I feel a month from now since this is all based on the "opening night".
Well Tuesday it came in the mail when I got home from work, my first thought was the box is tiny for what I had been thinking. Once opened I saw how small the actual tracker is, just an inch or two in size,which made me quite happy considering I have to deal with it on top of my monitor. Setting up TrackIR was very simple, plug the tracker into the USB port and tape it to my monitor. I had to use my own tape since it wasn't suppled, and because I do not have a thin LCD screen which the unit is setup to clip onto. Getting the TrackClip Pro on my head was another story, first I don't wear caps so I don't have one anywhere, and the headphones I planned on using go around the back of my head and won't allow the LEDs to point at the tracker.
I quickly tried a winter hat knowing in my head that it would only be a10 minute fix since the clip would vibrate ever so slightly and getting it back in the same spot after removing the hat would be incredibly difficult. About 5 minutes of fiddling with the dials I decided to only use the Yaw axis control and I hopped into Live For Speed. Amazing! Thats all there is to it. I drove a few laps in a few cars for about 10 minutes and had to find a better solution, which I endedup using an old roller-blading helmet with just the foam. I went back and set things up a little more properly and used all 6 axis, although was still quite anxious to get into the game and play. So I jumped into the FBM and you can look up at the sky! It really was the first thing I tried while waiting for green lights.
I have only played with it for about 2 hours and still need to tweak the sensitivity a little bit. This will take a lot of time to get perfect but within the two hours it was working very naturally and honestly I didn't feel some of the effects I thought I would. I had read and heard that one of the downfalls to the head tracker is that you move your head to the left but you need to move your eyes to the left. Before buying TrackIR I tried this a bit and while looking at the center of the screen and turning my head I noticed the feeling a bit. However when in game I didn't notice that same feeling, in fact I don't even know if I turned my eyes while playing in the game.
At $200 it isn't the cheapest thing to buy for your Sim-Racing setup, but it has been worth every penny. Just getting in game and looking around was amazing. Its quite obvious that it would be but this actually blew away my expectations and I am very happy with it. Immersion level has increased so much. I had been planning on buying a bigger monitor first, as I play on 17" crt right now and want a bigger screen, although I am very happy that I bought TrackIR first. It is probably the third most immersive item in my setup, falling just behind the Logitech G25 and my computer. I may try writing how I feel a month from now since this is all based on the "opening night".
