Quick review of TrackIR 5 software

[snomhf]

I'll just point out the negatives here (to save space) except to say that V5 is really going to be nice once everything gets ironed out. I especially love the "in the cockpit of a Spitfire" view and set that as my default because it gives you the best sense of how it is going to behave ingame.

I deleted my V4 software first and installed V5 beta. Here are the "problems" I found with V5:

1. I could not figure out anyway to load (or clone) my V4 profiles to V5. This is a show-stopper for me as I spent months fine-tuning my profiles and don't want to spend the time doing all that again. There is enough difference in the way the two work apparently to easily do this.

2. I use complex Hot Keys for Center, Standby, Precision so that they don't conflict with any of my games (e.g. ALT-CTRL-X) and when I tried to set these Hot Keys in V5, it was unable to accept these complex assignments (it only saw "ALT-CTRL"). A loss of functionality there.

3. I saw no way to raise and lower the curve the way you can in V4 to adjust the sensitivity. Maybe there is some other way of doing this in V5 but it was not intuitive.

4. The overall performance seemed jittery to me. No matter what I did, it never really felt as smooth as V4. Again, not having spent a lot of time tuning it, this may or may not really be an issue.

5. I do not use the "Roll" axis for any of my profiles. When I try to unselect that axis in the V5 software, it would not turn off. I think the box shows unchecked but it has no effect. Maybe TrackIR is not really seeing the profile I'm editing or something like that (that doesn't seem as clear as it is in V4) but it did seem to respond to other changes I made to the profile (e.g. flatting out the curve).

Therefore, I have been forced to uninstall V5 (mostly because I could not figure out how to import my V4 profiles) and return to V4. I will certainly keep my eye on this as V5 has a really nice interface and will be worth upgrading to once these sorts of issues are worked out.

Thank you for a great product!
-mark

[Seth Steiling]

Thanks for the great feedback! 5.0 is still a little bit "in progress," but is going to be fantastic in time.

1. I could not figure out anyway to load (or clone) my V4 profiles to V5. This is a show-stopper for me as I spent months fine-tuning my profiles and don't want to spend the time doing all that again. There is enough difference in the way the two work apparently to easily do this.

We've been chatting about creating a tool to convert your 4.x profiles to 5.0. The feasibility hasn't been completely evaluated, but it's something we're looking into.

2. I use complex Hot Keys for Center, Standby, Precision so that they don't conflict with any of my games (e.g. ALT-CTRL-X) and when I tried to set these Hot Keys in V5, it was unable to accept these complex assignments (it only saw "ALT-CTRL"). A loss of functionality there.

2 key combos are enabled in today's build (5.0 beta 02):
http://media.naturalpoint.com/software/ ... eta.02.exe

I don't believe that 3 key combos are yet enabled. Is that level of combination necessary for you? If so, I'll pass it along to the dev team.

3. I saw no way to raise and lower the curve the way you can in V4 to adjust the sensitivity. Maybe there is some other way of doing this in V5 but it was not intuitive.

The speed slider is intended to achieve a similar function for wide sweeping edits. But, it does apply to all axes, so it's a bit different. The best way to move a curve up currently is to either manually change the control points or enter your desired value into the value boxes above the graph. Our UI space is pretty tight in there, but it might be possible to squeeze in a "shift curve up/down" control if users find it particularly necessary.

What about implementing a rectangle selection tool to select a set of control points so you can drag them up/down together?

4. The overall performance seemed jittery to me. No matter what I did, it never really felt as smooth as V4. Again, not having spent a lot of time tuning it, this may or may not really be an issue.

The default smoothing settings for a TrackIR 4 camera with the 5.0 software weren't quite right in 5.0 beta 01. 5.0 beta 02 has adjusted the default settings, which should correct this issue for TrackIR 4 users. TrackIR 5 users would not experience this issue, because of the higher resolution and better image processing.

5. I do not use the "Roll" axis for any of my profiles. When I try to unselect that axis in the V5 software, it would not turn off. I think the box shows unchecked but it has no effect. Maybe TrackIR is not really seeing the profile I'm editing or something like that (that doesn't seem as clear as it is in V4) but it did seem to respond to other changes I made to the profile (e.g. flatting out the curve).

That is bizarre. Try deleting the TrackIR 5 folder and reinstalling 5.0 beta 02. I tried deselecting roll, and it behaved accordingly.

Therefore, I have been forced to uninstall V5 (mostly because I could not figure out how to import my V4 profiles) and return to V4. I will certainly keep my eye on this as V5 has a really nice interface and will be worth upgrading to once these sorts of issues are worked out.

Thank you for a great product!
-mark

Glad you'll be keeping an eye out for improvements to 5.0. I think that once everything gets optimized and ironed out, it's going to be a fantastic enhancement of the TrackIR experience.

[snomhf]

Thank you for the thoughtful and specific replies. You guys obviously want to get this right and I really appreciate that.

We've been chatting about creating a tool to convert your 4.x profiles to 5.0. The feasibility hasn't been completely evaluated, but it's something we're looking into.

Thank you. That will be very helpful.

2 key combos are enabled in today's build (5.0 beta 02):
http://media.naturalpoint.com/software/ ... eta.02.exe

I don't believe that 3 key combos are yet enabled. Is that level of combination necessary for you? If so, I'll pass it along to the dev team.

Well, it's important to me. Games like Falcon4 and FSX use a lot of key combination commands. It is important to me to find hot keys that will not conflict. I ended up having to change mine a couple of times before I finally found the "CTRL-ALT-X", "CTRL-ALT-Y", and "CTRL-ALT-Z" commands that were consistently unused. I would personally hate to lose that. Can't speak for anyone else of course.

The speed slider is intended to achieve a similar function for wide sweeping edits. But, it does apply to all axes, so it's a bit different. The best way to move a curve up currently is to either manually change the control points or enter your desired value into the value boxes above the graph. Our UI space is pretty tight in there, but it might be possible to squeeze in a "shift curve up/down" control if users find it particularly necessary.

As I said, I didn't spend a lot of time with this so I'm sure once I get used to the new methods of doing things it will be fine. Important thing to me is not losing any functionality that exists now. As long as there is a way to adjust the speed of each curve individually like you can now.

What about implementing a rectangle selection tool to select a set of control points so you can drag them up/down together?

That sounds good. You could select the entire curve, for example, and drag the whole thing up or down. That's even better than the way it's done now IMHO.

The default smoothing settings for a TrackIR 4 camera with the 5.0 software weren't quite right in 5.0 beta 01. 5.0 beta 02 has adjusted the default settings, which should correct this issue for TrackIR 4 users. TrackIR 5 users would not experience this issue, because of the higher resolution and better image processing.

I figured it was something to do with using a TIR4 with TIR5 software.

That is bizarre. Try deleting the TrackIR 5 folder and reinstalling 5.0 beta 02. I tried deselecting roll, and it behaved accordingly.

Oh well, who knows? I'm sure when I get back to V5 it won't be an issue. Probably wasn't even worth mentioning.

Glad you'll be keeping an eye out for improvements to 5.0. I think that once everything gets optimized and ironed out, it's going to be a fantastic enhancement of the TrackIR experience.

Indeed. I'm looking forward to the new interface.

Thank you so much for taking the time to field all these observations. I'm certain TrackIR 5 is going to be a huge success.

regards
-mark

[Muhad]

Since I use FSX I would like to see complex key presses possible as well!
Oh, and also a 4 to 5 profile converter.

[snomhf]

Just a follow-up here.

I just purchased TIR5 and have officially retired my TIR4 after three intense years of use. I have to admit that I felt a little extravagant since TIR4 has served me so well but after several hours of flight with TIR5, I have realized what a huge improvement it is. The movement of TIR5 is much more natural. With TIR4, I worked very hard to improve the responsiveness of the device and took extreme steps like adjusting the priority of the trackir process and scaling the axis curves way up so as to make them more aggressive. The first thing I noticed with TIR5 was that NONE of that was necessary. In fact, the default profile works so well that I found there was almost nothing to tweak! It literally took me a couple of months to get TIR4 adjusted so that it felt comfortable and TIR5 was nothing like that. I would think, especially for first time buyers, this is a giant plus for TIR5.

One of the most amazing things about the beta 4 software is every single concern that I posted at the beginning of this thread have been addressed. Thank you so much NP!

In response to Muhad's post: No worries. Both of those issues you mention have been addressed as well as a host of other stuff too. The TIR5 software is going to be great when it comes out of beta (and already is).

So, if you are on the fence about TIR5 as I was, let me assure you that it is a CONSIDERABLE upgrade. At first, I scoffed at the "larger resolution" but I didn't realize what that really meant and how all the attempts I was making with TIR4 to improve "aggressiveness" was really a resolution issue. The movement is so much smoother and natural feeling that you notice it right away. When I first tried it with just the default profile I said "this is what I've been trying to get all along." I immediately felt justified in my purchase.

[Seth Steiling]

Thanks for the great feedback, Mark! Our engineers and developers did a fantastic job on TrackIR 5, in my opinion. I've personally experienced everything you just expressed, which made me excited to get the product into the community's hands.