i got my new smartnav a few days ago (s/n 20075, sw 3.2.8, win xp) , and i'm generally happy with it. some comments:
* it's a lot more precise and smoother than the old one, just as you claim.
* the new software is far better than the old, especially in terms of configurability and unobtrusiveness.
* it would be good to have the software run before login.
* the old rectangular ability switches were a lot easier to use than the new round ones. finding the right bit to press isn't easy for those of us with limited sensation and restricted mobility.
* the software seems more sensitive to the mouse - previously the mouse was often placed out of the way on top of my ventilator. doing that now results in the mouse taking over at each breath, just from the virtually imperceptible vibration of the ventilator. it would be good if the switchover threshold was adjustable to allow for this. i suspect that similar problems would arise from leaving the mouse close to a printer or from bumping the desk.
finally:
the software exhibits a behaviour that i find exteremely odd - anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two. some programs (ex: mirc, when a new message comes into a window that is scrolled back) do this for every sound they produce.
i can't find anything to indicate that the smartnav is supposed to give alerts when a sound is produced, so i can only conclude that this is a bug. please fix it - it's quite irritating.
all in all, a great product and i'm glad i upgraded.
-cg
addendum: starting the ati multimedia centre tv application results in a similar blinking effect, however it lasts about 20 seconds.
[ September 30, 2004, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Cameron Grant ]
smartnav3 eg and sound
Re: smartnav3 eg and sound
Cameron,
We appreciate all of the feedback you have to offer, and are glad that you enjoy our improved SmartNAV product. Let me see if I can address some of your questions :
quote: it would be good to have the software run before login.Unfortunatly it is very difficult (and not recommended by microsoft) to run user applications before login as opposed to drivers. The advantage of not running entirely as a driver is greater flexibility and a larger feature set, along with being easier to debug I will make note of it as a feature request, though.
quote: the old rectangular ability switches were a lot easier to use than the new round ones. If you prefer the old-style switches, you may be able to purchase one from [url=http://www.zygo-usa.com,]www.zygo-usa.com,[/url] I believe it is called a "CM-40 Lolly switch"
quote: the software seems more sensitive to the mouse You are correct, the cooperative mouse function activates more easily in the new software. We will evaluate changing the behavior to make it less sensitive.
quote:anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two.
We have not been able to reproduce this issue using a soundcard, but based on the symptoms you describe it could be related to a bug which another user reported that we are working on :
http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=000070
We will look into it further, in the meantime you may wish to make sure that there is not an IRQ conflict between your sound card and usb controller.
We appreciate all of the feedback you have to offer, and are glad that you enjoy our improved SmartNAV product. Let me see if I can address some of your questions :
quote: it would be good to have the software run before login.Unfortunatly it is very difficult (and not recommended by microsoft) to run user applications before login as opposed to drivers. The advantage of not running entirely as a driver is greater flexibility and a larger feature set, along with being easier to debug I will make note of it as a feature request, though.
quote: the old rectangular ability switches were a lot easier to use than the new round ones. If you prefer the old-style switches, you may be able to purchase one from [url=http://www.zygo-usa.com,]www.zygo-usa.com,[/url] I believe it is called a "CM-40 Lolly switch"
quote: the software seems more sensitive to the mouse You are correct, the cooperative mouse function activates more easily in the new software. We will evaluate changing the behavior to make it less sensitive.
quote:anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two.
We have not been able to reproduce this issue using a soundcard, but based on the symptoms you describe it could be related to a bug which another user reported that we are working on :
http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=000070
We will look into it further, in the meantime you may wish to make sure that there is not an IRQ conflict between your sound card and usb controller.
Re: smartnav3 eg and sound
quote:Originally posted by Birch Zimmer:
Cameron,
We appreciate all of the feedback you have to offer, and are glad that you enjoy our improved SmartNAV product.when i find an exceptionally good product, i like to let its creators know what they're doing right. it's a bit more rewarding to know you've made a customer happy than to just take their money. i like to think that it encourages companies to sell better products and see their customers as credit card numbers and time sinks for the support dept.
quote: quote: it would be good to have the software run before login.Unfortunatly it is very difficult (and not recommended by microsoft) to run user applications before login as opposed to drivers. The advantage of not running entirely as a driver is greater flexibility and a larger feature set, along with being easier to debug I will make note of it as a feature request, though.i think it should be possible to split the application into a service that implemented the basic facilities of pointer movement, and an application for configuration and control. depending on the structure of your code, it might be fairly easy or very difficult to do this. i wouldn't put too much effort into it but, like i said, it would be a useful featute to have.
quote: quote: the old rectangular ability switches were a lot easier to use than the new round ones. If you prefer the old-style switches, you may be able to purchase one from [url=http://www.zygo-usa.com,]www.zygo-usa.com,[/url] I believe it is called a "CM-40 Lolly switch"it's not a problem for me, since i have my old ones. i was thinking that it might be good if you offered some alternative switches or just put up a page about switch compatibility and suggested suppliers.
quote: quote:anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two.
We have not been able to reproduce this issue using a soundcard, but based on the symptoms you describe it could be related to a bug which another user reported that we are working on :
http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=000070
We will look into it further, in the meantime you may wish to make sure that there is not an IRQ conflict between your sound card and usb controller.after a bit more observation, i've seen it happen in contexts unrelated unrelated to sound - specifically, enabling/disabling a network adapter.
the audio processor (nforce2 based motherboards with soundstorm have an apu and an audio controller on-chip) and the usb controller the smartnav is on are both on irq 22, although pci is designed to allow this. drivers are supposed to check whether the interrupt was triggered by their device before doing any processing. that said, i will try a usb port on one of the other controllers when i have an opportunity.
the network adapter i referred to is on irq 17, and the ati vga/tv card is on irq 18. that these both trigger the problem quite spectacularly does suggest to me that an irq problem isn't involved, but as i'm an os driver programmer myself (sound drivers for freebsd mostly) i'm well aware of how hard to track down and how convoluted the trigger path can be for this kind of problem.
if it would be any help, i wouldn't mind running a version of the driver/app that was instrumented to log what's actually happening for you, or testing any fixes. as i said, the problem is fully repeatable on my computer.
by the way, what is the expected lifespan of a reflective dot? mine usually last about 24 hours but, in warm weather, any contact with sweat kills them instantly. it's not a problem really, i'm just curious.
Cameron,
We appreciate all of the feedback you have to offer, and are glad that you enjoy our improved SmartNAV product.when i find an exceptionally good product, i like to let its creators know what they're doing right. it's a bit more rewarding to know you've made a customer happy than to just take their money. i like to think that it encourages companies to sell better products and see their customers as credit card numbers and time sinks for the support dept.
quote: quote: it would be good to have the software run before login.Unfortunatly it is very difficult (and not recommended by microsoft) to run user applications before login as opposed to drivers. The advantage of not running entirely as a driver is greater flexibility and a larger feature set, along with being easier to debug I will make note of it as a feature request, though.i think it should be possible to split the application into a service that implemented the basic facilities of pointer movement, and an application for configuration and control. depending on the structure of your code, it might be fairly easy or very difficult to do this. i wouldn't put too much effort into it but, like i said, it would be a useful featute to have.
quote: quote: the old rectangular ability switches were a lot easier to use than the new round ones. If you prefer the old-style switches, you may be able to purchase one from [url=http://www.zygo-usa.com,]www.zygo-usa.com,[/url] I believe it is called a "CM-40 Lolly switch"it's not a problem for me, since i have my old ones. i was thinking that it might be good if you offered some alternative switches or just put up a page about switch compatibility and suggested suppliers.
quote: quote:anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two.
We have not been able to reproduce this issue using a soundcard, but based on the symptoms you describe it could be related to a bug which another user reported that we are working on :
http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=000070
We will look into it further, in the meantime you may wish to make sure that there is not an IRQ conflict between your sound card and usb controller.after a bit more observation, i've seen it happen in contexts unrelated unrelated to sound - specifically, enabling/disabling a network adapter.
the audio processor (nforce2 based motherboards with soundstorm have an apu and an audio controller on-chip) and the usb controller the smartnav is on are both on irq 22, although pci is designed to allow this. drivers are supposed to check whether the interrupt was triggered by their device before doing any processing. that said, i will try a usb port on one of the other controllers when i have an opportunity.
the network adapter i referred to is on irq 17, and the ati vga/tv card is on irq 18. that these both trigger the problem quite spectacularly does suggest to me that an irq problem isn't involved, but as i'm an os driver programmer myself (sound drivers for freebsd mostly) i'm well aware of how hard to track down and how convoluted the trigger path can be for this kind of problem.
if it would be any help, i wouldn't mind running a version of the driver/app that was instrumented to log what's actually happening for you, or testing any fixes. as i said, the problem is fully repeatable on my computer.
by the way, what is the expected lifespan of a reflective dot? mine usually last about 24 hours but, in warm weather, any contact with sweat kills them instantly. it's not a problem really, i'm just curious.
Re: smartnav3 eg and sound
quote:Originally posted by Birch Zimmer:
quote:anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two.We have not been able to reproduce this issue using a soundcard, but based on the symptoms you describe it could be related to a bug which another user reported that we are working on :
http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=000070
We will look into it further, in the meantime you may wish to make sure that there is not an IRQ conflict between your sound card and usb controller.i've now verified that this occurs on another computer, using completely different hardware - p4 vs athlon.
another problem: when trying to play myst 4, the cursor moves very jerkily, rendering it unplayable.
quote:anytime an application makes a sound for the first time, the green and ir leds blink twice while the cursor freezes for a second or two.We have not been able to reproduce this issue using a soundcard, but based on the symptoms you describe it could be related to a bug which another user reported that we are working on :
http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=000070
We will look into it further, in the meantime you may wish to make sure that there is not an IRQ conflict between your sound card and usb controller.i've now verified that this occurs on another computer, using completely different hardware - p4 vs athlon.
another problem: when trying to play myst 4, the cursor moves very jerkily, rendering it unplayable.
Re: smartnav3 eg and sound
Please email me directly (kevin@naturalpoint.com) regarding your game issues.
Also the newest release of our software should address the potential issue with the sound.
-Kevin
Also the newest release of our software should address the potential issue with the sound.
-Kevin