OK, a little premature in the last post. I guess I wasn't clear on how the speed and edit point sliders interacted and now I am. I've got a nice bigass deadzone now. As an aside, don't smoke cigars while using the TIR2. Interesting things happen.
[ November 14, 2003, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
Triplehead and Dead Zones
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Which brings up a question regarding momentary tracking of secondary light sources, is there a way to set a command that is issued when the TIR2 stops receiving input? It would be nice if right before it blanks out it issues a key that could be assigned to *snap to center* or *center in reticle* or whatever or if there was a method in the TIR2 software to have the POV automatically return to center in the face of inadequate data input. That way the game returns to fighting view if something glitches in the tracking or a momentary light (such as a cigar) temporarily redirects the point of view. Or you could lose your hat in the heat of battle. That would be a good way of preventing panic. I hope this isn't one of those RTFM questions.
[ November 14, 2003, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
[ November 14, 2003, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
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BusySilent
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2003 5:00 am
- Location: NYC, USA
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Dear Bash,
Could you tell us more about your three monitor setup (post photos if you have)?
Could you tell us more how TrackIR2 works with three monitors.
Thanks in advance.
Could you tell us more about your three monitor setup (post photos if you have)?
Could you tell us more how TrackIR2 works with three monitors.
Thanks in advance.
Triplehead and Dead Zones
Hi, just got my TrackIR and I'm loving it. Nice work, NP. I need to tweak it a bit since I'm using three monitors. As such I naturally pan my head wider than your average computer user. I've tried tweaking the deadzone sliders and that seems to be the way to fix matters but the TIR2 software (the newest 3.02 beta) always defaults back to zeroes (as least for display) when I drop back out of game to re-adjust the sliders and it makes it tough to tweak without seeing the values currently in use. Can you point to the area in the profile that designates the X deadzone? I can tweak manually by taking that into Notepad if I know the area I should concentrate on.
A second inconvenience is that I always lose my joystick connection upon reboot. The TIR2 seems to be forcing it out of the picture (it's a Saitek USB Cyborg 3D Gold). The work around is to disconnect the TIR2 upon reboot and plug it back in in XP Pro. Then all seems to play nicely. But, that said, is there some method to manually check the IRQs (or whatever is causing the problem) and change some settings so that both the TIR2 and the joystick will reboot successfully? Thanks for any tips and insights..
[ November 14, 2003, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
A second inconvenience is that I always lose my joystick connection upon reboot. The TIR2 seems to be forcing it out of the picture (it's a Saitek USB Cyborg 3D Gold). The work around is to disconnect the TIR2 upon reboot and plug it back in in XP Pro. Then all seems to play nicely. But, that said, is there some method to manually check the IRQs (or whatever is causing the problem) and change some settings so that both the TIR2 and the joystick will reboot successfully? Thanks for any tips and insights..
[ November 14, 2003, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
New rig so no photos yet. Basically Dell had a monitor blowout on LCDs recently so I got three. They are set up in the usual triplehead fashion running off a Matrox Parhelia 128 (also going for relatively cheap at places). I'm in heaven. Finally a desktop that approximates the size of a desk. Anyway, I read on the Surround Gaming list at Matrox that IL2 supported expanded resolutions and I'm hooked. The immersion is staggering.
As far as the TIR2 functioning well, I'm still dialing it in. I never realized how much body english I exhibited while playing and that needs to be tamed. THe device works as promised. The only niggle is the software seems to be calibrated with the assumption there are only singleheads in the world. With a rez of 3840 x 1024 I naturally move my head and eyes wider than your average gamer. I think that's throwing the TIR2 software a bit of a curve. But it just means tweaking the X axis separately and accepting that the panning will happen too abruptly and move a little too quickly if I want to both have a large deadzone and be able to pan the entire 180 degrees before the TIR2 stops *seeing* the reflector.
Not sure if I made that clear. IN other words, the TIR2 wants to start panning when I'm looking at either of the side monitors when I don't want it to pan because, obviously, I can see what I'm looking for. If a singlehead gamer was looking at the same angle, the software does and should naturally assume they wish to pan since the user is looking *off the screen*. The only way around it is to widen the deadzone in the X axis and that makes diagonal glancing a little bit hit and miss at the moment. But I'm confident I can adapt to it. It's just a little alien at the moment.
[ November 15, 2003, 02:09 AM: Message edited by: bash ]
As far as the TIR2 functioning well, I'm still dialing it in. I never realized how much body english I exhibited while playing and that needs to be tamed. THe device works as promised. The only niggle is the software seems to be calibrated with the assumption there are only singleheads in the world. With a rez of 3840 x 1024 I naturally move my head and eyes wider than your average gamer. I think that's throwing the TIR2 software a bit of a curve. But it just means tweaking the X axis separately and accepting that the panning will happen too abruptly and move a little too quickly if I want to both have a large deadzone and be able to pan the entire 180 degrees before the TIR2 stops *seeing* the reflector.
Not sure if I made that clear. IN other words, the TIR2 wants to start panning when I'm looking at either of the side monitors when I don't want it to pan because, obviously, I can see what I'm looking for. If a singlehead gamer was looking at the same angle, the software does and should naturally assume they wish to pan since the user is looking *off the screen*. The only way around it is to widen the deadzone in the X axis and that makes diagonal glancing a little bit hit and miss at the moment. But I'm confident I can adapt to it. It's just a little alien at the moment.
[ November 15, 2003, 02:09 AM: Message edited by: bash ]
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Just to update you I think I found a method of interacting with the TIR2 more in line with the way I play, taking into consideration that I'm having a hard time sitting still or keeping my head in the confines of the invisible box the TIR2 is able to see when I naturally want to roam around the extra wide view. I've got three keys in my default lefthand keyboard config in this order: Center View | Enable TIR2 | Center TIR2. I've completely gone the opposite direction with the TIR2 in that it is now setup without a deadzone and as smooth and constant a pan as I could dial in. In this manner I turn on the TIR2 when I want to look around but it's turned off when my target is in view. Very quickly I can roll down the three keys right to left so that it centers the TIR2 prior to turning it on (a great feature, btw), then the next key enables the TIR2 . When it's time to get down to business, I can then roll just the two left keys to be Disable TIR2 and Center View In Reticle. In a perfect world I could make them the same key binding so I could simultaneously enable/disable the TIR and have IL2 center the view. Unfortunately I can't bind anything to the keys reserved to the TIR2 controls (or it's blocking the second command, I dunno). But, so far, so good. This might be the way to go for me (although I'm a tweaking obsessive so I'll probably completely change things around several more times before I settle on a permanent way to incoporate the TIR2).
Here's two shots of what the screen FOV is with a triplehead. Note that the guages are the border of what a singlehead gamer sees. The second screenshot shows what IL2 looks like with a separeate viewport for each monitor. That mode is meant to set up with the side monitors at your side because it's displaying the information that would naturally appear looking out the side windows. As you can see, the TIR2 isn't as critical to a tripleheader since there's already alot of information, so my need to pan is much less frequent.
Heh, just noticed you can see the FRAPS overlay in the top right. So that's the sort of framerate you can expect with a triplehead (obviously much lower than high-end singlehead video cards since it's driving three monitors). That's on a 3.1 GHz P4 system with a gig of ram. I can't recall what resolution I was running when I took those screenshots but it was probably 2400 x 600 and 3 x 800 x 600. Needless to say, going higher really sends the fps to the basement.
[ November 15, 2003, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
Here's two shots of what the screen FOV is with a triplehead. Note that the guages are the border of what a singlehead gamer sees. The second screenshot shows what IL2 looks like with a separeate viewport for each monitor. That mode is meant to set up with the side monitors at your side because it's displaying the information that would naturally appear looking out the side windows. As you can see, the TIR2 isn't as critical to a tripleheader since there's already alot of information, so my need to pan is much less frequent.
Heh, just noticed you can see the FRAPS overlay in the top right. So that's the sort of framerate you can expect with a triplehead (obviously much lower than high-end singlehead video cards since it's driving three monitors). That's on a 3.1 GHz P4 system with a gig of ram. I can't recall what resolution I was running when I took those screenshots but it was probably 2400 x 600 and 3 x 800 x 600. Needless to say, going higher really sends the fps to the basement.
[ November 15, 2003, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
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BusySilent
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2003 5:00 am
- Location: NYC, USA
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Thank you, bash for fascinating overview of your set-up. Please do not be shy to post bragging photos. You may also want to go to Il2 general site and ask around other ppl's set-ups.
It seems that NaturalPoint needs to do some work to make multi-monitor + TrackIR combination to work smoothly.
It also sounds like Matrox Parhelia card is not the best in terms of producing quality picture. Does Nvidia and ATI plan to produce muliti-monitor cards?
It seems that NaturalPoint needs to do some work to make multi-monitor + TrackIR combination to work smoothly.
It also sounds like Matrox Parhelia card is not the best in terms of producing quality picture. Does Nvidia and ATI plan to produce muliti-monitor cards?
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Wish I had some but no camera and haven't gotten around to borrowing one yet.
Agreed with your two observations. First the TIR2 works well but I think NP should model it closer to joystick software (at least in moron mode) where you perform a series of exercises (such as look at all four corners several times, look that the monitor middle, top. bottom. etc) and it determines what you're looking at and what distance you're sitting from it and sets itself up to a close approximation of smooth panning within that environment, with the retained ability to tweak the controls after the setup wizard completes.
But, that said, I do believe the TIR2 requires a bit of cooperation on the part of the user to optimize it. There are limits to the technology and there are ways to make it work better if you know it's limits. Unfortunately I do every bad think it doesn't like (I move too much and I sit too far away from my monitor) but I'm adjusting that a bit. The more I adjust myself, the more impressed I am with the TIR2.
Addressing your other observation, the big gaming card companies offer dualhead but I think it's more of an afterthought and dualhead is sorta worthless for gaming anyway since the two monitors split the reticle. Has to be three. The Parhelia is a helia of a card, har har, but three monitors is a lot of horse power to drive. The technology might not be *there* yet but it's damn close. Definitely close enough to jump in now in the hope that supporting Surround Gaming will lead to more game pushlishers supporting it. Matrox will be releasing the Parhelia2 (rumour has it) next year and I know already that I will buy it. At a certain point immersion supercedes high framerate. In other words, I'd much rather play at low fps on three monitors than get 500 fps on a single (unless of course the single monitor is really really wide).
[ November 17, 2003, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
Agreed with your two observations. First the TIR2 works well but I think NP should model it closer to joystick software (at least in moron mode) where you perform a series of exercises (such as look at all four corners several times, look that the monitor middle, top. bottom. etc) and it determines what you're looking at and what distance you're sitting from it and sets itself up to a close approximation of smooth panning within that environment, with the retained ability to tweak the controls after the setup wizard completes.
But, that said, I do believe the TIR2 requires a bit of cooperation on the part of the user to optimize it. There are limits to the technology and there are ways to make it work better if you know it's limits. Unfortunately I do every bad think it doesn't like (I move too much and I sit too far away from my monitor) but I'm adjusting that a bit. The more I adjust myself, the more impressed I am with the TIR2.
Addressing your other observation, the big gaming card companies offer dualhead but I think it's more of an afterthought and dualhead is sorta worthless for gaming anyway since the two monitors split the reticle. Has to be three. The Parhelia is a helia of a card, har har, but three monitors is a lot of horse power to drive. The technology might not be *there* yet but it's damn close. Definitely close enough to jump in now in the hope that supporting Surround Gaming will lead to more game pushlishers supporting it. Matrox will be releasing the Parhelia2 (rumour has it) next year and I know already that I will buy it. At a certain point immersion supercedes high framerate. In other words, I'd much rather play at low fps on three monitors than get 500 fps on a single (unless of course the single monitor is really really wide).
[ November 17, 2003, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: bash ]
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Tim.Henry@shaw.ca
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2003 5:00 am
- Location: Canada
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Hiya gentlemen,
Bash very nice setup I have a similar rig 3 30" High Res monitors (res 3072x1024) I find this res best with everything max Matrox parhelia platinum 512mb 3.2 P4 2 GIG DDR ram networked to a second slave 2.8 P4 1 GIG DDR ram CH PRO PEDALS and CH Pro Jet Yoke A thrustmaster programmable Pro II with 7.1 BOSE audio surround speak. Its a pretty sweet experience. These are not bragging rights guys please dont misunderstand I suggest all of you try to do same as I have cause OMFG its the Shit!! The track IR is amazing but ya need to really tweak the curves. I have pics if anyone wants to see.
Bash very nice setup I have a similar rig 3 30" High Res monitors (res 3072x1024) I find this res best with everything max Matrox parhelia platinum 512mb 3.2 P4 2 GIG DDR ram networked to a second slave 2.8 P4 1 GIG DDR ram CH PRO PEDALS and CH Pro Jet Yoke A thrustmaster programmable Pro II with 7.1 BOSE audio surround speak. Its a pretty sweet experience. These are not bragging rights guys please dont misunderstand I suggest all of you try to do same as I have cause OMFG its the Shit!! The track IR is amazing but ya need to really tweak the curves. I have pics if anyone wants to see.
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Schallmoser
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2002 5:00 am
- Location: France
Re: Triplehead and Dead Zones
Hi STRYKERII,
You're a lucky guy
Please post many pics if you can, it's allways nice to dream a bit
BTW, do you use the normal view mapped to the three monitors or do you use the view taking into account the side view, in this case does it feel natural to look at the side with the TIR unit? I cant' figure out how it might be.
Best regards
Schallmoser
You're a lucky guy
Please post many pics if you can, it's allways nice to dream a bit
BTW, do you use the normal view mapped to the three monitors or do you use the view taking into account the side view, in this case does it feel natural to look at the side with the TIR unit? I cant' figure out how it might be.
Best regards
Schallmoser