FS2004 Motions Too Rapid

[westes]

I am using TrackIR version 1, which I just installed with the 2.11 software release. I tried to fly a Cessna 182 in the pattern, and I'm finding that the slightest movement of my head results in huge movement on screen. I went into the setup, selected Custom, and adjusted speed of X and Y to near 0 (as far left as possible). The movement is still far too rapid for this to be very usable.

For me to accept the motions on screen as natural, I would expect that small motions near the center would be met with small motions on screen. As the motion becomes farther from center then you could accelerate the amount of motion right or left.

In addition, I want very small motions near the center to be ignored entirely. Humans move their head slightly unconsciously, and it doesn't affect their perception of a still scene straight ahead of them. This illusion needs to be preserved.

Is there anything I can do to get the effect I desire here? Is there a FS2004 profile that can be downloaded somewhere?

[Jim]

Hello:

First, I would recommend to download our latest software, 3.01, which will be up later today. Then, in the Motion screen you will want to select the DeadZone profile, that should be a good starting point. You can then customize this motion profile to get the desired response. What you describe in your post is totaly achievable.

[westes]

I upgraded to 3.01, then selected Dead Zone. How do I control how much dead zone there is? It's still not very usable at this setting, but slightly less worse.

3.01 is crashing a lot on my Windows 2000 machine running ATI RADEON 9.5 Pro.

[Charlie251]

You need to make a custom profile.

Select deadzone and then click the link that says "Click here to customize".

Then un-click the radio button that says "Group Edit Point" so it is turned off.

For FS2004, I set edit points 0 through 5 to 0, and then slowly increase the rest to a max value of around 15.

FS2004 does have a very fast response time to TrackIR.

Jim: Maybe a new "default" type specifically for FS2004 since it seems that everyone has a very sensitive trackIR with FS2004.

[westes]

Your suggestion made motion smoother, but things still aren't working right.

Now the motion onscreen is just freezing at certain points when I move my head in any direction. The light is still green on the TrackIR, so it isn't a problem seeing the point on my head.

As a general comment, the UI for configuring this thing is extremely obscure. How is anyone supposed to make sense of this user interface? It looks like it was designed by someone with deep knowledge of the internals of the product, and it is not presented in a way that is easy for someone who wants to just use it. For example, there is an x and y radio button. What is the implication of selecting either of these? There is a picture of a chain. What does this do?

I tried to hit F1, and I got a modal dialog saying the file does not exist. I navigated to the install directory and it was not there.

I am still getting crashes with 3.01.

Still not ready for prime time I am afraid. The idea is powerful. But it has a long ways to go before I would prefer it to using traditional methods for FS2004.

[Charlie251]

Hang in there. They are still working a few kinks out of the software. Nothing is perfect the first few weeks it is out. Just be glad NP works very hard to get things fixed right away!

Glad to hear it is working smoother. Lets look at what is going on with the freezing.

First off: Are you using the TrackHAT? If so, take a peice of the reflective material you received with the TrackIR and put it over the reflective material on the hat. That made a world of difference for me.

Second: Go to the tracking screen and look around a lot in every direction. Do you notice it skipping or freezing when your watching your dot move around?

OK, to explain a few things.... the chain symbol "links" the x and y axis. So, any change you make to the speed at any given edit point happens to both the X and Y axis at the same time.

If you un-highlight the chain, then you can make changes to the x and y axis independantly of each other depending on which radio button you have selected.

You can see this happen in the motion page X and Y axis area (where the curves are) as you make changes to the edit points.

Anyway, try those few things above and let us know how it goes and we will try something else depending on the info you give back.

[westes]

I'm using the dot on my forehead, not the track hat.

I'm not sure how the Tracking tab on the configuration application is supposed to work. I see a black screen with a dot that follows me inside the TrackIR Configuration application. I see the same black screen in the top left corner of my Windows 2000 desktop, but the dot in that application window does NOT follow me.

I see the same kind of staggering in the Tracking application as I did in FS2004. In addition, I don't seem to be able to get the the dot to move all the way to the left or to the right (that's analogous to what I see in not being able to turn past a certain point of horizontal view in FS2004.

I also noted that the dot was not centered in the TrackIR application. F12 did NOT center the dot. At least in FS2004 F12 does center my view.

[Charlie251]

Ah ha!

OK, that second tracking window is the key factor in what is happening.

Do you happen to have a Hyperthreading CPU? That seems to be causing this problem with a great deal of other people. Try setting the afinity on the program to one CPU.

This is the instructions snake gave:

How to set the 3.01 Affinity to a single CPU: To set Affinity, run 3.01 and hit ctrl+alt+del, go to the processes tab if it isn't already, right click on the Naturalpont, click on the Set Affinity option and uncheck CPU 1. You'll have to do this everytime you start 3.01, or turning off HT completelty should be an potion in the BIOS, but it will have an effect on performance.

I do not have a HT CPU so that is the most I can tell you. I am sure Snake is lurking around and can answer any other questions if the above is not sufficient.

Let us know if this fixes your problem.

[Charlie251]

Hi Will,

It could possibly be a profile issue. To ensure we cover our tracks, I have uploaded my FS2004 profile to our webserver for you to download.

Right click on the link (I will provide below) and select "Save target as". Save this to your trackIR directory along with the other .tir files.

Load this profile up and give it a spin. Do not make any changes to it to ensure it is the original.

Note that the hotkeys for this profile are as follows:

Mode: KeyPad -
Enable: KeyPad +
Center: \ (back slash)

I hope this will clear everything up for you. If so, then feel free to reassign the hot keys to what you would prefer and use it to your hearts content!

Oh, you will still need to set your affinity to 0 or 1 until the HT problem is fixed (NP is making good progress on it now).

Here is the file....

http://www.virtualflightproductions.com ... FS2004.tir

[westes]

I do have hyperthreading on. Setting Affinity to CPU 0 or CPU 1, I see now only one tracking window. But I still have an issue with the cursor "sticking" at the edges.

What affects the degree of coverage right or left? I don't seem to be able to turn consistently past about a 45 degree deflection left or right.