TrackIR 5 Review

By – Stephen Todd

TrackIR 5, by NaturalPoint claims to give you unmatched ease in how you view your virtual world; be it in the air, in a race car, or during the heat of battle. More importantly, it should significantly increase your situational awareness and help perform at a totally different level than you could without it. I put it to the test, and was surprised by the results.

So, how does it work?  The short version is the software you install interfaces with an infrared sensor and your game, tracking your head movement through 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) and moving your view automatically in game based on those movements. Clear as mud?  Now, as always, I love getting toys in the mail. Especially ones that I ask specifically for – like this one. NaturalPoint was just kind enough to let me review it. As is Standard Operating Procedure for me, I had to get into it when I came home from my “day job.” (even though it’s midnight when I get home.)

Opening the package I found the IR sensor, mounting base, hat device and some simple instructions. The IR unit simply snaps onto the mounting base with a magnet, and is then mounted on top of your monitor. The hat device is just clipped to the brim of any ball cap you have. *note- you can also get a device that clips to the side of your headphones. I did not have that, so it is not included in this review.*  The software installation is equally as simple; you just go to the website listed in the instructions and download the driver. Once that is installed, put on your ball cap, plug in the USB, and start the TrackIR program.

Opening the program will display a screen the looks like you are on the inside of a compass. You’ll notice as you move your head, the compass will spin accordingly.  The best way to adjust this is simply to sit still with your head at a comfortable position and press F12, which will center the compass.  On the right side of this screen, you will see three heads that move as you do. This is to show your head position while calibrating. You are also able to get into the settings menu to adjust things like speed, how smooth the head movement is, LED brightness, sensitivity, etc. You can also set up profiles with different settings for different games.

I think it’s important that I stress the TrackIR software must be running before you turn on whatever game you’re going to use it with, otherwise it won’t work properly.  That said, the first time I loaded up FSX I sat on the runway in an F-15 Eagle, just to check the settings, for about 10 minutes. Honestly, I thought it was twitchy and far too sensitive.  In default settings, it took about 25 degrees of motion to get 90 degrees of change. The zoom worked ok, but if I moved more than a couple of inches, I was zoomed in on the panel so much that I could only see one or two letters of a particular button. When I tried to zoom in on a side instrument panel, my view ended up going circles.  I was spinning between the side panel, the ejection seat, and the sky.  Clearly, I needed to readjust.  I ended the flight and got back into the TrackIR setup. I adjusted most of the sensitivities down to about half of what they were and tried it in FSX again. I repeated this process for about 30 minutes, until I got the settings to my liking. Currently, I have it set so a 45 degree yaw movement produces a 90 degree turn on the compass. Likewise, 45 degrees in pitch similarly produces 90 degrees of movement on the compass.

 Now, I know you’re not supposed to take a high powered, afterburning fighter jet and launch it from a small suburban Salt Lake City municipal airport, (at low level and in full afterburner) but what’s the point of flying a flight simulator if you don’t do things that you wouldn’t do in real life? So, that’s exactly what I did.  After screaming down the runway, raising my gear, and blasting off into the sky, it dawned on me. I had been flying and checking my instruments so naturally, that I had forgotten about TrackIR. In other words, it did exactly what NaturalPoint had claimed.

The next day, however, I wanted to do some real evaluation. I made a checklist of things I wanted to test that included 6DOF, sensitivity and practical use. I found that the 6DOF worked as advertised only within certain confines. For example, I am 6’4”, thus my hat is going to be higher that a person who is, say, 5’4”.

Even though I could get 90 degrees of vertical pitch in the setup, that’s not what I was experiencing in game. As I tilted my head up 45 degrees, that’s about all I got. The hat unit was too high for the IR module to read all three of the sensors, so it would stop moving.  Therefore, mounting the IR module on top of my monitor was not going to work. I elevated the module and got more vertical pitch, but I still to this day have yet to experience a full 90 degree vertical pitch view in game. Conversely, by raising the module, I limited the downward pitch for the exact same reason – the module can’t read the sensors

Tweaking, modifying and customizing are all part and parcel for a gamer. So, it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to get these settings dialed in where you like them. Just know, it’s going to take some time. I am about 15 hours into the TrackIR 5 and I think I’ve about got the science of it down. I frequently use all 6 degrees of freedom while flying and it is ever increasingly becoming more natural to operate. Most importantly, I find that I am able to fly more accurately, and therefore, more closely simulating real flying.  The only thing I would caution you about is once you move to an external view of your airplane, the view movement is still connected to the TracklIR. So, if you want to look at your aircraft, you have to move your head. In doing so, you can’t really see the monitor- in essence defeating the purpose.

Conclusion – Is it Worth The Money?

Yes. The ability to look around the cockpit and experience the virtual world naturally, significantly increases my situational awareness and ability to fly formation and VFR flights. I imagine that using TRACKIR in a supported first person shooter would have a similar effect, as would it in a racing game. As we all know, the more situational awareness we have, the better we perform, the more we win. TRACKIR delivers a game changing experience. (pun intended)