So you have spent the money and bought a Track IR
Natural Point Track IR, Free Track, and other head tracking software commonly used with Aces High II Allow the player to "put their head in the game". Meaning that they will move their head around to see behind, side to side, up down, and roll, as well as in and out. However what is the best settings for the software.
Track IR software is pretty small, compact, and featureless. You cant save profiles the good old way, and cant seem to adjust your settings bands and other things.
This is where most people go wrong. So get those ideas out of your head and start from the ground up.
Body Posture
First of all, swiveling your chair when you look is a bad habit that is as natural as the day is long, so your going to need to concentrate. Swiveling your chair when you turn your head to look around you is a bad thing this throws your head out of range, the object is to look directly at the screen just as you normally would
Another thing is the distance from the Camera that you are is impacting how the camera perceives your head.
If you are looking in, you have to remember look into the camera and look out away from the camera by moving your head up while you are looking in and back when you are looking back.
This takes a little getting used to.
Setting the Bar and Graphs.
If you go to view, and look at your options there you will see that you have 3 of them. Graphs, Heads, and Tracking
Turn all 3 of these on. Make sure that your Ultra Clip, or IR dots and your camera is working at the time. You should see that you have 3 points on the camera and the rest of the screen is black while looking at the Tracking area. Next you will see the Graphs, you can right click on the graph that you want to change and go to edit. Set these to where you are comfortable yet dont have to strain to look. But remember the higher the movement is, the higher it will be on your in game head. It will be hard to scan the horizon while in zoom mode looking for that GV or carrier with the setting too high as your In Game head will move almost 3 times as fast as your real one. If you move your head back with no response try unchecking the box that says "mirror values" while you are in the edit mode. Now you can set it to where little change in your head back area will create big change on your in game head. IE you move your head back 4 inches from the screen it will put you at the very back of the cockpit.
Deadbands, and Custom Values
Deadbands are what we use to create little movement at all, they are vital in every joystick or human interface device known to man. Microswitches get dusty, your head is going to want to drift a little naturally as you are trying to check gauges and shoot down an enemy plane while focusing on your pipper. So setting the dots on both sides, in center and the first dot on the left and right of the center dot will give you a so called Grace Zone that will allow you to move your head slightly without moving your in game head. So you can check guages and get back that default view of the head on view in the game.
Lighting Setup and Room Environment.
Try to make sure that you have no IR equipment such as IR burglar alarm motion sensors, as well as other devices that are older yet still in existance in power on your home. These devices can cause interference with your IR camera and potentially disrupt the head tracking. This is not a common situation however I have seen it happen Some flourescent bulbs also emit a certain light that can cause a grainy image on the tracking camera. So to check this once again we go to the tracking under view in the menu bar. If there are grains of light there you can set the cam up the right way by simply clicking the settings button. Enable light filtering by checking the box, then set the slider bar beneath that until the granyness goes away. So basically you are turning down the lighting a little bit. Also while you are on this page go ahead and move your head around a little bit and make sure that all IR dots still show up. If they are cutting out, or the light spot is fading as your head is moving down you can set this feature called preferred dot size down so that you are able to track that smaller dot and be able to still move your head down and the program to track it.
Troubleshooting and System Failure
Camera Doesnt work or LEDs dont come on. Make sure that your USB connection is not connected to a powered hub. As a matter of a fact spend the 20 bucks and get an extra 4 port PCI card for your PC and just use it for your joystick, Track IR, and Rudder pedals. If you have that, then unplug the camera part (the thing that looks like a webcam that sits on your monitor), wait 10 seconds and then plug it back in. If the LEDs still dont light up, try moving it to a free port, or try using a different computer, if the LED's stil dont light up (the red ones in the center) then I would call Natural Point, or whoever sold you it and cuss them out over the phone becuase it broke. Providing your pet girbil, hamster, rat, squirrel, or cats and dogs didnt chew the wires up.
Track Clip Pro wont light up. Check the USB Connection and ensure that you are not trying to power too much. Once again if it is plugged into a hub, then buy a powered hub, or better yet a PCI Card. If it is still not lighting up, check the cables for teeth marks, cracks dents and dry rot or shorts (not spongebob squarepants shorts either).
Track IR is not tracking when i start up the game.
Now, you may have to get out of the game, and then hit F9, or another secret is that if you check the box that says load exclusively for some reason the program causes this and turns the power off to the camera. So uncheck the box hit F9 and then F12 and whala your trackin.
Every time i hit F12 to recenter Track IR I transmit on range.
Disable the key F12 on your keyboard and use the one that you have mapped to your joystick all the time. This is better than trying to find a new key and disrupting something else.
Mapping Keystrokes to X52 or HOTAS macro enabled joystick.
Saitek X52, CH Products, and other joysticks enable macros.
I have a Saitek X52 and have found that pinkie switch and throttle hat up down and side to side are good mappable positions. Just open the controller software and program macro. However I would use the advanced macro as it provides a release of the key as well as a key press and you can set the delay time and hold time of the key being pressed.
Any more questions that I should write on?
Oh yeah, dont upgrade your Track IR software yet if you are using windows 2000, or XP, a flaw in the software will not allow it to load properly and youll be stuck.
Read the Track IR manual thoroughly before asking dumb questions however I will answer some as I have to every day.
