my trackir5 is dying...how is freetrack?
 

hey guys, my trackir5 is dying slowly, so i wanted to know, how freetrack is working...
i have trackir5 now for almost exactly two years, and i was really happy with it.i couldnt fly without it anymore.but two years, isnt a long time for a webcam for 150euros, so im hesitating whether i should go again with trackir or if i should go for the much cheaper version, freetrack.

now what im really looking for, is the quality....i think i would really hate to use freetrack, if it wouldnt work as good as trackir.so the first big question,...is it possible, with the proper webcam, to get freetrack working as good as trackir.

second question,....which webcam?(i think i would prefer to have one with infrared leds, so that i could use my already existing track clip from trackir)
i would really like to avoid to sit with a flashlight or torch on my cap in front of my rig....im already looking strange enough with the track clip.

please moderators, leave this thread at least a while in the main section, as i really look for answers, and in the subforums, such threads tend to be ignored...thx in advance.

What is happening to your TrackIR?

That said, AFAIK nothing comes close to Track IR in terms of easy to use and tracking itself. I checked out freetrack a couple years ago and was not impressed, though things might have changed by now. I'd still doubt it works as good as TrackIR, though, simply for the matter that the mechanics behind tracking work on the basis of contrast, and a reflector or active LEDs simply provide the best solution for that.

Mine is working flawlessly since 2006. Maybe you should contact Natural Point regarding that issue.

well, yesterday, the cam just didnt recognize anything anymore all of a sudden....then i tried everything possible,...uninstalling, other usb port and so on without any luck.

today in the morning i already wanted to throw it in my waste paper basket, but before i was going to do that, i hit it hard out of frustration....and suddenly, this stupid little piece of s.... worked again...
to make it work, i have to push/press it really strong some seconds.
but its not reliable anymore and besides, i dont think that it will like this treatment for a longer period.
i also opened it, and looked whether there are lose contacts or something, everything looks perfect inside.....then i looked on natural point forum, and there seem to be many people reporting problems after 2-3years...so i dont want to buy this again, if it will last again only two years.
so now im really curious whether freetrack is at least close in quality to trackir

nice for you!very helpful post!
the warranty for trackir is only 1year...

Maybe they know about a manufacturing or QM problem and acknowledge it. Maybe you could get a cheap replacement or a discount from them. Firing off an email takes just a little time and no money.

I think you're in the EU - do you know that by consumer rights you have 24 months of warranty? Contact your dealer about it. Oh wait, you opened it up ... so that road is closed.

I would recommend to buy another TrackIR.

I have a freetrack setup but tried an old Trackir 3, if you have the money go for another trackir. Freetrack is good but trackir is on another level.

S!

Also make sure to check in TIR software -> Camera -> light filter threshold setting is not at maximum(slider all the way to right). Then it does not see anything. I have mine at around 140 or so and it is a quite good setting.

Ermm, for 150 euros you could buy a trackIR and it would be all ready to go... :rolleyes:

Before buying a new TrackIR unit, make sure to read this: TrackIR Anticompetition.
You may care or you may not, still it's good thing to know who are you dealing with.

If you have ATI card try disabling triple buffering

Freetrack is working flawlessly when you make good cap model.
I didn't tried TrackIR but was looking at tracks with it and I don't see any difference, maybe because my cam can run 640 resolution.
Best camera is PS3 eye but you have to make model with leds.
A4Tech PK-333MB is working with reflective material.

Freetrack even have one advantage over TrackIR, lets say you are in important mission like SoWc and your TrackIR freezes (that happens ) you are out.
With FT you just restart program and you are back in battle.

http://naturalpointofview.blogspot.c...criticism.html

wow
i didnt know that track-ir's could die..

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=27691

There is some advice about LEDs in this thread - very important to get these right. I have TrackIR 5 now and it is definitely better than Freetrack (on my system/conditions at least).

Hi there I'm in the middle of putting together a new system and getting back into flight sims and I have been looking into this. I know you'd like to use your led setup but there is an application called facetrack noir that might be worth looking into I don't think anyone has mentioned it here. There is a list of compatible webcams on their site and they are continually working to improve it. I would do a bit of research first and take a look at some videos on YouTube. If it's free and you don't like it, no harm in trying?

facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm

Hope this helps.

Just like buying an apple product, so what?

btop:
There was lemon batch of Tir5 sets, #152000 - 152914

thx...but all i heard from facetracknoir is, that its just not working good enough.i have some squad members, who constantly struggle with it,...they seem to have more problems with it than joy.

yeah,...obviously its possible...and mine did die from one second to the other.
the last two years it worked flawlessly though....it never, not once had a freeze for example...
btw, some people seem to misunderstood me,...i didnt use the trackclip pro, but the normal track clip(reflector) on a cap.

now from what i heard so far, it seems that the majority is of the opinion, that trackir is still the best in terms of quality in tracking...
so this leads me to another question,....is here anybody, who used both, the trackir4 and the trackir5?

cause back then, i went with the trackir5, but if there is no real advantage to its predecessor, then i would probably buy trackir4 this time....its ridiculous that they didnt change the price of it at all in the last two years.
so i would be happy if i could save 50euros if trackir4 is working as good.

i know the differences from the chart between the two versions, but i have no glue, how this affects actual gameplay....so somebody who has used both versions, please tell me your experience.

Hello David:

I've owned every version of Trackir since it when to the market and based of that I answer my advices:

* Go for T5, you will benefit from improved resolution and improved camera limits -> smoother and does not loses track in some extreme situations.

* In all this years I've had a faulty unit. A T3 I think, and was exhibiting similar erratical behavior like you described. I did not care about warranty was over, bc I was convinced that it was a manufacture defect, so I pressed them politely but firmly (their first line may be somewhat irresponsive, they put someone in the first line to filter the insults and typical childish attitudes etc etc, but you keep going with a level head and you will get access to someone able to take decisions finally) and I've had the unit exchanged. They sent me a new one and asked me to destroy the older one.

Good luck m8.
S!

thx, mate!
is the difference really that big? i mean i only owned trackir5, and it definitely worked perfect for me...but i have no glue how trackir4 is working.

Great a website that singles out Naturalpoint for doing things that pretty much every major company does... and your point is!

Personally I have tried freetrack, freetracknoir and both I found inferior to Trackir.

Freetrack with PS Eye here.

Same tracking quality as TrackIR.

hey Lobisomem, does the ps eye have infrared leds inbuilt???cause i would prefer to use my trackir clip(reflector) and the cap, instead of having leds on my head...

So big as I had issues of loosing track with a 4 that I never experienced with a 5. The increased fps of the 5 is noticeable too. Worth it? It only depends on how much money is a factor.

S!

ahh ok!thx, thats what i wanted to know,...well i think it will be another trackir5 then again, except somebody can really convince me that freetrack is able work as good.

Same here, up to 186 fps in the latest "CL-Eye" driver, but 140fps do the trick ;-). Using a track clip (too lazy to do one myself).

Offtopic: my HD7850 2GB arrived just hours ago (my HD6870 died). CloD is very nice now, performance-wise, or i should say that my new VGA is awesome, and the bad programming of CloD don't affect it too much ;-)

so the normal track clip from track ir does work with the ps 3 eye?
i dont have the track clip pro, but the reflector thing which you put on a cap...

European warranty is two years for Law.
If you bought it in Eu you can ho to your reseller and ask for replacement or repair.

I have a freetrack setup with a modded ps3 eye and a selfbuilt 'track clip pro'.

It works ok for me, had a few issues with getting it to work, had to use a specific driver version and a hotfix.

The only issue i currently have is that i have to ajust brightness and gain every time i start the application.

I chose to keep the resolution at 640x480 since with 75fps since it feels less jittery than 320x240 at 120 fps.

Honestly can't compare it to TrackIR5 since i've never used it. However compared to FaceTrackNoIR, it's far superrior.

Yeah, faceteacknoir was what I tested with my ps3 eye, I was not impressed.

buy a new one and re-send the old one within 2 weeks perhaps you will get a second new one ;)

Freetrack software is in some ways as easy as trackir, but in some other ways not. All in all, the software is a good one.

I haven't used mine for years because of the hardware. You have to invest some time to built up a good ir-led track clip and u need to information about the best working cam. There are some cams out there, which can compete to the trackir camera in terms of resolution and fps, but mostly not in terms of wide field of view or angles. And it is difficult to setup the camera for just noticing ir leds and not other things around.

My suggestion ist overall: trackir is the better solution. You will only come close to it, if you really spend some money and days to build a really good setup. And the degree of freedom could be a problem, if you do not have enough free room to place the cam.

yeah but now the funny part,...i looked at my bill, and my trackir was exactly two years and 1day old when it died...:grin::evil:

No, I'm sure it was two years minus one day :^)

?

Try to get a new one for it free of charge. ;) And if not, they should give you a cost estimation for repair. But first try to be some kind of "dumb" and try to get warranty.

I use FT with a PS3 eyecam. I had a TrackIR 4 Ultra with clip and sold it.

Opinions will differ, but for me, FT is as good with a decent webcam and I prefer the FT software anyway. You can launch it after launching CloD and it has a lot more options such as disabling any axis or combination whilst in flight.

I tried FT with my PS3 eyecam and using the TrackIr 4 clip so, yes it can be used with FT.

Yes,ps3 cam is a good cam. I heard of the old ps3 cams up to a specific serial number, which even suites better, because it was made of good parts and is very fast. How much fps do a actual ps3 cam has? 100? This is enough for flawless tracking! Don't know about the field of view of this cam and if there are even better cams out, nowadays. Some years ago it was even difficult to get a 60fps cam. 30fps was standard. I also like the freetrack software.

ok guys, thanks for all your answers, but in the end, i went again with a trackir5...i was really happy with this little tool the last two years, and now im just hoping, that the second device will last a little longer...

thx to the mods, for not draging this thread into one of the subforums...

wow I have had my track ir since 2007/ March.

Track ir 4 with the ir enhancement. been through one big earthquake have to tape it to the top left of monitor, plastic left leg broken. Still keeps on going.

I leave mine running all the time.

I've got the TrackIr 4 pro and it stays on all the time as well...no problems yet and have had it two plus years....:)

I had a trackIR4 with trackclip pro, until it died after 2 years of use.

My short verdict is great tracking quality, but flimsy construction for the money asked. That's why i didn't buy a replacement set.

As for freetrack, the higher FPS your camera can capture the better it gets. The problem with freetrack is that with the majority of 30 FPS cameras you have to balance it out between speed and smoothness. The faster you make it, the "jerkier" it becomes. Having a camera with a high FPS capture rate negates this. For example, if you can get a camera that captures 120Hz (same as the TrackIR cameras) it would be indistinguishable.

I also tried FacetrackNoIR but i find that for the camera to work as intended the exposure needs to be increased a lot, which eats away at the camera's FPS and makes it impractical.

Having tried all of them i think that the best solution nowadays would be a solid state 6-DoF sensor, the kind of things they put in model airplanes and program to work as autopilots. You can get one for $60 or so and it gives full 6DoF capability at very high accuracy: 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis accelerometer and a magnetic sensor to act as a compass and help establish a reference point for center.

The best thing with that solution is that your quality of tracking is no longer affected by how wide the camera's FoV is, how far away you are sitting from it, or how bright/dim the lights are in your room. There is no camera anymore and since the sensor is small, you can easily attach it to your headphones just like you would do with a LED or reflector assembly.

It's main drawback is that you can't do away with the USB cable (unless you use batteries to power it), so it might put off some people who prefer reflectors over LED assemblies like the trackclipPro.

Of course, someone needs to sit down and code the software for it but it's not too much of a big deal. There is a free, open source head tracker for Linux (IL2:1946 runs under WINE in Linux and X-plane has native Linux support, so there is a flight sim community within the Linux users) that could be adapted to do the job.

The only problem with this is that it's a strictly DIY affair for sims that run under Windows. Since most games don't support a non-commercial API to interface with such devices, the guy who will code the software will have to "fool" the game into thinking it's a trackIR device. This is done by renaming your custom made .dll to the name the game expects to "find" when a trackIR set is connected.

This whole idea came up when i got a buddy of mine back into flight simming. He's an experienced programmer and has his way with soldering tools, so we thought we could make our own headtracker that will be better than TrackIR at less than half the cost. He has modified Linuxtrack a bit to use with IL2:1946 and he could come up with the required software (eg, a windows port that will work with CoD and solid state 6-DoF sensors) within a couple of evenings, but we wouldn't be able to distribute it for fear of lawsuits.

Good choice, hope it lasts (had my TiR4 for years now...) :D

My Clip Pro just quit last night, but Track IR 'support' gave me a deal in replacing it( I'm two years past warrenty,)so for less than $40.00 I'll have a new one tomorrow...Good news!

I've just been through exactly the same thing.
My Track IR 5 broke after about 2 and 1/2 years of constant use. ( flight sim addict)

I was low on money and considered freetrack but I'm used to track IR5 for so long. I think I would notice the lower precision and regret not getting another 5.

Only the best will do I'm afraid.

I just ordered mine and I'm waiting for it to arrive. I haven't flown in maybe 6 weeks as I can't bear to fly with out tracking....

CANT WAIT to take off again!

I like the gyro sensor idea ...

Hi Blackdog. I'm curious why you're concerned with lawsuits. Linux-track is open source, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, that sounds like a really interesting project. I'm not a very experienced programmer, but if you guys decide to go through with it and need any help let me know.

The legal concerns are not about Linuxtrack. The guy who made Linuxtrack is an X-plane pilot and interfaces with his sim through X-plane plug-ins. In a similar fashion, people who fly FSX have the FSX API to interface with and people who play ArmA can use the freetrack API which is open-source and natively supported by ArmA titles.

However, for any third party tracking software to be recognized by and work with CoD or IL2:1946, it has to emulate trackIR and that is only doable in one way: by naming the .dll that the tracking software uses with the same filename as naturalpoint's .dll file.

So, no matter if it's a completely different file internally, people can argue that you are using a copy of trackIR's files because they see a file named naturalpoint.dll in the program folder. It would be relatively trivial to prove to court that the files are different, but who needs the legal expenses? ;)

Now, if part of the CoD SDK (to be released in the future) included an API that let us manipulate the in-game camera, the issue could be avoided altogether because we would be able to have our Linuxtrack port interfacing directly with CoD.

FreeTrack works great, so I do not see a need to develop another tracking software. The source code is available for anyone who needs to modify it.

You guys should try it. I have been simflying since "Aces over Europe", and using head tracking software brings simflying to a whole new level.

I use a Logitech C201 Camera with the IR filter removed and a 3 point IR Cap. I will not go back to flying with a hat switch.

Good Luck, RAS

Have you been able to get FreeTrack to compile? I was going to see if I could try to fix the bug where it crashes when pressing start with a PS3 Eye, but I couldn't get it to compile let alone start debugging.

From memory you need some third-party drivers for the PS3 Eye to work on PC. Have you installed anything like that? FT won't work with it otherwise (again, from memory).

Yes, FT works well. The reason I switched to TrackIR was that whilst FT worked well under specific conditions it did not handle changing light intensities well. I was constantly having to change the settings to get it working at different times of day, even with SH485 LEDs and the webcam correctly filtered.

TrackIR 5 just works without the hassle.

S!

Been a happy Freetrack user for ~4 years with no problems. Squad mates with TrackIRs report problems with light sources such as lamps and the Sun. With properly done FT these are no problem.

Paying ~30 euros for a webcam + few IR leds and putting in 2 hours of work beat paying hundreds of euros/dollars for a device with similar or lesser capability ;)

The only issue I have using FT with CloD is that I have to Launch it after CloD has loaded. Sometimes, if I launch FT first it locks up after the game has loaded. I thought it was an issue with the PS3 eyecam but it does exactly the same with a standard Webcam. The problem only occurs with ClOD and I can only assume that there is some sort of conflict with FT loaded into memory before CloD. Reverse the boot up and its fine.......:confused:

Strange. I always started FT first and never had that problem either with a Logitech Fusion or the PS3 Eye.

I have a similar minor glitch. When I launch FT and select the CloD profile, and then launch CloD, it goes to the IL-2 1946 profile for some reason. Pretty minor though :)

I uploaded the track with FT working with cheap camera vx-1000 and cheap IR LEDs( sanded down).
This is for guys who are capable of bending some wire and have some little experience with soldering iron ( it can be done even w/o soldering iron but with different camera A4tech pk-333mb, MSI Starcam 370i...)
and don't want to pay 200$ for TrackIR which is in my opinion obsolete from the point when dual core processors arrived.

Sorry I'm too lazy to put it on YT , just unzip it and put the track in your

C:\Users\"whatever"\Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\records