Head tracking vs Dual monitors

I'm canvassing views. I currently have a monitor displaying the scenery and another monitor running the gauges. Now that there is a UK company producing head tracking kit for much less than Track IR I am considering purchasing it. Is the second monitor for gauges now unnecessary? Could it be put to alternative use?

 

Al

Hi GridNorth! I've been flightsimming through all MS flightsims since FlightSim 98 and that includes the combat ones. Before the VC I used two monitors, one for view and other for gauges. That worked fine. Once head tracking became widespread I dispensed with the second monitor and used the VC exclusively. I am still using my Track IR 3. I am able to read gauges without problem.

I rarely use the default planes so I am not that familiar with them, but the payware planes that I use give different views of the instrument panel (engine gauges, copilots panel, etc.) via aircraft camera views. I am sure such views can be undocked and moved to the second monitor if you so desire.

For me it is VC w/head tracking and I use it exclusively.

Joe

Why are the two options exclusive? I suggest head tracking is fine for reading gauges. Then also use the 2nd monitor, or my case 3rd monitor, to get a wider view. Especially since you already have that 2nd monitor.

The problem is my second monitor is lower resolution than my main monitor and much smaller. I was wondering if there was a way of perhaps getting the GPS or some mapping on it.

 

Al

I went from triple 24" monitors to the Oculus DK2.

 

I've used TrackIR in the past. NOTHING compares to the Oculus Rift. It does force you to key bind as much as you can to a HOTAS so you don't have to lift the Rift, but when you're under it, it is simply unbelievable.

I hate TrackIR with a passion. Its idiotic to me, turning my head one way and looking another just to view stuff on screen. Think on it this way, how many real life simulators have you seen with pilots wearing head tracking gear?

 

 

 

Multi-screen setup is the way to go, that or Oculus Rift. Imo get yourself a 3rd Screen and go ultra wide screen and be happy.

I'm not prepared to spend that amount of money on it I'm afraid and I was not willing to pay for Track IR but the new UK alternative, Trackhat is very reasonably priced and less than £50.

 

Al

Its idiotic to me

 

Hardly idiotic, it's based on the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which we all have naturally. (Look at this sentence and shake your head - see?). On paper it sounds wrong but it wouldn't be so successful if it didn't have something going for it. TrackIR is what finally made the VC usable. I wonder if you have actually tried it out.

I hate TrackIR with a passion. Its idiotic to me, turning my head one way and looking another just to view stuff on screen. Think on it this way, how many real life simulators have you seen with pilots wearing head tracking gear?

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If I had a real life simulator I wouldn't need Track IR because that simulator would include all the gauges, all the buttons and switches and all the bells and whistles. It is not idiotic. If I want to see out the pilot's window I turn my head to the left, if I want to look out the co-pilot's window, I turn my head to the right, and if I want to look at the instrument panel, I bend my head down. To me that seems very natural and the way it would be if seated in a cockpit. (All though I am not a RW pilot, I have sat in several cockpits and IIRC that was the way it was.)

If it didn't work that way for, you perhaps it wasn't setup correctly.

Joe

I have TrackIR v5 and it is awesome!!!. I am a real world pilot and can still remember the day I installed it and used it for the first time in VC, it is the single best upgrade I have ever made for immersion in our virtual flight world. Save your money and get one if you can. Product support is great. It is important to set it up correctly and in particular to adjust the Motion Control speed setting to suit your own particular physical layout and physiology - it may take a little tinkering but is well worth the effort. I have mine set at 3 which allows me to look anywhere in the VC, side panels, overhead, pedestal, floor and back in the passenger cabin with minimal backwoods eyeball movement, (after a little use you will not be conscious of you eye movements). Higher speed settings reduce the reverse eye movement effect but make TrackIR more sensitive to your head movements. You can easily "zoom in" on individual panel instruments by moving your head forward slightly (natural action) which is real nice for us older folks with older eyeballs. This feature has saved the day for me when trying to read the altimeter on JustFlights fantastic F27. I hope this is helpful GridNorth. Max

I hate TrackIR with a passion. Its idiotic to me, turning my head one way and looking another just to view stuff on screen. Think on it this way, how many real life simulators have you seen with pilots wearing head tracking gear?

 

 

 

Multi-screen setup is the way to go, that or Oculus Rift. Imo get yourself a 3rd Screen and go ultra wide screen and be happy.

 

Either you've not tried it, or you're one of the few people who actually have trouble with it even after using it for a while (I have a buddy with that problem, so I can sympathize). The "looking another" way becomes automatic in very short order, for most of us, as does minimizing head movement. So for most folks it adds to the apparent realism, "apparent" because it's certainly an illusion, though an effective one. And I can even look behind me and overhead (bubble canopy, for instance), and look around windshield pillars, all of which three monitors wouldn't allow.

 

"Real life" sims have other ways of achieving what TrackIR does, and lots more besides, so they don't need such a device. And TrackIR is less expensive than multiple monitors, as well as taking a LOT less desk space. It also doesn't need as much computer horsepower to drive it as three (or more) screens would. So don't blast it for others just because it's a problem for you.

I have tried TrackIR. I used it for Star Citizen and it was horrendous. It made me nauseous and gave me a migraine. Thats the reason I have stuck with a multi-screen setup. And fyi I use the VC exclusively in FSX.

OK, so you're one who has a poor physical reaction to it. A buddy of mine, though not quite as bad, also has problems using it. Never heard of Star Citizen (nor probably most other games), so don't know how it compares to FS usage, but if it's a problem for you I fully understand why you're not fond of it.

 

Enjoy,

Star Citizen is a crowd funded (with $100 million backing) mmo style space game with Newtonian physics. You fly ships in first person and in the cockpit. Basically its an online futuristic space flight simulator and first person shooter in one.

OK- thanks.

Dude, you have one monitor and a barely usable lcd from your description. Whats your question? Project something that doesnt require much resolution is the obvious. As for headtracking. It is the single best upgrade any gamer can make amd certainly the most cost effective no?... Put it this way, without headtracking all i have is three screens across, with headtracking I am sitting in a virtual sphere and completely immersed in the cockpit graphics and it is as fluid as \#@). People get nauseous. Commercial pilots literally sweat in my trackir equipped Playseat. :)

 

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