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Virtual Realities

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Posted on Friday, February 14, 2003 - 9:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hello all,

Our NEW VirtuaTrack Direct Input Driver (Beta Version) will be released this coming Tuesday ! For those of you that own the VirtuaTrack please e-mail us for this new driver.

sales@vrealities.com

Regards,

Virtual Realities
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Kevin

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Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 4:32 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Beta? It better work since it is useless to me right now. I'll see it and use it to believe it.
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Virtual Realities

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Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 2:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Kevin

What is your order number? Our exsiting driver does work fine. Please contact us directly for any help you may need.

Regards,

Virtual Realities
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Kevin

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Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 4:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I've tried to contact you and still no luck getting it to work. I don't have an order number though? Where is it located? I'm trying to get it to work with Serious Sam. PLEASE HELP?

I paid $450 for it a week or so ago. Then it dropped to $310 this week now it is at $399. What is going on?
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Virtual Realities

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Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 4:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Kevin,

What is your order number? You are not a customer of ours. Another alias lie made out to slander our company.

Virtual Realities
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Kevin

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Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 5:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Slander? Are you saying that the price wasn't $450 two weeks ago, $310 this week and now $399?

Please explain how that is slander?
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John B. (68.107.175.239)

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Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 10:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi all. Sorry for not posting much recently - I've been really busy with work.

The new driver for the VirtuaTrack is a greatly enhanced version of a driver program that I had been writing independantly. To make a long story short, the old Virtual Realities driver does work with most games but it did not work with a new MMORPG that I am beta testing. I really wanted to use it with this game so I started writing my own. Virtual Realities was also working on a new driver and contacted me as soon as they heard of my efforts. Working together we have now produced what I feel to be a very good driver that has worked with EVERY program I have tried so far.

I have personally tested the driver with the following programs:

Oni
Unreal
Unreal Tournament
Star Trek Elite Force
American McGee's Alice
Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast
Aliens vs. Predator
Aliens vs. Predator Gold
Aliens vs. Predator 2
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind

I've also used it with some un-released games I can't talk about without violating the NDA.

The guys at Virtual Realities have also used it successfully with Unreal 2 & Quake 3.

The new driver is very easy to setup. All you have to do is unzip the files (currently about 2 MB) and run a standard windows Setup program. This makes sure that all the needed DLL files, etc. are installed on your system and creates a shortcut in your Start menu. It also allows you to uninstall the driver using the Add/Remove Programs utility in the Controll Panel should you ever need to do so.

To use the new driver, all you have to do is run the program (usually through the Start menu) and click on the 'Start' button. The mouse pointer will usually move a little or wobble as it picks up the new input and the 'Start' button will change to 'Stop' to indicate that the program successfully connected to the tracker. Then you just run your application or game and make sure that it is set up to accept mouse input (mouse-look is enabled for example). When you're done you can either 'Stop' the driver or just close it completely. The new driver has lots of configuration options but they are easy to use. You can change ALL the options on the fly - even while the game is running if it will let you ALT+TAB back to the driver.

The program uses profiles to save the settings and allow you to have different settings for different applications. There is a default profile and you can create your own by typing a new profile name and clicking the 'Save' button. Of course you can also change or delete them later as needed.

As for connection options, It currently supports using COM ports 1-4 and baud rates up to 19.2 kbps. It will automatically look for your tracker on all these ports and try to make the fastest connection possible.

The program supports two different operating modes for the tracker - 'Mouse Emulation' and 'Euler Angle'. Please note that BOTH modes manipulate the Windows mouse. The reason the first mode is called 'Mouse Emulation' is because it sends data in the Microsoft Mouse Data Format (well a slight variation of it actually), where the 'Euler Angle' mode sends information in terms of the trackers roll, pitch and yaw angles. In general, the Mouse Emulation mode is smoother but the Euler Angle mode is more responsive. Most people will probably use the Mouse Emulation mode but I think both work pretty well.

The tracker supports 3 different internal filters. These are Magnetic, Jitter and Tilt. The Magnetic filter determines how sensative the tracker is to the Earth's magnetic fields. The Jitter filter helps keep the pointer from shaking or wobbling and the Tilt filter helps compensate for head tilt when turning left or right.

The driver also has some features implented in its code. These are Smoothing, Speed & Timing. Smoothing uses a kind of 'moving average' calculation to help make the tracking more (you guessed it) smooth. Speed changes the (you guessed it again) speed or magnitude of the mouse input. Both these can be changed independantly for left-right and up-down movement. You can also lock out either axis by setting its speed to 0. The Timing setting determines how often the tracker is checked for new data. By default, it is checked around 50 times per second.

Just to be clear - ALL the things that I have described above are currently working in the program.

Well, that's about it - I hope this gives you some idea what to expect out of the new Driver. The program is FreeWare but it is also an official Virtual Realities product. Virtual Realities will make it available to everybody that has already purchased the VirtuaTrack and will include it with units sold in the future. We have been working really hard on this program. We hope you will like it and are looking forward to hearing your feedback next week. If you have any questions, please post them here and we'll do our best to get you an answer ASAP.

Thanks,

John B.
bahamut@tcac.net


PS - The main reason that it was announced as a 'Beta' release was that there are some additional features (like detecting what programs are running and automatically changing to the correct profile) which are going to take a while longer to complete - Sorry if this caused any confusion.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 9:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Lucky for Vrealities to have end users write drivers for them. Looking forward to see if it works and how well? No wonder there has been so many from end users for sale lately.

PS Current Price of the Virtuatrack is $385.00US. I wonder how much it will be tomorrow? I'm going to wait until it drops back to $310 as it was earlier in the week.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 11:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Stewart, take a break will you? Sad...
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John B.

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Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 11:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Stewart!

Actually, I stopped being an end user when they hired me to work on the new driver WITH them. I have been programming for a living for the last 14 years though so it's not like this is the first consulting job I've ever had.

I'm glad you replied though - all your ranting under various aliases has really motivated all of us to make this driver a great product. Over this weekend, you have inspired me so much that I have been able to finish the program 2 days early! I know you didn't intend to be so helpful, but thanks anyway.

John B.
bahamut@tcac.net
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Niles Fran

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Posted on Monday, February 17, 2003 - 1:06 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I know I won't be buying one of these. Probably go for the trackerIR by www.naturalpoint.com or the Intersense Intertrax2. At least they are real companies with proper tech support and software engineers.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, February 17, 2003 - 1:07 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

OK Stewart, we hear you :(
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Jared Wach

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Posted on Tuesday, February 18, 2003 - 12:10 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Alright, here's the skinny for everyone. I just got the new driver and it works much better. I popped it on and in a minute I had in working with quake. That's right the original quake! The thing used to spin around like a top when I tried to play that one. So, it works great, what else can I say. You can turn 360 degrees no problem, I'm thinking of strapping the cord up so I can spin around in my office chair :) or even stand up. TrackerIR simply can't do that. Sure you pay $130, but for only 30 degrees field of view?! That won't do anything for you but explore windows desktop.
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John B.

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Posted on Tuesday, February 18, 2003 - 3:06 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

If anyone want's to try a Euler Angle mode profile, I just found some settings I like. I've been using them with Elite Force but they'll probably work pretty well with any Quake based game.

John B.
bahamut@tcac.net

Connection Mode = Euler Angle
Magnetic Filter = 3
Jitter Filter = 2
Tilt Filter = NA
LR Smoothing = 16
UD Smoothing = 16
LR Speed = 7
UD Speed = 5
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MrG

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Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 6:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hola folks. Ive got an 'old' virtuatrack (second hand i-glasses rig) and, as Im running a modern system with XP, theyre kinda worse than useless at the moment. Great for watching pr0n on, though.
The new drivers sound great! Ive fluffed about with tracker.exe and some horrid windows 95 joystick emulation thing for weeks, Total Kudos to John B. for bringing the tracker up to date.
Anyhoo I read somewhere that Vrealities will not give the driver to people who have not bought a virtuatrack from them. Shame :(
Is there somewheres on the net that some kind fellow can stick the driver so I can download them?
Alternatively, I'll pass on an email address :)

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