# How's Track IR? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 30, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-track-ir/703020 "2014-10-30T16:08:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-track-ir/703020/1 "2014-10-30T16:08:26Z")
Beta 3.1 of Elite Dangerous just hit and well, I think this weekend will be spent scooping up fuels from stars!! FROM STAAAAARSSSS!!! I went ahead and ordered a new HOTAS the X55, and I’m looking at Track IR as a possible thing to try. Anyone have experience using it? Is it worth the $150 for the kit? Anyone use it specifically with Elite? ---
**Author:** ![DETXL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/detxl/32/19366_2.png) [@DETXL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DETXL)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-track-ir/703020/2 "2014-10-30T22:24:57Z")
For some form of “TrackIR,” it’s essentially _de rigueur_ for flight simulation. In terms of immersion it’s one of the best things you can have after a decent monitor and a joystick. You very quickly adapt to the small movements required; it’s not tiring or particularly disorienting, and after a few minutes it becomes extremely natural to look around by moving your head. If you plan on doing _any_ other sims, from _ArmA_ to _X-Plane_ and everything in between — including _Euro Truck Simulator_, _rFactor_, Microsoft _Flight Simulator_, the superlative _Digital Combat Simulator_, etc. — it’s debatably not a “must have” but it is a “very very _very_ cool to have.” TrackIR uses an infrared camera with an IR lamp in it; they also make an addon “TrackClip” that clips on to your headset and has its own IR LEDs in it, which is supposedly more accurate. If you’re lazy or cheap, like me, you can just buy three 840nm LEDs and drill holes for them in the hat clip that the TrackIR comes with. I put a battery on it so it’s wireless now. It’s very easy, and improves the quality of the tracking substantially. I did this with my old TrackIR, which I used for six years and gave away when I moved to Germany in 2011. Figured I’d try going without. I made it about three months before I went to a computer store here and bought a new one. So, like I said, for some form of TrackIR it’s pretty awesome. I say “for some form of ‘TrackIR’” because NaturalPoint, having been in the market forever, has become fat and complacent. Case in point, it took them four years after TrackIR 4 to come out with TrackIR 5, with a marginally improved (same frame rate, slightly higher resolution) camera and… pretty much nothing else. They have no competition, so their products are expensive and niche. On the “You get what you pay for” vs “You get what you were suckered into” continuum they’re comfortably past the midpoint of “suckered,” _but_ for the price you get a product with pretty much universal compatibility with any game that supports head tracking. FreeTrack originally existed as a free alternative; at the moment [FaceTrackNoIR](http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm) seems to have taken up that mantle. It uses an ordinary webcam, rather than an IR camera, which if you have a webcam already makes it free and if you don’t _still_ makes it “a lot less than TrackIR.” Looking around on the Internet, a few people seem to have gotten FTNIR working with _Elite_ but since I have neither a webcam nor _Elite_ I can’t vouch for that. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-track-ir/703020/3 "2014-10-31T07:05:08Z")
I had to sadly get rid of my equipment when I moved, but at the time there was nothing quite like running _Il-2 Sturmovik_ with flightstick, throttle, rudder pedals, and TrackIR. No fiddling with a silly hat switch to look around. If you want to look left, just turn your face left; to look right, turn you face right. If your game supports it and you’re serious enough to get a HOTAS for it (and pedals, right?), a TrackIR will seriously enhance the experience. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-track-ir/703020/4 "2014-10-31T14:09:01Z")
Thanks for the reply guys, and the link Alex! I tried FaceTrackNoIR and while it wasn’t perfect (it was tracking my face and didn’t have ir leds to track me by), it pretty much convinced me to give TrackIr a go and ordered it from amazon. It was really cool flying by a space station and just looking around with my head at it and at ships going in and out. Can’t wait till it gets here!!