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 Dream Gadgets(First in a Series) Jumpgate is a game that lends itself to RP and immersion in a unique way because the game does not dictate your profession, personality, skills, intelligence, leadership, etc . . . YOU do. So when you want to become a real immersion junkie and "lose yourself in the role" there’s myriad gear and gadgets for the gamer who goes too far. TrackIR 4: Pro is a very interesting immersion tool. TrackIR is a head-tracking device offered by NaturalPoint that provides up to 6-way "look-around" (they call it six degrees of freedom) with the objecting being a more realistic "you are there" feeling. The TrackIR basic hardware consists of a small infrared "receiver" that mounts on top of your monitor, and a Vector Clip – a reflective device that clips to the peak of a baseball cap. There is also a TrackClip PRO which is an alternative to the Vector Clip. The TrackClip PRO is an LED device that attaches to your headset. I found the TrackIR to be amazingly simple to set up. The only thing that caused me to expend any brain power at all was when I figured out I needed to do a software update to get it to talk to Jumpgate. There’s lots of configuration power with regard to sensitivity, and you can set sensitivity curves for each "degree of freedom" axis – which NaturalPoint defines as pitch, yaw, roll, x, y and z. Jumpgate Classic has very limited functionality with TrackIR – supporting only pitch and yaw. This means that you can look up, down (somewhat) and side to side – but full head motion (tilts, etc.) is not reflected on screen. The other limitation in JGC is that the TrackIR functionality is tied to the existing "look around" function that has been part of the game since release (it defaulted to the ~ tilde key) – but with the way it was implemented, as soon as you begin to "look around" instead of "looking ahead" you lose your HUD information. That means that if you’re PvPing or Fluxing, you have to either disable the TrackIR (which can be done via HotKey) or keep your head perfectly still – so you don’t lose targeting (rather difficult and generally resulting in a stiff neck). I really don’t believe it’s fair at all to judge TrackIR by its implementation in JGC. NetDevil was up front that TrackIR integration for JGC was extremely "quick-and-dirty." The initial report is that Jumpgate Evolution will have much better TrackIR functionality, so we will hold off on giving a "Jumpgate Opinion" until we’re able to give it a proper shakedown. Meanwhile, if you decide to go ahead and get one now, there are currently 88 games that support TrackIR or are about to add support. For information on supported games, demo videos and more, I suggest you browse through NaturalPoint’s TrackIR website: http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/ --------------- If you have any ideas on certain items or kinds of gear you'd like to see discussed, drop us a line: darkspace@jgcentral.net
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