Because they don't see enough demand for it, even for the small amount of effort it would take to add it to the game, basically only a few sim racers with track ir who also play fps and us VR enthusiasts with tracked HMDs would probably use it, hopefully SONY add some sort of htracking to the HMZ-T2 so then developers might actually develop for it on the PS3 and then it may bleed through to the PC on cross platform games like COD and BF

Because a lot of people that play these games would consider trackir to be somehow cheating.

Yes some people might think progress is cheating..... does that mean using 3D screens in cheating because you can judge depth better? does that mean 5.1 surround sound is cheating because you can pinpoint sound direction better, does that mean high DPi mice are cheating because you have better control over cursor movement? does that mean using a GTX580 is cheating because you get no frame lag?

not to mention tripple monitor setups which these games do support, is that cheating? because it gives the same advantage as teadtracking only you turn your head in real life to see out the sides not in virtual space....

The argument that using an interactive device is cheating because it somehow gives and advantage is a load of crap IMO, must we stay using inputs designed in the 1980s?

I agree. I wasnt saying I thought it was cheating.

As it happens, I have met plenty of people that consider using a "turtle beach" to be cheating. I'm pretty sure that is just a brand name on a slightly less crap than usual pair of headphones.

For all we are trying to make games more realistic, some people will deliberately remove imersivness if it bags them a few more kills. Others will say all the things you mentioned are cheating.

This is why I don't play multiplayer, these people are more interested in winning than enjoying the game.

Yep, I can't stand these idiots who think that everything different to their setup is 'cheating'.
Lets face it, the biggest advantage often comes from having a better PC than everyone else, and no-one seems to be bitching about that.

As bobv5 says, most people are more interested in getting frags, than in greater realism/immersion.

I think its obviously a stupid idea on DICE's part, since as Machine points out, those with 3 monitor setups get very similar advantages to those that have TrackIR, and there are no restrictions on its use, unlike TrackIR.

@ Machine: BF3 seems a great game, but the fact that I can't get together with my friends and play without having to worry about random people jumping into our game sucks (no private server support? wtf?), and also the fact there is no real single player vs bots (unlike every previous BF) means I cannot get any practice at it without jumping onto public servers, where (and this is a pet hate of mine) the perks seem to be way more unbalanced than previous battlefields. In BF2, the perks didn't really give you that much of an advantage - it was more of a personalisation thing. Whereas in BF3, it seems unless you play a lot and unlock some decent perks, you are really at a disadvantage. It seems pretty hard to hide and snipe, when people have infrared, zoom, and uavs, all giving away your position without you even firing a shot. I really dont like this modern trend of giving better stuff to reward those who play for hours a day - its all ok if its just customization, but when its giving those who already play more genuine advantages, it seems a bit unbalanced. Add to that the fact that the helis are way less realistically handling than BF2 (which were again crapper than Desert Combat) and BF3 really hasn't grabbed me like BF2 did yet.
I do love the destructible environments, the new graphics, 3d stereoscopic support etc, however.

An easy way to keep the "cheating" down would be to only allow free-looking over the same field of view that you can get with 3 monitors. Realistically, there will be very few times when you would be pointing your gun more than 90 degrees off axis from your view.

About BF3 and private servers, its almost free to rent a 24 or 32 player server, me and 6 colleagues of mine have done that and it costs me maybe a pint of beer for 6 months. The only problem is that if you password protect your server you will invalidate the servers Ranked status, which will is sad for those that have not yet unlocked everything... A solution for that is todo like we have done, keep it public but restrict the number of players so it mathces the numbers of friends playing, you might have to kick some people which will make the server unpopular in the end.

I think its stupid to call head tracking cheating, sure it gives you a small advantage, but like others have pointed out its a small advantaged compared to a fast rig.
A good advantage is to have the game installed on a SSD, you will load faster and that means you will be able to pick the best vehicles for your self before everybody else. I always get the helicopter this way It only works on maps that let you preselect vehicles though.

But I wouldst call 3D a cheat, as long as the games do not have proper 3D support it will be a disadvantage with 3D, at least in first person shooters, its much harder to aim in 3D because today games display the sights for both eyes. In real life you look down the scope with one eye and the other eye is used to spot enemies. And games that do not have sights and only display a cross hair are impossible. The enemy is 200 meters away and the cross is displayed at Z = 0

@bobv5
My rant wasn't really aimed at you just furstrated at the people you were refering to, its people like that that just want to get as many frags as possible and not really find ways to enjoy the game more that are part of the reason that holds back immersive technology

@WiredEarp
I Agree with pretty much everything you said about BF3, and mostly its commercially driven, LAN modes and eventually private servers were done away with because of game piracy, if there are no private server modes to hack then you can't play a priated version multiplayer or online at all, and the unbalanced perks/upgrades in BF3 are EAs way of trying to compete with COD commercially by having a similar style perk system which is desgined on the WOW model to get you addicted to the game by offering rewards for the more time spent playing the game, this way you will probably buy every map pack that comes out etc etc, Personally I agree that older style FPS with more balanced perks/upgrades (or none at all) were much better and being good at the game came down to skill not how many hours you spent playing the game to get the good weapons!, I dislike the fact that someone with the most experience in the game has all the best weapons etc, actually I thought homefront did a fairly good job of a balanced perk/upgrade system

In the end a good player with iron sight will beat the hell out of a noob with Scope.. The perks are nice, but skill still matters the most... I like BF3, the only thing I do not like is EA and their Origin crap, they should have went with Steam instead.. Battlelog is nice, but its too often a join to a server fails..

Got a mail today that my Playstation Eye is ready for pickup.. Sadly the TrackIr clip hasn't been delivered yet :/

Exactly CyberVillain. So when you give those same people extra perks as well, it is a bit more discouraging for casual players who may only play 30 minutes a week...

Sure I can rent a private server (what exactly IS the price?) but I dont really want to, I mean its not like I haven't paid for the game already, or that my PC's dont have enough horsepower. Paying just to:
a: support someone elses antipiracy model
b: get a service I used to get for free (without any improvement in said service)
just rankles a bit.

The SSDthing is just another thing I can whinge about. There has been no improvement really in gameplay in this respect since the early 1942 days. There are always lots of players who grab the vehicles first (I love my SSD I do have to say , then once dead run to the respawn spot and spam enter. Its really high time they implemented a system whereby you suffered a delay before you could pickup the same vehicle if there was someone else in the immediate area, or a system where you had to buy your vehicles counterstrike or Tribes style.

3D could actually be considered a cheat in that you can use the 3D crosshair (which I have to say works very well these days, well, until it stuffs out after a certain amount of time) which you may not get with certain guns etc otherwise. Of course, for 2d players they can just have a mark on their screen, so I don't consider that line or argument particularly logical.

Yeah well, you cant design a game around the casual player can you now
Yeah, I also liked the day when you could have a real LAN party, the problem is though that the a private hosted server cant be ranked, and everybody that playes BF3 wants to rank ALL the time they play

It depends on the provider offcourse, we pay 150 dollars for 6 months for a 32 player server...

But with the depth it still takes more time to aim down the sights, if you close one eye its better, but it would be really cool if they games can start fully supporting stereoscopic modes and let us see the scope through only one eye

edit: Hmm, closing one eye wont work by the way, since there will be an alignment error... So proper stereoscopic aiming cant be achieved before the game industry starts to real support it..

SO far so good, the PS3 Eye has a very weak IR filter so no modding required. I just taped a floppy disk that only lets through IR light and it worked right away, I tried with a remote control because I havent recevied my TrackIr Pro Clip yet :/

By the way if you guys wanna use the PS3 Eye with free track follow this guide as it does not work out of the box

http://forum.free-track.net/index.php?showtopic=2416

Someone on avsforum said the blue LED on the HMZ can be used for FreeTrack/TrackIR.

I will probably have to tape that over not to confuse the software (if its bright enough to get through my normal light filter)...
Btw, with one led you only get 2 DOF rotation and xy translation is decoded as rotation

The TrackIr Clip has arrived at my local post office, will pick it up after work..
I really hope this gonna rock!

Ok, im up and running, its not perfect, the floppy disk blocked to much IR light.. So im right now testing in a dark room with no filter.. I downloded gloviepie and it can intercept the freetrack signals using TrackIr interface..

But I have no idea on howto emulate a mouse the correct way, anyone has a gloviepie script that works? thanks

Freetrack has built-in mouse control. In the options somewhere.

Tried that but it doesnt work very well...

actually it works pretty well, but its two things i dont like. first its very, very unsensetive.. I can only move the camera in game a few degrees when i move the head all the way.. Second I only want to capture the mouse when i hold down alt gr but that button cant be mapped in free track, and freetrack does not support that only capture mouse when holding down a button..

In glovepie i can do a if statemen like this

if(Keyboard.RightAlt) {
//code
}

The problem is I do not know how to emulate the freetrack mouse behavour with glovepie code

This one works pretty well.. I found a VR920 script and modified it to fit my need

Just change the freelookKey to the one you use in BF3. The problem is that while the freelook key is pressed BF3 locks all other inputs so you cant control craft while freelooking :/

I removed the smoothing code because free track already has a low pass filter on the output and a second one only increases the output lag without increased smoothness... Also removed most of the sensitivity crap since free track has a nice output curve configurator...

Took a little clip today when trying out my BF3 config.. It works ok, BUT, since freelook disables flight control its use are very limited :/

Looks great. I love those silky smooth motions from optical tracking. I can't reproduce that kind of responsiveness with inertial/magnetics. Well - haven't tried the Sparkfun yet, but it looks promising. I'm going to repost my Sparkfun message over to this topic.

I would love to get my hands on the C# code to interact with Glovepie... I dont own the Sparkfun, but it looks promesing and its Cominterface looks easy enough.. If the Glovepie interface is nice and easy it wont take many hours to get 3DOF readings out of the com port and into Glovepie

ok, I'll package it up and get it up sometime in the next couple days. GlovePie integration is really easy. I'm almost embarrassed to put up the source and call myself a contributor. There was another guy that did a Sparkfun tracker a while back. http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=13922&start=0&hilit=Sparkfun That could simplify the front end implementation.

Yeah, I've been snooping around that thread, whats keeping me from buying one (Except from the price off course) is that im more of a software engineer then an hardware engineer

edit: I have not read the entire thread have mars3554 mentioned anything about the problems you are describing with magnetic head tracking devices?

Well the Sparkfun video looks pretty damn good. You can see a little bit of lag but nothing too bad, plus the calibration seems really stable. My Vuzix tracker would be off by 5 or 10 degrees if I went through those same motions. So all in all the Sparkfun looks really good to me. I think from a theoretical standpoint you can't really achieve the same performance as with an optical tracker but IMUs have so many other great properties that they are worth pursuing.

Ok my little GlovePie integration tutorial is up. Told you it was easy

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14167&start=0

Going to check it out when I got time, just ordered the IMU and the USB cable / virtual com port

Awesome! Good luck and keep me posted with your progress.

Done implementing user definable Input / output adjustment curve



Much nicer than the one in Freetrack if you ask me

Got my sparkfun today, its much smaller then I imagine Thats a good thing.. Didnt have time to fix it today, will fix it tomorrow and probably write a C# test program for it this weekend...

woot....my unit shipped today

Nice! You can use FreePIE to control it if you want
https://sourceforge.net/p/freepie

Right now you need to be able to compile it, but in a near future we will put up alpha binaries

Let us know if you also have drift problems like me.

What FTDI device did you get? The cable or the break out board? Beware that the USB cable is 5V