I tried something new. Stereoscopic picture-in-picture. Never seen it done before. What do you guys think?

Just checked this video in stereo, looks great, thank you!
Actually picture in picture also looks pretty good.
Stereoscopy helps to capture your hands movements.

This looks great! but I think I will wait for a wireless version to come out so I can use it with a HMD (unless the Novint XIO comes out first). In the meantime I think I will play Portal 2 with the Novint Falcon.

Although it is very cheap (for this kind of device) and it is tempting to get one just to try it

Play Borderlands with falcon, you can turn off the black outlines its excellent+++ 3D .

There was a wireless version some developers got, but it seems there were latency issues and who knows how much that would have increased the cost. I do wish they could have found a way to make this work, because then it really would be the ultimate VR controller (ultimate meaning something available and affordable). Even so, its pretty cool. I've started messing around with the SDK a bit, its really easy. When I get a chance I will post a video.

Well I would pay double the going price if it was wireless (even if there was a cable connecting the 2 controllers together but wireless to the base station), it would be A LOT more useful that way. And as for latency issues yes this can be a problem in low end products but I know Razer can do it with low enough latency for it not to be an issue if they want to, they have done it before with the Razer Mamba.
I have the Mamba and I have never noticed any latency issues from the wireless, and with the Mamba you have the option of wired or wireless (you can plug in a usb cable and use it as wired which bypasses the wireless) and I never noticed a difference between when it was connected via wireless or wired.
I think the main issue here was Price point, and possibly getting a wired version to the market could be done a lot quicker than developing the wireless version to a high enough standard for release, and would give them an opportunity to see how much interest there is in the market for this type of product to see if its worth developing the product further, I mean if not may people are prepared to buy the wired version for $139 then they may assume that a more expensive wireless version is a waste of time (so maybe based on that assumption I should buy one! ).
Its nice to see a device like this is coming from a big company like Razer who are big enough to support it properly, unlike smaller companys such as TN Games who rely soley on a fringe/niche product for their income and may not survive long term (although in saying that I have the TN Games product and think its great with the games it does work with!).

Well I would recommend everyone that is interested to buy the device so that Razer continues to support it. And if it does really well, maybe we can look forward to a wireless version in the future. It really is quite affordable in comparison to what devices like this have cost in the past.

Yeah I have thought about this and I think I will buy one, untill the Novint XIO comes out (if it ever comes out), the Razer Hydra seems to me to be the best VR input device around at the moment (and at a very reasonable price considering it comes with a $50USD game, and has the potential to replace an expensive gaming keyboard and mouse as preffered gaming inputs).

Its a funny thing I have been looking at old pictures of '90s VR setups on various posts and on Tones website, and in most of those a similar device to the Hydra is always used (3D Joystick i think it was called) although the Hydra is miles ahead in accuracy vs those old devices.

@Cyber
How do you find the gaming experience with the Razer Hydra compares to the Novint Falcon in terms of immersiveness?
I know the 2 devices are completely different but both bring their own unique features to the gaming experience, I find with the falcon the thing it has that makes it better than a mouse setup is the haptic force feedback, while this is the major draw to the device for me it comes at a cost of less control, basically due to the way the Falcon controls your aim in games it is more similar to an analogue stick with precise control in the center of the control area and ramping at the edges (i.e. the further you move the device in one direction the faster you turn in game), where (correct me if I am wrong) the Razer Hydra seems to be more like a mouse in terms of control (as in the further you move the device the further you turn in the game not the further you move the device the faster you turn in game, and speed of movement in game is related directly to the speed of movement of the device) just on a vertical plane instead of horizontal like a mouse, and this alone seems like it would add to the gaming experience as your movements in real life mirrior your movements in game more closely than a falcon or a mouse. So basically as I see it (not having used the Hydra) the Falcon has Great Haptic Feed back and the Hydra has Relative 1:1 movement between real life and in game movements. So which is more Immersive in your opinion having used both devices?

Also how do you find the Razer Hydra as a complete mouse/keyboard replacement for gaming in terms of controll and generally having enough buttons to not need a keyboard? I quite like the idea of being able to sit on a couch and play a FPS and still have the same level of control and accuracy as a mouse, not to mention the ergonomics of a hendheld controller are miles ahead of something that sits on a fixed surface!

And finally (lots of questions i know ) Can it be used as a mouse replacement in windows?

Also Cyber can you please tell me, do the 2 wired controllers connect to the PC or the base station, is the base station powered by USB or does it need mains power as well?

I ask because I have an idea how to use the Hydra semi wireless for a Freedom VR setup.
I am going to assume for now that the 2 controllers connect to the base station and the base station connects to the PC and also requires mains power (maybe 12V?)
So for this to work you will need 2 Razer Hydra base stations, and assumes that you are going to use a PC/Laptop in a backpack VR setup not a wireless HMD.
What you will need to do is connect one base station to the controllers and to the laptop/PC in your backpack and disable or magnetically sheild the electromagnet in that base station (if we are lucky the mains power connection is soley used to power the magnet and by not connecting it the magnet will not work) if required a battery can be used to power the base station instead of mains power.
The second base station will simply be connected to mains and a usb charger if necessary an positioned within range of your VR setup.
Now the controllers will get their positional data from the magnetic field of the second base station but still feed that data to the PC/laptop in your back pack meaning no cables to get tangled up in as you spin around on the spot.

this also means that the controllers remain light weight as well (and as I said I would pay twice the price for a wireless version so for me to buy 2, if this works, would not bother me)

I have a question of my own. How long can you use the Hydra before your arms get tired? I have always had doubts about the viability of touchscreen and "wave your arm" controls for regular computing tasks for this reason. But, perhaps I am just too much of a couch-potato.

Joe Dunfee

@mAchiNE: Its a little hard to compare the Novint Falcon to the Razer Hydra, they are two different products. First off, the Falcon is only 3DOF (position only), while the Hydra has 6DOF. Granted, mostly games will not take advantage of this, but its nice to have. It makes the controller feel more accurate since it have adjust to any type of movement. However in terms of immersion maybe haptics has an advantage. There is nothing quite like force-feedback. So ideally you would have both.

The Hydra works very much like a mouse. When you move its basically 1:1, and when you get to the end of your range you do something called "racheting", which is like picking up a mouse. This will re-center the Hyrda so you can continue turning. So this is a little different than the Falcon, which starts to turn when you get near the edge. On Portal 2, the Hydra controls are very similar to the Novint Falcon (you turn when you get near the edge) and this actually works better than the other games, which use mouse emulation. However the Hydra is the full package. It replaces both mouse and keyboard. With the Falcon you still need a keyboard. You can also play with the Hydra standing up, which can add to immersion. This could also work in conjunction with an HMD, but unfortunately you cannot turn around due to wiring. I think the Hydra is very comfortable and can be used in the living room, similar to using a Nintendo Wii, for example. To be honest, I still think the mouse-keyboard is going to have better accuracy but the Hydra is not horrible. Its just that, at times, it can be hard to aim. Especially when you have to turn around to see the target. This will likely get easier with time.

Yes, the Hydra can be used within Windows. Again, I am not sure it will be replacing the mouse any time soon, but you can do it and it works.

The base station is powered by USB. That plugs into the PC, the controllers plug into the base (with a proprietary connection). I am not sure how the controllers communicate with the base, so I am not sure if that 2 base station idea will work. It sounds plausible, but who knows? I was thinking it might be possible to convert it to wireless by cutting the proprietary wire and somehow re-wiring it to be wireless. I don't have the skills to do that, but I am sure people out there could do it.

@cadcoke5: I've used the Hydra for maybe like 30-45 minutes at once. When I tried it standing up, I did get tired pretty quick (after 5-10 minutes) but sitting down was not so bad. I had my elbows rested on the arms of the chair. In this case I did not get very tired. However it is more intensive then the mouse and keyboard, so you will likely want to take a break every hour just to be safe.

do you know if this interferes with head trackers?

There is a good chance it does. Guess I will find out when I get my 1200VR.

Cyber can probably answe this best ATM.

a bit further up on this page I describe a way that might be able to use it wireless(ish) with 2 sets although no one has tried it yet, I will be getting some of these in the next month and I will try and see if it works, also you probably could mount the basestation upside down you will still get tangled/twisted up as the controller connect to the basestation, I suppose mounting it upside down might get you a few extra turns before you get too tangled but it will still happen.
If you can disable the basestations magnet then you might be able to use 2 sets off one basestation

From the FAQ on the Razer Hydra webpage:

The SDK supports using multiple base stations, for example doing a two player multiplayer game on one computer. But I think the controllers are locked to their base-station so (aside from interference) the controllers should only work with the station they are attached to.

In terms of mounting the station upside-down, I have no idea if that would work. I'm guessing no (or if it did work all the position tracking would be reversed). I still think the most realistic thing is to just reverse engineer the proprietary wire that connects the controllers to the base station, and then make it wireless using bluetooth, zigbee, etc. I'm just not sure I could do that myself, but I can't imagine it would be that hard.

Here is a demo I put together using the Sixense SDK:



Notice that the tracking is smooth and not jittery like some others.

Hey Cyber, do you think this would be a good match with the Wrap1200vr ?
The new Deus ex 3 will be out very soon and I was thinking the Wrap1200vr with a cool controller would be alot of fun with this game.

I'm a bit afraid that the headtracker on the 1200VR may get interference from the Hydra. Hopefully they will work together, but maybe the 1200VR headtracker will need to be disabled for it to work. I guess its not a huge loss, since most games don't support the headtracker anyway.

Thanks for the link to this thread Machine.

Its encouraged me to buy a Hydra, especially since a store here in NZ has them in stock now, so I shouldn't have to wait for it to arrive. Quite excited to see just what I can do with it, I've been wanting a magnetic tracker for ages, but its been hard to justify paying $1000+ for one.

I intend to try to do what I've done with my Emagin Z800, and run the cable overhead, so I can turn around at least a few times without problems. Also, i'm really hoping to make one part of it into a decent headtracker for the Z800... so I can use one of the controllers to aim/move, and the other to turn without all the annoying drift of the Z800's tracker.

I'm also getting into FPV at the moment (flying model planes etc with cameras onboard, feeding back into your VR glasses/telepresence stuff) so I'll be looking to see if I can use it as a headtracker for this purpose as well. Currently, the best head tracker for FPV i'm aware of, uses magnetic calibration to recalibrate and avoid drift, but you need to align to north or south before you can use it correctly. I'll let everyone know how I get on once I've received it...

Awesome dude. Let me know what you think.

WiredEarp Good to hear another New Zealander is into this stuff! I thought I was the only one
Are you based in Auckland?

I was going to buy one of these off the Razer store but they do not ship to NZ, I also saw that a few shops have just got these in stock here now so I have ordered one off Computer Lounge and I will be picking it up on tuesday.

@mAchiNE: Sweet.

Hey cybereality,
If the Hydra does have problemes with the Wrap1200 tracker, what other controller do you think would work well as a mouse/keyboard replacment while using the Wrap1200vr and its headtracker ?

Honestly, I'm not sure. It would be cool to have something that was wireless and could be used for a full-freedom setup.

Wii motion plus with nunchuck would be the only fully wireless option at the moment, no where near as accurate as the Hydra though, but other people have used it for various VR type setups before.

Hey Machine, I'm out the eastern suburbs of Auckland. Whereabouts are you based?
Good to hear you're buying a Hydra as well, it will be interesting to see what uptake the Hydra has besides VR enthusiasts! I really hope it does well. Mine was bought from Playtech, hoping to have it by Wednesday. Id really like it to try it as a head tracker, so I'll try to hook it up to a Freetrack interface and use it for my flight sims. I like my TrackIR4, but its just too annoying, often i just can't turn/move my head fully into the right position, or it 'sticks' on a certain point of the turn, etc...

I received my Hydra yesterday and had a brief play with it. It seems to have a lot of potential. The design is nice, although the buttons and joystick are not really in a super comfortable position for me to press - the joystick I can push forward and sideways but my thumb doesn't naturally sit on top of it, so its a bit of a pain if I want to go backwards. The hardware seems to be high quality, and the accuracy is really great. I played a level of Portal 2, and was surprised at how easy it was to pick up playing with the Hydra. I wouldn't want to use it for deathmatch, but it was a fun and immersive addition to the game.

I do have a few questions I'd like to ask the other Hydra owners:

1) my 'base unit' feels like there is something loose inside. If i tilt it back and forwards, I feel the balance shifting inside (I dont hear anything rattling however). Is this normal?

2) The Hydra does not seem to be compatible with the program 'Everything' from http://www.voidtools.com/. I don't know if anyone else uses it, but this program is an awesome, tiny, instant file search program that lets you search your files (way better than the built in Windows one). The Hydra will not move the mouse when it is over the 'Everything' window at all. After closing 'everything', the Hydra works correctly again. I suspect its probably the keystroke trapping of Everything, and Hydra, that is causing the problem. Might be a windows hook conflict or similar...

3) This morning, when I tried to give it a quick test before work, it no longer was working as a mouse etc, until I unplugged the USB and replugged it. Has anyone else had this problem?

I downloaded the SDK for the Hydra that is available on Steam and noticed some interesting things when reading through it. One, they have designed the software interfaces to support up to 4 Hydras simultaneously. However, they also say that each Hydra must be on a separate 'magnetic frequency' - and all Hydras are currently just the one frequency, so it doesn't look like it will be possible to run two together YET. Also in the SDK, they talk about the wireless dev version, so hopefully one day soon there will be a wireless version (it REALLY would be be improved by wireless).
One thing that jumped out at me in the SDK is that there is a limitation on the tracking tech Razer are using, that means the Hydra actually returns TWO positions instead of one. It cannot actually tell which side of the base unit the controller is on (it returns values for both the front and back sides), so when you first calibrate it by pointing it at the Hydra and pulling the trigger, it chooses that as the correct position. In all subsequent position changes, it determines which of the two locations is correct by simply picking the one closest to the last known good position. This is fine for most sit down uses, but I can imagine this could cause problems with stand up VR usage. If you placed the base unit on the ground, and walked over it, I can imagine it could possibly pick the wrong location, since you have just effectively swapped sides of the base unit. However, I'm sure this is only the first version and I can imagine other ways to resolve the problem in future (multiple base stations, broadcasting IR from one side of the base unit for the controller to detect, etc).

All in all though, it seems to be a really great addition to my homebrew VR setup. I especially think it will have potential if I can lighten it and mount one on my P5 glove - then I could use my glove to move my mouse cursor and click buttons in FSX etc.

Cool man, glad you're happy with it. I do not notice any shifting of weight in my base station. It seems pretty solid to me. But if its working I would not worry about it. I haven't had any compatibility issues but I only used it with Chrome and navigating Windows a little. The mouse emulation mode is triggered by pressing a button (I think the 3 button, it says in the manual I think). You may have pressed this by accident and turned off the mouse.

Yeah, its fun! . Thanks for the info re the weight shift etc - I'll just leave it since its working fine now. I don't think it was the button thing that caused it to stop (I figured out that button pretty quick, although its different to the ratchet button which seems to do a similar thing just with the motion driver stuff) but it worked fine this morning, so it might have just been the Everything incompatibility causing it to break (I didn't restart it after closing Everything).

I tried it with L4D2 last night and it was ok. It would definitely be improved however if there was a '1:1' mod for L4D2, so i'd have to point the gun behind me to aim backwards. I'd really like to get accurate 1:1 aiming going with some games at some point, rather than just mouse emulation. Hopefully some new games will support the Hydra directly.

Yeah, the mouse emulation is alright but could be better. I've seen on the Sixense forums ( http://sixense.com/forum/phpBB3/index.php ) some people have made custom configs for certain games, it might be worth a look. At least with Portal 2, though, the control is spot on.

Yep, I had fun playing with it in Portal 2. Unfortunately, one of the buttons on one of the controllers has broken (stuck down) which sucks, as it means I need to return it for a replacement ;-(

My next focus will be on finding a half life 2 / L4D mod or modding instructions for directly changing the view direction - then I can use GlovePIE or my own code to make it aim absolutely (ie, when I aim it behind me, i want it to change my view direction to behind me). This will hopefully let me play L4D etc while looking around. To get past the loss of realism to do with having the gun sticking out the centre of your view, I intend to use a paintball gun stock I have lying around, and mount one of the Hydra controllers to it. This way, it will feel more real to have a gun pointing down your view - kind of like playing with the gun always stuck to your shoulder and looking down the sites, SWAT style

I'm currently wondering if any of the wiimote mods for HL2 etc support this type of aiming, or if its just relative type aiming, like the Hydra currently uses for L4D...

Oh, whats the 'rachet' thing on Portal 2 BTW? Sometimes it pops up saying 'rachet' and with a diagram showing to press one of the buttons and twist your controller left + right. I can't seem to get it to do anything. I assume its to allow you to reset your hand positions etc, but it never seems to work for me?

Racheting is like picking up your mouse. It allows you to physically re-center the Hydra without any in-game motion. Not needed so much with Portal 2, but absolutely needed on other games like L4D or HL2.

I've definitely gotten ratcheting working in L4D (I think it was using one of the 1234 buttons). However, i'm sure when it flashes 'ratcheting' in Portal 2, its flashing a bumper button? Thats the bit I can't understand - especially since none of any of the buttons seem to ratchet in Portal 2 (not that I could see why you would want it to in Portal 2 anyway?).

I'm taking mine back this week and getting it swapped, so hopefully all my buttons will work again. Will have another play after that. Despite the faulty button, the hardware seems very good quality, even the weight is just right, with a solid feel while still being lightweight. I'd definitely buy a wireless version...

Now that you mention it, I have seen that icon in Portal 2 and I'm not sure what it means.

FYI In the Razer Hydra configurator there is a page for each supported game with the button/gesture layout for the Hydra

I got My Hydra a few weeks ago but have not had a real chance to use it yet, I did try it on COD Black Ops for a bit at a LAN but learning curb was too steep to be good in MP within a hour or so so I went back to keyboard and mouse. I will try out Portal 2 soon and let you know my thoughts, but so far I like it just need to spend more time with it to get used to it, I think with 1:1 movement with a HMD it will feel a lot more intuitive.



I am based in the west side of central auckland atm, based on what the guy at Computer Lounge said there is not much uptake of this product here, I also think using it for headtracking on the sony HMD will be nice especially if we can get one controller for aiming and one for head tracking. I really hopr Battlefield 3 has seperate head tracking support! but i won't hold my breath

I wish most games had separate head tracking support! Only Arma seems to support it currently. I'm wondering if anyone has written a mod for HL2/Source etc that will allow it with any of those games, or allow absolute aiming (perhaps someone has already done something like what I want for the wiimote etc). Otherwise, I'll need to mod/hack some games soon ;-(. I'm happy enough without separate head tracking, but absolute aiming is a must for me...

I got my Hydra fixed (got another copy of Portal 2 for free as well) and played a level or two more of Portal 2. Its quite fun and very intuitive (got a friend to play for the first time and she picked it up pretty quick).

I actually have aspirations of making a driver that will allow full VR style control for FPS games. I don't want to get your hopes up too high, because there is so much I'd love to do and I never seem to find the time. But it is on my radar. Currently I am working on a demo, sort of like a proof of concept, for next generation VR interactivity. This is going to use the Hydra and the Wrap 1200VR. If that goes well (or if I finish it) maybe I can look into hacking that sort of control into retail games like HL2.

Sounds interesting! I sometimes think about creating a homebrew environment, choosing an engine is the tricky part (dont want to go down the 'do it all using OpenGL or DirectX' path, as i've been there before. Ended up with collision detection, missiles, aircraft, and sound effects, before I realised that there was just so much more I wanted to do that it would have taken me a long long time.

My focus currently is on leveraging existing apps and games. I've spent a bit of time attempting to figure out the memory values for Comanche 4 (really awesome in 3D), as I was thinking I could just use some memory poking code to push the variables for the hydra/head tracker to replace the current mouse movement (this is the only stumbling block to a really good 3D arcade flight sim experience). Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck - and am a bit hamstrung by the fact I have no idea what format these variables will be in (floating point? integers? longs?).

Haven't looked into using a mod to do the same thing, yet. Just like you, I have way too many ideas and projects, finding the time to finish them is the issue ;-/

Should be easier to first try with with open source flight sims like the ones presented on this page if it's not already the case : http://freegamer.blogspot.com/2007/04/o ... ombat.html
It may not be the kind of games you're after,but it may help you understand how the commands are implemented in these types of games. And perhaps help you to do that with closed source games in the future.

Cheers, some of those look interesting. Will check them out when i get a moment, as I imagine it will be pretty easy for me to modify open source stuff compared to hacking out the variables. I might also use one as a testbed for hacking out the variables on an version where I may not be fighting copy protection etc. Some of them sounded like combat games and im still looking for a fun multiplayer combat flying game.

Really however, I need to hack some modern and not so modern games to get the full effect from my VR system, my idea of which always involves having fun first and foremost (anyone see lawnmower man in the movies back in the day?).

Basically, I'm going to assume that Comanche 4 is either using Euler angles(could be a variety of possible types and formats such as radians, degrees, max byte size, etc) and xyz coordinates (which can actually even be in different units to the angles), or storing the view angles and translation coords in a matrix format (in which case the view and translation information will be all the same unit types). So any hints towards how its engine works would help.

If I can find the locations the view variables in C4, then everything else falls into place. I've already sorted out my interfaces etc with PPJoy + PPJoyJoy so I can use my foot pedals, a joystick and a cyclic (still gotta build the cyclic) together, so it works great for keyboard-less, great 3D gameplay (with semi realistic controls) using the mouse emulation. It just loses track , and I end up looking at the floor after a while ;(