trackir odd behaviour

[mbellof1]

JSJ, what do you think?

I had orginally posted this at naturalpoint's forum
________________________________________
Hi All

first of all kudos to JSJ for creating GPLSHIFT.
Awesome work!

second of all, I have noticed that the head tracking support via GPLSHIFT behaves somewhat erratically when other cars are in front of you.

It is as if the tracking FPS goes down to a single digit number or even freezes.

For example, just after starting a session and jumping in the car in the pitlane, the head tracking support is particularly prone to fail.

If I ignore this and drive out of pits and to the track (with no cars in front), head tracking works perfectly.

However, this is not just a pitlane issue. I noticed that when a couple cars got in front on my while driving in monza's back straight, the head tracking fps dropped and once the cars were far enough it came back to work.

I doubt this is a hw issue as my system works well in many other racing games including head tracking support.

I hope this is something someone else has experienced and figured out how to solve.

If not, JSJ, you are our only hope.

[JSJ]

Thanks mbellof1

Hope you understand my pure English:

I have notice your thread and others at TIR Forum/RSC... about this
problem and I have the same problem with my old Duron 1200Mhz computer, but the
problem disappeared after buying a fast computer: 3.0GHz Intel HT, so I
thought the problen will go away by a upgate to faster CPU, but I can see it
don't help all e.g People with AMD 2 - 3.2+ CPU, (and Intel single CPU?)
strange!

So I have debugged GPL & TIR day and night (almost) and found out that is NOT
a GPLshift error! at least in my case, it's a issue between GPL & TIR alone
under Win2k & WinXP, my test:

First:
I tested Intel 3Ghz in HT mode (ack as 2 CPU's) no problem with TIR
and GPL

Second:
Disabled HT support in the BIOS: Runs now as 1 CPU No TIR problem with org.
GPL us with old Carset

Tested then with GPL 2004 Demo: Now I get the same problem as you, d**n

I have notice that GPL runs in HIGH_PRIORITY and if I change it to Normal
then it help a lot but cost some GPL FPS on slower machine.

I tested also Nascar 2003 because I thing this sim is build on same source
code, and yes same TIR problem as with GPL in some case,

From NR2003 readme file:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"USING MICROSOFT GAME VOICE OR OTHER VOICE CHAT PROGRAMS
By default NASCAR® Racing 2003 Season will run at highest priority.
This is perfectly fine for most users, however if you experience problems
using Microsoft's Game Voice or other similar programs you may need to
force NASCAR® Racing 2003 Season to run at a lower priority by adding a "-kh0"
(that's dash K H Zero) command line parameter to the shortcut:

"C:\Papyrus\NASCAR Racing 2003 Season\NR2003.exe" -kh0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AHA! but no info about that in GPL's readme files, BUT it works with GPL.EXE -KH0
more "space" to TIR with fast CPU

I will ADD this in next GPLshift version if I get positiv respons from you TIR
owner, so -KH0 also can been uset under GEM2


JSJ

[mbellof1]

JSJ, thanks ;D,
you are as modest with your english as with your skills.

you are right. I tried both
-Lowering GPLs priority to Normal : improved
-Increasing Trackir to High : also improved
I did not use the flag in gpl instead I did Alt-Tab + Ctr-Alt-Del, found the process and right click. Same for Trackir.

Maybe increasing Trackir's priority is better and I had done that before with other games... err.. I mean, Sims, like RBR where I increase both programs priorities on purpose to gain on fps and playability.

I have an OCed XP2600, so sure I could use an upgrade, but with your finding I think I can still wait a bit, and play with Trackir. I also use 3d Glasses by the way.

Thanks again

mbellof1

[Nathan Steinke]

You may try setting TrackIR as high priority.

Task Manager--> right click in TrackIR.exe
set priority = High.

I don't know if this will address your behavior or not, but it makes TrackIR much more responsive in my experience.

[yippee38]

You could also add " /high" (without the quotes and outside of the link quotes, and with a space) to the end of your TrackIR shortcut.

For example, right click on your TrackIR shortcut, and select Properties. In the Target field it should say something like:
"C:\Program Files\NaturalPoint\TrackIR4\TrackIR.exe".

Change it to:
"C:\Program Files\NaturalPoint\TrackIR4\TrackIR.exe" /high.
Click Ok or Apply and Ok.