FreeTrack Forum

Hi all,

I love playing first person shooters and have some arm issues. I was hoping FT may allow me to play again if I buy a headset from someone, but I was wondering if it's accurate enough?

Most people seem to use tracking for looking around in racing games. Can I really get headshots in the heat of battle using head movements alone?

My fave game is Half Life 2. I realise that it's not head tracking compatible and I won't get six degress of Kevin Bacon, but I should be able to play it still using mouse campatability, is that right?

I don't think it would be accurate enough for any multiplayer gaming, but i guess that with some training you could get kind of accuracy like playing on a playstation gamepad (not being a full-time console user that is ) - should be enough for singleplayer gaming on reasonable difficulty setting.
The biggest problem is that keyboard plus absolute tracking alone is useless in first person shooters - with it you wouldn't be able to turn around.
One possible solution i see is - to use FT like a joystick - the more you move your head from the center, the faster your game character turns in that direction. Recentering the head  causes the character to stop turning.
Another solution that should be playable is to use the absolute headtracking (the character look where you turn your head, ad when you recenter the head, chacacter's point of view returns to where it was before you moved your head) plus a gamepad with analog sticks (should be easier on the arms than a mouse): use one stick (eg. left one) to move/strafe, and the other to turn left/right (leave looking up/down controlled only by FT). This way you can use FT tracking with rather small sensitivity to make precise movements and targeting and the joypad for navigating around the maps.
Personally, i'd recommend the second solution - i've tried the first and sooner or later your character will end up staring at the ceiling or floor in the middle of a battle

Ok, i just tested the second way i mentioned - FT in mouse emulation mode plus a gamepad (walk/strafe plus turning around). The game is playable and it's not too bad
Don't expect having a 10-headshot-in-a-row performance (in fact doing even one headshot might be a problem) but it definetley should be enough for casual singleplayer game. Sometimes you'll need to recenter the view vertically by moving the mouse a bit, but i think it's still worth trying - especially considering the fact that that it costs almost nothing

I think all shooters (or at least a big part of them) should work like ArmA. That kind of head movement + weapon aiming is very realistic. I'm going to try ArmA, because I think using freetrack in FPS should be very interesting.