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AimTrak: First Impressions
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Neverending Project:
This is not a review. I have only had the AimTrak for one night, and haven't had enough time that I feel I should make a qualified review. But I do feel I have had enough time with it to offer my first impressions, so here goes. Warning: long post to follow.

Like most who have received their AimTraks already I would imagine, as soon as I opened the box I did a crude setup to see how it worked. I taped the LED bar to the top of a 17" monitor I had on my desk. I plugged the sensor PCB into a USB port and started pointing it at the screen. Wouldn't you know it, it worked very well. By that I mean the mouse tracked my hand movements precisely, even tracking some hand-shake at times. The calibration was all messed up, but that was to be expected out of the box. I didn't have a trigger hooked up so I couldn't perform the calibration, so I put it away until I could get to my gun installation.

My installation into the Act-Labs gun did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. I'll save the details for another thread, since I want to keep this one about the AimTrak. But suffice it to say that the issues were not related to the AimTrak fitting, but rather with some Act-Labs modifications I had to make. I think I had the same "grounding" issues that Syph007 had.

After I got it installed and working correctly, I wanted to try out some calibration on my MAME arcade machine. I had the LED bar already installed (thread here), so I just needed to plug in my gun and perform the calibration. For the life of me it seems I wasn't able to get the thing calibrated at first. I tried over and over again, but it would either not register my "calibration shots" or once I got it calibrated the mouse would jump all over the place and stay in only a fraction of the screen. I tried changing the Device ID. I tried changing the other settings in the AimTrak utility. I tried unplugging my mouse. I tried all combinations of heights and distances.

I thought I would try to upgrade the firmware, so I followed the instructions from the website. Once I figured out you have to select Device 1 from the pop-up menu to get it to see the gun (even if Device 1 is already shown in the pop-up menu, you have to select it again), I could muddle my way through. I tried the firmware update, but it was a very convoluted, confusing process. It involves downloading two files from the website (three if you don't already have the utility), clicking on some button on the utility which opens another window, then clicking something there which asks you to navigate to the folder you downloaded. Then this changes the way Windows sees your gun, and you can then run the firmware utility which is supposed to allow you to find the new firmware to send to your device. I couldn't get past this point. It wouldn't see my gun. I assume this means that my gun already had the latest firmware, but I had no way of knowing, and wasn't even sure I did everything correct.

I was about ready to quit for the night, when I noticed that the mouse cursor was all of a sudden tracking very smoothly on the screen. But the gun was pointed nearly at the floor. Surely the sensor couldn't see the LED bar way up above the monitor from there. I noticed that my coin door was open, and there are three coin slots in my coin door. It occurred to me that the lights behind the coin returns (three of them in a row) must appear a lot like an LED bar to the gun.

Now the gears were really turning in my head. I got to thinking that the gun might not be seeing my LED bar, and that must be why I couldn't get it to calibrate. But I knew the LEDs were working - I verified with a camcorder. So I tried putting the LED bar in front of my bezel, to make sure the LEDs weren't being blocked by the cardboard, or something stupid like that. Still same issues. That's when I had a revelation. An epiphany, really. I saw the reflection of the hanging light from the room in my monitor. I wondered if it could be causing interference. So I turned off the light and tried again.

Perfection.

The first time I tried calibration in the dark it worked great and the mouse cursor tracked very smoothly on the screen. I watched it through the sight of the gun and it appeared to line up very well. Light back on, all screwy. Light off, perfect. I should qualify that my game room is a former (formal) dining room. So the light is actually a chandelier of about ten 30W candle bulbs. And it is only about 5 feet from the screen and LED bar. Not a typical situation, and very bright I must imagine. Today I will try it in the day time, both with and without the light on and report back. But last night it was very late, and I was very tired. I went to bed.

So in summary of this long winded vent post (it is supposed to be my first impressions, after all), I can't wait to try it out in game not that I have it calibrated. I will say so far that although there are instructions on the website, they don't seem to be quite enough. The software utility seems thrown together, and very counter-intuitive to use. I understand that it was probably not intended for the general population, as most of the time you will be able to plug it in, calibrate and have it work (set it, and forget it). But that wasn't my case. So I will say that this whole process isn't for the faint of heart. It is understood that this is for the do-it-yourselfer, but I think there are still a lot of kinks to work out before this is a plug-and-play situation. Once I have mine set up, I am hoping it will all fall behind me and be forgotten. In fact, knowing now that I could have turned out the lights in the beginning I might have had an entirely different experience. But I didn't.

I still have high hopes for this product. In the end if it takes me a couple of evenings to get it set up the way I want, it will have been a small price to pay for the gaming happiness I hope it brings. If you made it this far in my post, feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to answer them.
Ginsu Victim:
I had the same thing happen with the coin reject lights up close, but luckily it doesn't read them at a distance.
smalltownguy:
To Summarize:

Issue: Gun experiences 'issues' with nearby light sources being too bright.
Solution: Turn down lights.

Issue: Firmware update and config software a bit cryptic.
Solution: Take your time, and be patient.

Did I get it all?  ;D

We, as 'early adopters' get to face these challenges. But that's our job -- see the issues, work through them, communicate them, and hopefully impact the results of future versions.

Thanks for the informative post! I'm right in the middle of my configuration too.
Neverending Project:
Yes, and my door was open all the way. So the gun was actually seeing the bulbs undiffused. When I closed the door it wasn't an issue.

But I got worried that all my lit buttons on my control panel would be a problem. I don't think they will even register to the gun.


--- Quote from: smalltownguy on October 09, 2009, 01:01:06 pm ---Issue: Gun experiences 'issues' with nearby light sources being too bright.
Solution: Turn down lights.

--- End quote ---
True dat.


--- Quote from: smalltownguy on October 09, 2009, 01:01:06 pm ---Issue: Firmware update and config software a bit cryptic.
Solution: Take your time, and be patient.

--- End quote ---
And ask for help. It isn't easy to figure out, even for the patient.


--- Quote from: smalltownguy on October 09, 2009, 01:01:06 pm ---We, as 'early adopters' get to face these challenges. But that's our job -- see the issues, work through them, communicate them, and hopefully impact the results of future versions.

--- End quote ---
I agree.
Neverending Project:
As promised, a follow-up in the daytime. I had a chance to try out my rig in the daytime, lights off and it worked great. Lights on in the daytime, still gets confused.

The only issue I see is playing at night. I mean arcades were dark and all, but who wants to stand in a dark room lit only by arcade marquees just to play a game? I guess I'll get a dimmer.
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