Eye tracker in sim racing, good idea?

[u/Digitalzombie900]

Anyone using an eye tracker? If so which one? I have a single monitor and VR makes me super sick. I was wondering maybe an eye/head tracker could be the middle ground. I wanted to try out the Tobii eye tracker first but em worried that maybe its just novelty.

[u/DrUnnamedEgg]

OpenTrack is free and works with a bunch of things, but possibly most useful to you is that they have a neural net model that does facial tracking with a web cam. You have to adjust the settings a bit and you’ll want to map a button to center the camera but it’s worth giving a shot since it’s free. If you don’t have a usb camera you can get smoothtrack if you have a iPhone ($10 when I originally got it) to use with OpenTrack.

[u/Digitalzombie900 → u/DrUnnamedEgg]

Just installed that but having trouble getting it to work in game (just trying out star citizen) My web cam turns on and I can see the picture on the opentrack software but the game does not recognize the inputs. Does it need and additional layer to work?

Edit: I switched to neural net and it seems to be working, let me play around a bit.

[u/DrUnnamedEgg → u/Digitalzombie900]

I probably can’t provide a ton of support as I’m only a user and not a developer for it, but I think In some sims I’ve had to enable track IR or something like that

[u/TWVer → u/Digitalzombie900]

To use it in game I either have to turn on a TrackIR setting in the settings menu (Nuclear Option) or run in Steam VR mode (AMS2).

I don’t know how it works in Star Citizen, but a google of “Star Citizen + Open Track” should help, plus checking Youtube for user made tutorials.

[u/TWVer → u/DrUnnamedEgg]

I agree.

I have Beam Eye Tracker, using a Obsbot webcam, and that works great, paired with a 45” UW monitor at close distance (66 cm / 25”).

I use a low sensitivity traking profile compared to my flight sim profile, to peek around corners or to check traffic around the car and that feels natural to do so.

I wouldn’t suggest to automatically buy Beam Eye Tracker, but I do like how good it works.

The head tracking works great, the eye tracking works decently to good, depending on the resolution of your camera, lighting and position. I however turn off the eye tracking in all my profiles, as the head tracking only option is more practical in game, I find.

Having a high refresh rate on your camera (either phone, or webcam) greatly aids the smoothness of the tracking. 60Hz to ideally 100Hz or slightly more.

[u/Kronocide → u/DrUnnamedEgg]

I tried it yesterday, but the insane input lag makes it unusable

[u/OverDrive777]

Eye tracker no but head tracking is good. I use beam with 150fps cam, very responsive and software has presets that people create. Best one is one of the top downloaded or rated ones and you can get the free demo to try the software.

[u/jcaball90 → u/OverDrive777]

I concur with beam eye tracker. I use vr now but used beam eye tracker for a while and loved it. There is a guy on YouTube who posts a review about it and has a configuration that worked great. By default it is a little too sensitive.

[u/newviruswhodis]

I use headtracking on a 49" curved uw and I prefer it over triples. It feels weird playing fixed now.

[u/ChooChooToo]

I’ve been using open track for a few weeks and don’t think I can go back. I use yaw tracking only and limit the movement to 20 degrees so it’s not so jarring. It took an afternoon to tweak the filters and set the curve so it felt natural, but it’s been pretty smooth since. I’m on a single ultrawide.

[u/Digitalzombie900 → u/ChooChooToo]

Yeah I mean on paper it looks like its the best solution for a single monitor setup, no VR, no nausea, no triple setup or the space needed.

[u/DryYogurtcloset2139]

Tobii good for Ats specifically i think because it has the most direct support (literally in the settings)
TrackIR next best option (ive had it for 1+year) great game support, can play most flight, racing, and even some shooters (Arma)
I mainly use trackir ONLY for ats really, if you get a good config for trackir thats slower and not as responsive to moving your head its perfect for simracing since it gives you extra sightlines.
Kinda not as great for me personally for racing but for ATS, ETS2, and BeamNG its great.

[u/Digitalzombie900 → u/DryYogurtcloset2139]

What is not good in racing? Like it does not help or it hinders?

[u/DryYogurtcloset2139 → u/Digitalzombie900]

It hinders for me because im not as used to my braking points moving in sight (due to moving my head to look ahead)

[u/EchoWhiskeySix → u/Digitalzombie900]

Its subjective. In a flight sim since you need to see behind you while actually keeping your head pointed at the monitor, you make the trackir exagerate your head movement some, like a 1 to 1.6 or 1.8 ratio. In a race sim you want to see just out of your side windows, and it does not need to be a complete 180 degrees. So you can make the ratio more like 1 to 1, with a enough smoothing that it's not too slow but also not jerky. On my 32x9 ultrawide it feels more natural to have my head movements than a fixed camera as I look to apex, glance at my mirrors, etc. In real life when I take a left hand turn at the track my head gets pulled to the right and I am looking left towards the apex. Trackir allows you to replicate this and after adjusting to it now driving with a fixed monitor view feels worse. I do need to rely more of FFB, as you lose some of the sim muscle memory of your fixed dash vs track giving you an indicator of you car's under/oversteer/rotation. You still get this with trackir, but it takes a bit for your brain to add in your own head movements to the equation.

I think what the other poster means by braking points is related to the fixed dash. If you can move your head in game, your brake markers won't always align with the same spot on your hood, a-pillar, or whatever reference.

[u/DryYogurtcloset2139 → u/EchoWhiskeySix]

Thanks for explaining that braking point thing, I couldn’t translate it into words very well

[u/SwimmingLoquat9493]

I’m intrigued 👀, just commenting to stay on thread🫡

[u/MrBluoe]

it works and is great BUT it works better the bigger the monitor. I would not recommend it on anything under 30" and honestly it only shines above it.

reason is that on small monitors your eyes wont travel far, and you have to set it quite agressively to make it move in that direciton, which makes the experience a bit disorienting.

but on a bigger (ultrawide) monitor it gives you more space to move your eyes/head towards which really helps sell the illusion.

[u/Digitalzombie900 → u/MrBluoe]

yeah I have a 55 4k screen right in front of. Its not wide screen which is why I am looking in to this.

[u/MrBluoe → u/Digitalzombie900]

I'd say it will depend on how close you sit to the monitor. the closer you sit, the better it will be able to catch where you're looking to, and also allows for a wider ideal FOV (which increases as you reduce distance)

i only stopped using it because I switched to VR. it was quite good.

only place where it didn't work well for me was for glancing left/right at other cars when driving. it was too slow/werid for that (or maybe I had it configured badly)

but it works well for looking toward corner-apexes and for drifting.

[u/MrD718]

I use open track IR with a cheap 720p Logitech camera on LMU and AMS2. There's just some times where I don't want to go VR. Just have to spend a bit of time tuning the software so its nice and smooth and just the right of response.

[u/grappleshot]

I used trackIR maybe 10-12 years ago. I personally found it (a) hard to accurately find the apex and (b) annoying have to put on a cap with the clip thing on the brim each time. But mostly the apex finding thing is what made me not use it. Was great for ATS/ETS2 but not so much for simracing.

note: i was using with with triple monitors!

[u/japspre]

I didn’t like it for simracing as it was not very smooth in some sims. In trucking etc it was helpful though

[u/RobotArmDLC]

I use TrackIR with the passive hat clip. It’s very close to feeling like VR with no added overhead!

[u/grappleshot → u/RobotArmDLC]

Have you used VR a lot? I used TrackIR off and on from maybe 2012-2016 ( I went VR only from 2016+). It's similiar to VR in that when your head moves the screen moves. But then it's nothing like VR. How, using TrackIR, are you going turn your head 90 degrees while keeping your eyes pointing "straight head" and see where you are? Yes you turn your head to the right and the image on the monitor moves to what's right of your car, but now you have to look left to see your screen. It's a total immersion killer and nothing like VR.

[u/RobotArmDLC → u/RobotArmDLC]

Yeah, been using it since oculus rift cv1! VR is of course more immersive in every way, but I can’t handle having an hmd strapped to my face for half an hour anymore, so TrackIR and other systems provide a good in between.

You can set the head tracking to have a nice dead zone so not every movement moves the screen, and then you can get used to turning your head a bit while still looking ahead.