My computer keeps crashing on games now I've got a GTX580 installed no idea why, it's all seated correctly and all the right drivers installed etc. Whenever I go into a game I get about 1 second in and the pc locks up completely. Dunno if its a psu problem as I've got the same 500w OCZ stealthxtream that I've had since 2007.

Yo, this motherfuck say 600w required, so that may in fact be your fuss:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop ... ifications

Yep that'll be it then

I have rejoined the PC gaming master race. Building tonight.

Funny you should mention it. Randomly today was one of those days that i spent too much time building virtual $3000-plus laptops on the Sager website, you know, just to depress myself.

And its all together, minus the DVD drive as my old was was IDE(!), a trip out to buy a new one during my lunch is in order I think.
amazingly I didn't have to reinstall windows either. Purged the old drivers, stuck on the new ones and everything works tickety-boo.

Initial testing with War Thunder saw it run on max at a solid 50 fps at 1080p (vsync with my TV) which was a serious upgrade on the performance of my old machine.
I've since picked up mark of the ninja (steam deal of the day - get it) which is awesome and outlast, which I will be scaring the shit out of myself with later

What did you wind up going for for a video card?

Also, pretty much all of the desktop parts i have here are IDE. I have been running angry laptops for a while now, so all of my "real computer" parts are fucking ancient. Not sure why i am keeping them actually, as aside from maybe the cases, i would have to start completely from scratch to build anything modern/good.

A friend of mine was building a new rig so I got his old stuff for cheaps. I got me a GTX580 and six core Phenom OC'd to 4.2 GHz and 8 GB of corsair ram.
It's a hungry beast. The GPU needs 600W minimum

I am now tinkering with head tracking methods so I can enhance my Assetto Corsa and War Thunder fun times.
I got FreeTrack to work with an LED bike light strapped to a cap but I'll be buggered if I can get it to talk to things. It also has an issue with my Logitech C270 webcam. I then tried FaceTrackNoIR which wont talk to the webcam at all due to logitech being shitty bastards that insist on launching the webcam software every time the device is polled, resulting in the setting being lost. FTNOIR is supposed to be the absolute tits though so I have picked up a PS3 Eye camera which does a lot of the stuff on board to minimise CPU usage and it runs at 120 fps! Reports to follow.

I messed with this a few months ago. If you have a properly beast system, the PS3Eye is nice. You probably know at this point that you may have to remove the IR filter coating from the lens of the thing tho. I actually made a copy of the TrackIR headset using IR LEDs and some stiff wire, and i found that it was a bit too easy to confuse the FaceTrack with other light sources and reflections(my fucking glasses included). Getting rid of the IR filter helped a lot because it gave me more to work with in the facetrack filtering bits. I think the thing i found best in there was called Point Tracker or something like that, which works inside of FaceTrackNoIR.

The newer versions of the ps3eye cameras make the lens fix pretty difficult(the lens is enclosed and pretty easy to destroy), but what is nice is that you can buy the correct cctv lens mount and a cheapo cctv lens and frankenstein it all together pretty simply/easily.

It can be a bit fiddly to get the lens screwed into the exactly right spot for the sensor so that the thing will work properly rather than as a type of funky macro/microscope(though this made me want to purchase a second ps3eye at some point for further experiments ) but it is totally possible to make it go, and to get the whole shit back together in its original case:



I got the lens mount from ebay, and the lens itself from china via dealextreme. The lens actually gives some interesting functionality to the thing that it didn't have before, as i went for this one: http://dx.com/p/replacement-manual-zoom ... yCHR4UzLK4 which can do pretty macro type image stuff on one end and a decent normal video camera sort of thing on the other. You can also go for a much more basic fixed focus/aperture lens, or indeed a fancier one with electrical focus ability(though you will need to make some sort of a controller happen for that).

I highly suggest this sort of course rather than attempting to modify the original ps lens or trying to get it out of its original mount(which mine was quite permanently affixed to).

The ebay mounts i found were "CCTV Camera board Lens CCD Lens Mount for M12 x 0.5 (18mm screw distance)" And you need all that info. The M12x0.5 is the thread pitch and diameter of the lens, and the 18mm screw distance is what will allow you to mount it to the ps3 eye circuit board without modification. I think it was about $6 shipped for five of the things, only one of which you need obviously.

In the end though, i determined that i just don't have enough CPU to do the PS3 camera at a high framerate AND the point detection AND the controller-interfacing-to-the-game thing, all at once, and the whole setup wound up being too sluggish and too prone to mess itself up, for me to use it in real time, in a game. It may also have been a bit of too much too much happening all at once on this poor laptop's USB bus what with the camera and controllers and keyboard all wanting a decent piece of it.

One day when i build a meaner computer i will revisit it though. Flight sims are pretty sweet when the thing works. It is practically required in a good one like Rise Of Flight, unless you just really like getting shot down all the time.

Oh, and this was what i wound up with using for the Faux TrackIR headset, strapped to the side of me olde HD201s:



I had a couple of the IR LEDs lying around from an old noise project(optically controlled atari punk console or something i think), and i stole the third from a long-orphaned television remote control.

It really helps to widen and dull the LEDs by sanding the round faces flat and then taking a bit of fine steel wool to the rest of them to diffuse the LED light. It gives a much bigger and clearer IR dot for the tracking software to locate and follow around. Otherwise, if you turn your head, it is really easy for the thing to lose sight of them, as LEDs actually project a fair bit like flashlights, brighter directly in front than from the side. With the LEDs modified you can turn them 90º to the monitor/camera, and they will still show just about the same bright dot.

At some point when i have enough hardware firepower to actually run this shit, i will probably look into buying some proper more powerful motion capture LEDs too. They were a bit on the pricy side though, last i checked. And this other basic lo-fi style IR LED can work very well.

Also, playing with the lens is just kind of fun:




It was actually pretty fine sandpaper on those LEDs, like 400 grit, minimum, but the macro makes it look like 50:

Very nice stuff. It may be worth looking into it again. The CPU usage on my machine is about 1-3% once it has locked on using FaceTrackNoIR v1.70.

I've had some success with FaceTrackNoIR in face tracking mode with my C270. It does wig out a little bit but I blame Logitech for being shitty bastards as described above.

It works fine for Assetto Corsa (which is awesome, even at this early access stage - more on this later) as I only need a subtle Yaw. For War Thunder I really need a low latency, high accuracy tracker in at least the Yaw and Pitch axes. It's sort of there but if it loses your face or if it loses the centre position it goes nuts and this leads to a lot of being on fire. It will work better with 3 point LED tracking or a better camera I'm sure.

I'm gonna build a cap up with red LEDs to see how that works for me so that I don't have to take anything apart. FreeTrack 2.0 did work fine with a single ultrabright red LED but it wouldn't talk externally and logitech made it a nightmare to use. The PS3 eye will be much better I hope and that runs at a much higher frame rate so the frame filtering shouldn't introduce an obtrusive lag. If the LED glare is annoying I will switch to IR LEDs. I'm somewhat reluctant to at the moment though as they all seem to have pretty ridiculous current draws (100mA a pop, which seems excessive) so battery life will be shitty.


Right - Assetto Corsa. It's awesome. The physics is good and it has a range of cars from open wheel racers with high down force to shitty 1.3L city cars and they all handle like they should. Forza 5 introduced the 2012 Lotus F1 car and I honestly wasn't impressed by the physics/handling. It was far far too abrupt and it didn't seem to transition from aerodynamic to mechanical grip well under deceleration. In AC they have the Lotus 125 and I took it around Monza (a track I know well) and it behaved as I would expect. The AI is pretty sweet from what limited running I've had with them. They try and throw a cheeky move up the inside, they battle each other - sometimes with hilarious consequences and they get frustrated and make mistakes. Most importantly though, putting them on easy doesn't mean that they slow to a snails pace on the apex so you can actually race them, rather then have to go offline and lose time or slam into the back of them. I look forward to the full release as they're on to a winner as it stands. Being able to look to the apex with head tracking is a huge bonus too. No more shitty racing line is needed and it makes drifting much much easier.

Edit: found some low forward voltage/current IR emitters

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention, i didn't go battery, just do the calculations for 3 LEDs at whatever rating you buy, and add a current resistor, and run that shit off of the 5v from a spare USB plug. I actually have an old-ass usb1.0 powered hub that i am going to use for that sort of thing, just power, no data.

And the IR LEDs are available in all kinds of ratings and outputs as it appears that you have found.

Also, despite not really trusting Kunos at all, i did finallly decide to buy Assetto Corsa. Deciding to go ahead and do it, i guess i just accept that even if he fucking drops off the face of the earth leaving only a 80%-finished abandonded software like he did with NetKarPRO, it will still probably drive well.

Of course, i then discovered that me olde GTX260 is not at all supported by the game and it wouldn't load shit. So i have to run the unsupported early DX10 workaround(which hopefully he never takes out in a later version), and i have ugly trees, but otherwise it seems to do the trick nicely.

My own initial impressions are that i think i like the way NkPro handled a little better. I wonder if he has messed with his tire model to account for the general slip-happy tastes of the current masses? Which wold be fine, because i too felt that his old models were unrealistically harsh with respect to slip angle enforcement.

I actually feel that there is still something very wrong with the lower speed slip angle implementation. The way the car regains traction after a big slide does not feel right at all, nor does it look right in replay. Actually, i feel like that is a definite step back from NkPro, which was a little wonky, but workable.

That said, a lot of AC feels like nK and NkPro, which is good.

And so far also, i have spent most of my time in the E30s and the Abarth, because they are closest to what my real experience driving angry is in, and that is how i generally like to approach a new sim.

For sure though, in NkPro, the "best" cars to drive, were the open wheelers. So i will get to the others soon.

I wonder if he just has much better slick race tire data than he has for treaded street tires? Seems possible actually. Race teams would seem to be a bit more open with what they have on tires, than tire manufacturers would be. It might represent the type of raw data that one would not want a competitor manufacturer having free access to.

My friend gave me his Gamecube as a housewarming gift Can't remember all the games I used to play on mine, any good suggestions? So far we just have Smash Bros Melee for multiplayer fun and a Resident Evil game which is actually fairly pant-shittingly scary. I think I'll probably get Zelda Wind Waker and Twlight Princess as well, maybe even the Ocarina Of Time remake they did for it. Fun multiplayer games would be cool.

Mario Sunshine is an underrated game IMO. There was a really good Mario Party game we used to play for drunken competitive gaming, but I can't remember which one. Like, I think there were 2 or 3 MP titles released for GC but only one was good. Also Double Dash man. Gots to have that Double Dash.

I already completed Sunshine when I first had a GC, yeah it was good! Wasn't Wario Ware 'cube or was that Wii? I'll definitely get Double Dash. I also have a PS3 now as well so any suggestions for good games for that are welcomed I already have COD MW2 and FIFA 12. Might get that "new" Mortal Kombat with the x-ray moves, that was always fun. Used to bauss it as Ermac, juggling the opponent around.

I have now got my IR hat working I do need to file the domes off the ends of the emitters for better viewing angles however.

It gets picked up by FreeTrack, which for some reason wont talk to war thunder, but wont get picked up by the point model in FaceTrackNoIR. I need to poke about a bit.