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AndyOHart
Up and Coming
April 18, 2014

Serious help needed with Hydras

Hey. Final Year Project is coming up and I have started incorporating my Hydras into the project. I thought they worked fine but as I used it more, it seems something is up. I already sent back for replacements in December as 1 was faulty but this seems like a new issue, and I'm not sure if it is hardware or softwareside.
So basically the Hydras seem to work fine when near the base. Seems quite steady etc. Now they have a decently sized cable so I'm assuming it should be able to extend that distance. If i want to use the Hydras with my Rift for positional tracking I need some distance. However when I stand like 2-3 feet away from the base, it jitters unbearably. So if i have positional tracking it is unplayable.
Also if I am upclose to the base, and I am using one Hydra to act as a gun, it allows me to move the gun really far away in the game which you shouldn't be able to do, so I do need some distance. Does this sound like an interference issue or a Hydra related issue? I probably wont be able to return them again so I would be fucked.
Thanks for any suggestions
Also yes, I have disabled the Razer Hydra tray icon

    19 replies

    geekmaster
    Up and Coming
    April 18, 2014
    Some LCD monitors can cause interference. Try moving the base away from your monitor, or try a different monitor.
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
    AndyOHartAuthor
    Up and Coming
    April 18, 2014
    I thought it could be that because I use a monitor in college but right now I'm using it at home and it's only one laptop and still occurring. It didn't seem to happen back at Christmas it only happened when I reformatted my laptop
    Fredz
    Up and Coming
    April 19, 2014
    The Razer Hydra is known to have a very bad accuracy past a quite short distance.
    geekmaster
    Up and Coming
    April 19, 2014
    "Fredz" wrote:
    The Razer Hydra is known to have a very bad accuracy past a quite short distance.

    Only using the standard drivers. It can be quite accurate and precise if you eliminate the HID packets that report data from the wrong axes. And software can calibrate it for local magnetic distortions too. Jitter is caused by loss of precision, not loss of accuracy. Precision is how repeatable a measurement is. Accuracy is how close to correct the measured location is. My tests show that there are bad data packets distorting the filtered data, and custom software can compensate for this.

    Although the STEM controllers will use the same protocol as the Hydras, the are using a whole new code base, so they should not have this firmware glitch I discovered. I also found a cool buffer overflow in the Hydra, almost identical to the heartbleed bug (letting you read a 4K chunk of RAM in the Hydra).
    ;)

    Sensor filter methods:
    http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=18316&p=150630#p150630

    Hydra bad data packets (read thread starting here):
    http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=18749&p=145110#p144417
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
    Fredz
    Up and Coming
    April 19, 2014
    "geekmaster" wrote:
    Only using the standard drivers. It can be quite accurate and precise if you eliminate the HID packets that report data from the wrong axes.
    Is there a driver available implementing this ?
    geekmaster
    Up and Coming
    April 19, 2014
    "Fredz" wrote:
    "geekmaster" wrote:
    Only using the standard drivers. It can be quite accurate and precise if you eliminate the HID packets that report data from the wrong axes.
    Is there a driver available implementing this ?

    Not that I am aware. I have custom code that processes raw USB HID packets for the Razer Hydra, and for the Rift Tracker DK. But in the case of the Hydra, it is experimental and requires periodic manual resynchronization. I was hoping to automate that when my hobby interests return to that sub-project.
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
    AndyOHartAuthor
    Up and Coming
    April 22, 2014
    So any other suggestions? No matter how far I put the base away from my laptop it still seems to jitter when I'm a tiny bit away. It seems I have to stand right in front of the base to get no jitter, so this doesn't really work for positional tracking since you need some distance. Could there be software on my pc or something causing it?

    What do I need to install to have the optimum Hydra experience
    geekmaster
    Up and Coming
    April 22, 2014
    I do not get any noticeable jitter on my Hydras. Not sure why you are having that problem, other than some kind of magnetic interference.

    Can you try getting the base and controllers farther away from the computer and monitors (and speaker, fans, etc.) to test it?
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
    AndyOHartAuthor
    Up and Coming
    April 22, 2014
    I have moved them as far apart as I can and still jitter. I'll need to be able to take a step back from the base for the positional tracking but it jitters even with that step.

    Do you have links to all the drivers and software you installed to get yours working?
    Fredz
    Up and Coming
    April 22, 2014
    Did you try turning off the display of your laptop ?
    Show more replies
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