OC3D Exclusive Review: OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator (nia) - The Log
- Thread starter JN
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I think a trip to my local petting zoo...with a laptop maybe in order...the animal kingdom heralds many an opportunity...also those drunk tramps round most city centres...maybe in time we learn about what they are shouting at....theres so much work that could be done using this technology....
OMG how many calibration settings are there...we just had a quick play on pong in the office...after 5 mins I found the glance control(albeit with a bit of tweaking with the sensitivity) that I could actually control it quite well...as soon as I'm home trackmania (OCZ NIA Testingfield if anyone wants to join) will be up (bout 8pm GMT) if anyone wants to come and watch me crash my car with my brain feel free....
exiledduke
New member
at work now... but... hrm... could someone point me to this "trackmania" game?
...no 64 bit drivers available for NIA yet....so cant run it at home....you would of thought that with 64bit os's being used by most high end enthusiasts to unshackle the 4 gig limit that it would of been a major priority...seeing as there major business is memory...plus no warning on the box or instructions...even the software installs fine with no warnings...I know it says so on the product page but its not exactly made clear...I think there a bit out of order...
I thought that 64bit support was not "optional" and is a requirement now...it reminds me of the days when I had to scratch around for drivers when i first used xp 64...other things i noticed were...when you plug it in it says "NIA Prototype"...which was a bit worrying...could of called it V1.0...obviously on 32 bit os at our office....and secondly "patent pending"....which means that anyone can reverse engineer it and/or contest the patent...no specifications or requirements on the box, instructions or software....and the cgi woman on the tutorials sounds like an old text to speech program...it does work well though...just a shame OCZ seem to be lacking in there marketing/support for a non high end enthusiast product...I think its looking like they may of bit off a tad more then they can chew...
name='Jim' said:
they also said it was multicore optimized so doesnt take too much cpu input on games...it ran fine on our age old 939 3700 with 1 gig of ram and onboard everything at the office..obviously that was the ocz software only...i still recon if you do all this work and aim it to a specific user then limit the people who can use it within those confines, ie the enthusiast market, your heading for fisticuffs ...if u get my drift, you got to remember only 200 in the world and most of them havent hit consumers yet...if a fully vista compatible software package, and i mean all versions, isnt released by mass filtration , which if you believe ocz is within a month, then users are gonna swamp them with annoyed complaints and consumer respect and confidence on all products will drop and hit them hard. Especially when they have alot of new lines coming about, keyboards,mice and DIY laptops. The average Joe on the street who may never have heard of them may take a fancy to one of there laptops, google it and come up with 1000 complaints over one product its gonna make it an uphill struggle for there non existent marketing team. I really think they need to act fast or the NIA could be the titanic of the perephial market, no matter how good it works.
exiledduke
New member
someone with access to one of these (i.e. Jaster) needs to email me. If you have access to one (OC3D folk maybe?) shoot me an email. If you are not Jaster or OC3D and have one... please inform me so I can get you my email address.
Now until I check out this software QUIT THIS BELLYACHING ABOUT THE LACK OF 64BIT SUPPORT! NOW!!!
I'll tell you when you cna start moaning, but I have a tv tuner, a D-Link Wifi-N, and Dragon NatSpeak 9 running on my 64bit os without even 32bit emulation. These are all things which won't even start the install if they detect a 64bit OS...
I also have a 10x multiplier on my e6750... but that is a whole different story.
Point is... lemme take a whack at it and see if I can cram the NIA into a 64bit OS... put your fears on hold.
Now until I check out this software QUIT THIS BELLYACHING ABOUT THE LACK OF 64BIT SUPPORT! NOW!!!
I'll tell you when you cna start moaning, but I have a tv tuner, a D-Link Wifi-N, and Dragon NatSpeak 9 running on my 64bit os without even 32bit emulation. These are all things which won't even start the install if they detect a 64bit OS...
I also have a 10x multiplier on my e6750... but that is a whole different story.
Point is... lemme take a whack at it and see if I can cram the NIA into a 64bit OS... put your fears on hold.
right exile...Ive been running 64bit os's for 4 years..was a certified beta tester for vista x64...am fluent in msip...orca...have rewritten driver packages...the works...the main problem you'll encounter is that on the hardware level it shows as 8 different HID's...honestly mate even if I uncompiled the 32bit driver I really dont think unless you know how exactly the abstract hardware layer works with framework ...its really not worth it...this isnt a device type weve seen before...and theres nothing that can b substituted, forced or applied short of you backward engineering the hardware and software to root level....enough said
exiledduke
New member
I don't think so. The Software may need to be worked over... but hardware?
Brainfingers (the $2000 model) interfaced over serial, and the NIA is USB. I am pretty sure that the Control Box does all the hardware abstraction and feeds the computer direct data (instead of feeding the software abstract data and letting it communicate with the computer).
USB is a pretty standardized interface (I hope), it would not surpirse me if the NIA actually fed in unicode commands, or something else unbearably simple.
If it shows 8 HID's, then we have seen something more complex...
If the 8 HID's are the 8 levels that the Nia detects then it may be as simple as an 8 axis controller...
Brainfingers (the $2000 model) interfaced over serial, and the NIA is USB. I am pretty sure that the Control Box does all the hardware abstraction and feeds the computer direct data (instead of feeding the software abstract data and letting it communicate with the computer).
USB is a pretty standardized interface (I hope), it would not surpirse me if the NIA actually fed in unicode commands, or something else unbearably simple.
If it shows 8 HID's, then we have seen something more complex...
If the 8 HID's are the 8 levels that the Nia detects then it may be as simple as an 8 axis controller...
Its still a dead end...at the end of the day if it was that simple dont you think OCZ would of sorted it already...and if there was any kind of work a round I would of been able to see it...I had a freind over at infrogrammes have a look at the software .... he muttered something about dll's and the 64 bit kernel and said exactly what I thought...with it being the first BCI to hit the market with some pretty unique software and hardware he said that if all the initial work was developed round 32bit hardware and software then it may take some time for redevelopment and deployment...and whatever we could do by the time weve grasped whats going on then OCZ will have released one already...its absolutely futile to say anything else on the subject...its now just a waiting game...unfortunately the emotivs hot on the heels of this, I dont think the hardware is much of an issue when it works, however like I said on previous posts I think the software will be make or break...we'll just have to see how it pans out...patience...because face it to learn how to use this technology is gonna take plenty of that...I'm excited to see what our customers think ...
exiledduke
New member
Good points. I will have to trust you on this issue as I may not be as lucky as you and quoc.
anyone need 32bit media/keys? lol.
anyone need 32bit media/keys? lol.
exiledduke
New member
Blast... I can control my alpha and beta waves independently... what other controls are needed (I work at a hospital a lot and have access to "recreational" eeg use... those with higher levels of alpha waves are more relaxed, so you can train that aspect... any who...)?
the ocz software has 3 sets of bars for each alpha and beta...theres glance and muscle readings....I only remember the eeg machines from 85 to 96 which involved a very uncomfortable rubber tubed head piece and about 50 sensors which all had to be put on individually with gel on each one...took over an hour to set up...couldnt imagine doing that every time I wanted a quick blast on a game 
exiledduke
New member
lol, you don't need that many, but if you look at an eeg (or some medical drama on youtube, or scientology) it usually has six readout needles. so the other two must be glance and musclature? or is it two HID per sensor and 1 for each of the other two sensors onboard?
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