Configuring the Tobii Eye Tracker for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Following the initial launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the Tobii eye tracker configuration panel crashed the simulator. Asobo fixed that in the first update to the simulator, but the control profile configuration panel for the Tobii eye tracker still doesn’t have the correct interface controls - nor does it save anything you attempt to change within it.

All hope is not lost.

It turns out you can modify the profile XML files directly. The steps below walk through how to do this for the Microsoft Store bought version of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. If you have the Steam version, your paths are going to be different (I don’t have the Steam version, so can’t help).

The problem with OpenTrack

It’s worth noting that lots of people using the Tobii eye tracker have found a work-around using OpenTrack - which works, but not as well as native Tobii head and tracking. The problem with this - is if you have installed OpenTrack, it takes precedence over the Tobii eye tracker - so you’ll need to either uninstall it, or disable it before continuing. To disable OpenTrack, there are two methods:

1. Uninstall OpenTrack (and remove the registry key for NaturalPoint)

2. Rename NPClient64.dll in the OpenTrack/Modules installation directory

Flight Simulator seems to works through a list of known hardware when starting up, and looks for the NaturalPoint registry key - which points towards the OpenTrack Modules subdirectory. If it finds NPClient64.dll it uses it - above all else.

How to configure Tobii

The thing we’re really trying to solve is to configure the Tobii head tracker to use head tracking - not eye tracking - and the default profile for the Tobii head tracker is set up to use eye tracking - not head tracking.

Here’s how you can rectify it (until Asobo and Tobii profile the proper configuration panel within the simulator):

• Load Flight Simulator 2024, go to Settings / Controls and duplicate the default “General” Tobii profile - and give it a name - e.g. “Custom Tobii Profile” - then shut the simulator down.

• Find the path:

C:\\Users\\{username}\\AppData\\Local\\Packages\\Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe\\SystemAppData\\wgs

• Within that folder, go into the folder with the long name, and within it you will see a number of folders with long names - these are your profiles. Sort them into date modified order, descending - which puts the most recently modified at the top.

• Go into the most recently modified folder - within it there should be a file with a long name - open it in Notepad.

• You should see an XML representation of the custom profile you created - with it’s name on the third line of the XML.

• Replace the first group of Axes mappings with the following data:

<Axis AxisName="0" AxisSensitivy="85" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>
<Axis AxisName="1" AxisSensitivy="0" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>
<Axis AxisName="2" AxisSensitivy="100" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>
<Axis AxisName="3" AxisSensitivy="19" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>
<Axis AxisName="4" AxisSensitivy="0" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>
<Axis AxisName="5" AxisSensitivy="75" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>
<Axis AxisName="6" AxisSensitivy="100" AxisSensitivyMinus="0" AxisNeutral="0" AxisDeadZone="0"/>

Once you’ve changed the file, save it, and re-start the simulator.

Remember the following default key mappings in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, which come in really handy:

• ALT+7 = turn head tracking on and off

• ALT+8 = reset head tracking position

• SHIFT+SPACE = reset cockpit position

• SHIFT+J and SHIFT+L = rotate view

You may want to save a custom view pointing exactly the right way, as the default forward facing view appears to be offset left a small amount.

Which axis is which?

Nobody really knows yet (or at least, nobody has spent the time endlessly re-starting the simulator to figure out which axis does what). The community has however figured out the following:

• Axis 1 is Eye tracking - so setting it to 0 disables it

• Axis 6 is Z Axis - forwards and backwards movement