nia is only a HID device, no drivers needed

[D3adg0d]

Hey Guys I just got my nia yesterday and I love it so far. I have been able to get 30 kills to 1 death in UT99 using the UT3 easy profile with the bots on easy in one day of playing with it. From reading what everyone on the board said I was thinking it was going to be a long time before I would be able to do anything.

First I would like to mention that i had a problem with high calibration once but I just unplugged the nia and plugged it back in and it was fine. So that might help some people.

Secondly I noticed that the nia is a smiple HID device, or Human Interface Device. Just like a mouse or keyboard, or the WiiMote if you connect it through bluetooth, or an even better example would be a USB joystick. What that boils down to is that anyone that knows how to program can pull reports from the nia and as long as they know how to decode the report packet they can use it in their program however they want.

This is how HID works:
Every HID device has a report structure for input, output, and feature.
You can send it a output report, receive an input report, or set a feature.
All you have to do to get the values of that report is request it, its part of the HID standard.

So the nia is this:
VID: 1234
PID: 0000
REV: 0001
Report size (including report id)
Input: 56 bytes
Output: 9 bytes
Feature: 2 bytes
24-bit biometric sample data array (min-8388608, max:8388607)

So as you can see you can send it a report request of 9 bytes or feature request of 2. Likewise your report will be 56 bytes. I fired up my handy dandy USB HID IO program and viewed the IO of the nia.

As soon as you plug in the nia, it starts streaming data to the PC without even having been sent an output report. Just like a USB joystick. Here are some examples of output:

RD 00  88 05 84 87 05 84 AF 03 84 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 38 BD FD FF 69 0C 03 
RD 00  9E 02 84 3E 03 84 EE 01 84 1E 03 84 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 38 BD FD FF 79 0C 04 
RD 00  15 FF 83 35 01 84 1D FD 83 3D 01 84 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 38 BD FD FF 89 0C 04 
RD 00  AC FE 83 04 FF 83 EC FD 83 6D FE 83 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 38 BD FD FF A0 0C 04 
RD 00  C5 FB 83 B6 FA 83 EE FA 83 D6 FB 83 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 00 12 7A 38 BD FD FF B4 0C 04

If you count it out you will see 56 bytes in each line. RD 00 is the report ID "00". Then there are 12 bytes of data that are constantly changing (likely the data we want) then there are another 29 bytes of data that rarely change then 14 bytes that seem to be timing.

So what does all this mean you might ask. First you don't need a driver for 64 bit systems or Linux, HID is a standard it doesn't need a driver! I even tested it out I plugged it into my Vista 64bit laptop and fired up USBHIDIO and was able to stream data from the nia just like a 32 bit OS it will be the same for Linux. What we need is the field data for the input stream. If OCZ or whoever would release that then anyone could start to develop stuff for this just like the WiiMote

I haven't really tried to decode the first 24 bytes into fields yet but I might if I get a chance. So check out this page for more HID info - http://www.lvr.com/hidpage.htm this guy already has the framework for VB.net C# VB6 and C++6. Check out SimpleHIDwrite program that will allow you to stream the data and save it as a text file. As well as lots of info on HID stuff.

Also does anyone know what the button on the nia is next to the USB connector?

DG