Some feedback on initial experiences of iCUE

First off, I absolutely love what I see so far! Integrating Link and CUE is a great idea, and generally the execution of it seems fantastic compared to the older software.

A few things I'd love to see in future versions:

1) One of my biggest desires is for iCUE to be able to adjust GPU fan speed based on GPU temperature. I know that it can adjust other fans based on GPU temp, and I realize that I'm basically asking for iCUE to control something that isn't a Corsair product, but it still seems like something that would be important to include. I already have Corsair an H115i Pro liquid cooler for my cpu along with 5 140mm ML RGB fans, but when I think of controlling fans speed through one piece of software, it naturally makes sense to me to be able to set a GPU fan curve independent of other fans/temperatures. At the moment I have to use Afterburner to do this, but it would be awesome if I could do it through iCUE.

2) Please bring back the ability from Cue version 1 where we could remap keys on our keyboard with a "repeat constantly while pressed" setting. Having to do this through macros instead of key remaps feels clunky and is one of the things I really didn't like about CUE 2.

3) This suggestion might be based on a misunderstanding I have with the way iCUE works: as I mentioned earlier, I have five 140mm ML RGB fans (two of which I used to replace the fans that came with the h115i pro). I have all five plugged into a six-fan RGB hub that came with some of the ML fans, but under lighting setup, there is no option for an ML hub - just HD, SC, and LL. DevBiker mentioned that ML fan support is coming - perhaps this is what he was talking about. I can control the lighting of all five fans from the software regardless, although it would be nice to have more control over it than I appear to have - to set different fans or RGB strips to do different things rather than having them linked together, or to link them to games automatically - so that when I play a particular game, it loads a particular profile and/or does stuff when certain things happen in-game (without having to change profiles manually when starting a game). I've noticed that when i set my fans to rainbow wave, they aren't synced for some reason - each fan is on different colors at different times as opposed to them all running through the same cycle together. It would be nice to have them synced up. Anyway, more control in general here would be nice, and I imagine that's coming.

4) Lastly, I may have noticed a minor glitch with the software. Before I bought the commander pro, I had the five fans running through the RGB fan hub into a lighting node pro, along with four light strips connected together and into the other slot on the node pro. After I switched to the commander pro, I notice that my lighting node pro is still showing up in iCUE despite being completely disconnected from the computer. I'm guessing it's intended that it disappear once it's no longer connected?

Thanks for making the software more integrated and user friendly in general than the way it used to be!

3) This suggestion might be based on a misunderstanding I have with the way iCUE works: as I mentioned earlier, I have five 140mm ML RGB fans (two of which I used to replace the fans that came with the h115i pro). I have all five plugged into a six-fan RGB hub that came with some of the ML fans, but under lighting setup, there is no option for an ML hub - just HD, SC, and LL. DevBiker mentioned that ML fan support is coming - perhaps this is what he was talking about.

This is absolutely coming soon to an iCue near you ... for now, you can configure them as other devices. I assume that you are doing this? 5 ML Fans == 20 LEDS == 2 Strips.

I can control the lighting of all five fans from the software regardless, although it would be nice to have more control over it than I appear to have - to set different fans or RGB strips to do different things rather than having them linked together, or to link them to games automatically - so that when I play a particular game, it loads a particular profile and/or does stuff when certain things happen in-game (without having to change profiles manually when starting a game). I've noticed that when i set my fans to rainbow wave, they aren't synced for some reason - each fan is on different colors at different times as opposed to them all running through the same cycle together. It would be nice to have them synced up. Anyway, more control in general here would be nice, and I imagine that's coming.

You can associate a profile with an application (game) and have it automatically switch when you run that game. You do this in the Home Screen ... click on the profile .. at the bottom you should see profile properties, including the ability to "Link profile to program". To have it react to in-game events requires some level of coordination with the game designer. You'll see this with Far Cry 5 and iCue. I don't know for certain but I would imagine that we'll see this for other games in the future as well.

You can also control effects not only for individual fans or strips but down to the individual LED.

Finally, if you want effects synch'd across devices, use one of the "Lighting Link" options when selecting the lighting effect. These are linked across all of the devices.

4) Lastly, I may have noticed a minor glitch with the software. Before I bought the commander pro, I had the five fans running through the RGB fan hub into a lighting node pro, along with four light strips connected together and into the other slot on the node pro. After I switched to the commander pro, I notice that my lighting node pro is still showing up in iCUE despite being completely disconnected from the computer. I'm guessing it's intended that it disappear once it's no longer connected?

This is odd ... certainly, I've seen it remove devices.

Did you remove the NoPro while the system was booted? If so, you'll need to exit iCue and then restart the "Corsair Service" in your Windows Services applet. The phantom NoPro should disappear.

First off, I absolutely love what I see so far! Integrating Link and CUE is a great idea, and generally the execution of it seems fantastic compared to the older software.

 

A few things I'd love to see in future versions:

 

1) One of my biggest desires is for iCUE to be able to adjust GPU fan speed based on GPU temperature. I know that it can adjust other fans based on GPU temp, and I realize that I'm basically asking for iCUE to control something that isn't a Corsair product, but it still seems like something that would be important to include. I already have Corsair an H115i Pro liquid cooler for my cpu along with 5 140mm ML RGB fans, but when I think of controlling fans speed through one piece of software, it naturally makes sense to me to be able to set a GPU fan curve independent of other fans/temperatures. At the moment I have to use Afterburner to do this, but it would be awesome if I could do it through iCUE.

 

This is a good excuse to build a custom loop, then your Commander Pro can control everything!

iCUE needs a battery life indicator for Void Pro RGB wireless and better presets that devs need to test with popular titles. The EQ presets sound terrible in stereo and even worse in surround sound.

It does. Go to your dashboard or CUE Space and select "Battery Status".

That said, it would be nice to see it in the screen for the Void Pro Wireless.

When will this bug filled program be updated again?

Keep in mind this early release is an open beta. They are working with us to tweak things, add features, and fix bugs. From a beta stand point this is much better than a lot of software I see that is listed as a stable release. If you are having a lot of problems, you can always use the original CUE and Link software. They are going to do their best to resolve it as quickly as they can. Just report issues in the most helpful way you can, by giving them as much details as you can.

When will this bug filled program be updated again?

You should Post all the bugs you have found your self dude... try not to miss any out as it's the only way you can get them fixed ready for when its Officially Released.. I assume you realise its a Pre release Beta version at the moment?.. anyways... sounds like You have found loads..

This is a good excuse to build a custom loop, then your Commander Pro can control everything!

Haha I’m not sure I’m brave enough to do a custom loop, but I am considering adding a self-contained liquid cooling unit to a gpu or just buying a hybrid card that has liquid cooling included.

I also echo solarity’s comment that while there may be issues with iCUE in its current form, it’s remarkably stable for what is essentially an open beta. Give them specific feedback - that’s why it’s here!

It does. Go to your dashboard or CUE Space and select "Battery Status".

 

That said, it would be nice to see it in the screen for the Void Pro Wireless.

Thanks!

I was confused because the dashboard was blank.

Out of the handful of decent wireless headsets, the Void is nice for the money for sure but I am going back to wired.

Why does Cue and iCUE only sometimes recognize my hardware?

4) Lastly, I may have noticed a minor glitch with the software. Before I bought the commander pro, I had the five fans running through the RGB fan hub into a lighting node pro, along with four light strips connected together and into the other slot on the node pro. After I switched to the commander pro, I notice that my lighting node pro is still showing up in iCUE despite being completely disconnected from the computer. I'm guessing it's intended that it disappear once it's no longer connected?

I also had a minor issue with my commander pro showing a temp sensor that was not connected. I had to uninstall/reinstall iCUE checking the box to delete all saved settings for it to fully refresh the commander pro device. It might be hanging on to a stale config for your node pro.

Here's just a small list of what I would like to see Corsair add to iCUE:

1. Add effects to the brightness, win lock & DPI LED's. I know they change colour based on if the lock is activated and the mouse displays what DPI you have it set to, but there should be an option to display the lighting effects on these LED's. I usually have mine turned off because it kind of ruins the theme when you have a rainbow going along your keyboard while those other 3 LED's are just a static colour.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gjkfm9y85h1dcmm/ScreenShot_20180413165027.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/90bif9b2n0lfxdl/mouse.png?dl=0

2. An option to add more colours to alternating lighting effects.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9c3f67tx07576f7/more%20colours.png?dl=0

3. Bring back the profile download feature from the old CUE.

After using iCUE a bit more, I’ve noticed a glitch that often occurs. The main lighting effect I use is a rainbow wave effect across several fans and four lighting strips, and while it often runs the wave smoothly, sometimes it appears to lag and stutter. To be more specific, the wave freezes on a set of colors for maybe a second or so, and then suddenly jumps ahead to the part of the wave I’m guessing it would have been on had it continued to run smoothly.

Also, despite the fact that it’s not the best time to buy graphics cards, I went ahead and bit the bullet and purchased Corsair’s 1080ti Hydro GFX card (I have no reason to believe prices will get any better anytime soon, as I have a feeling that crypto currency is just beginning to take off in general, but I could be wrong - I just want an awesome card for gaming, and this model fits the bill from what I’ve read).

I figured that iCUE would recognize and control the fans associated with this card, but surprisingly it doesn’t even see the card. This was in fact part of the reason I chose the corsair model of this card - so that I could control all my fans and cooling through iCUE, including and especially my gpu. I’m hoping that support for this product is coming in a future version of the software - could I get confirmation on that? It would be especially nice if I could even assign the fan attached to the gpu radiator as a gpu fan along with controlling the fan inside the gpu itself all through iCUE.

I also noticed that most of what I had included in my dashboard is gone now (after updating to the newest version that came out yesterday I believe - I forget the version number), but from what I understand that feature is coming back after they tweak it. I really liked having all my temperatures, loads, and other info attached to various devices (drives, cpu, memory, gpu, etc.) right there in iCUE and look forward to that feature coming back. One other note along those lines - I have a Z370 motherboard, which I believe only has two temperature sensors in it (strangely and unfortunately), but iCUE had way more than two motherboard sensor temperatures listed. If that’s faulty data, it would be great if iCUE would recognize it as such and not include it in the readout. I would have thought that if it was faulty data, the temps would have stayed static, but I watched them change over time, and the temperatures they listed were on par with what I’d expect them to be. I’m not totally sure what’s happening there - just giving some feedback.

Keep up the good work with this software! I look forward to seeing what you guys do with it as time goes on!

After using iCUE a bit more, I’ve noticed a glitch that often occurs. The main lighting effect I use is a rainbow wave effect across several fans and four lighting strips, and while it often runs the wave smoothly, sometimes it appears to lag and stutter. To be more specific, the wave freezes on a set of colors for maybe a second or so, and then suddenly jumps ahead to the part of the wave I’m guessing it would have been on had it continued to run smoothly.

I also noticed choppy effects when testing my lighting setup with CUE on an older laptop. I believe CUE has to repeatedly send the individual commands to change each led color of each device repeatedly for advanced style effect patterns that aren't static. So if your computer resources get bogged down running all the other stuff you have open and running high CPU or RAM, CUE will produce choppy effects.

If this is a constant issue for you, aside from upgrading cpu/ram hardware, you could "optimize" your system by reviewing what you have running at startup, in the system tray, and in the background and disabling anything you don't need/use anymore to reduce idle/background load.

Interesting that not much people reporting about GUI bugs.

I suggest to fix GUI problems first because until then program absolutely unusable.

When I start it it breaks down desktop into parts (somehow related to Chrome browser as far as I read) so I can move windows around desktop, Windows 10 moves notification bar (that is on the right edge) to the middle of the screen and my desktop looks divided into two parts and I can only operate on the left part.

Other then that, icons and images of the devices inside iCue some of them small, some of them Huge and are out of screen). I suspect it its becuase I use HighDPI mode on my 4K monitor.

I think it is better to use system libraries for GUI , it maybe will looks a bit boring , but it will help to test features of this program and then, lately add support of custom GUI.