Discussion: Who would have taken less colors and no flickering?

[Proffo]

But i dont understand? a 512 colour animation will look near as makes no difference identical to a 16m colour one, when the scripting support gets released gurus out there will easily sort it all out

 

Are you sure about that ? I'm not.

[Paul S]

We now have 16.8 million colours and that's a start, if people out there can fix problems with windows they can fix problems with an led driver software.

 

corsair are claiming that it cant be fixed further but im not so sure because they werent even sure they could add 16 mill colour support to begin with, that said 512 colours for animations are more than i will ever need, thats 511 colours more than any other single coloured led board.

 

I only personally tend to use red,green,blue,yellow,purple,orange and white anyway

[Proffo]

We now have 16.8 million colours and that's a start, if people out there can fix problems with windows they can fix problems with an led driver software.

 

corsair are claiming that it cant be fixed further but im not so sure because they werent even sure they could add 16 mill colour support to begin with, that said 512 colours for animations are more than i will ever need, thats 511 colours more than any other single coloured led board.

 

I only personally tend to use red,green,blue,yellow,purple,orange and white anyway

 

Too much nonsense to deal with, but I'll have a go.

 

Fixing problems with Windows is not quite the same as trying to fix a problem with inadequate hardware.

 

Obviously 512 colours is more than 1 colour. We paid for a 16.8 million colour keyboard with fluid animation, which we don't have.

 

If your choice of colours is provided, that's great. That doesn't make the product fine for others who expected (quite rightly) more.

[Riekopo]

I would have taken the $180 keyboard I paid for as advertised.

[netsez]

I started looking for a new keyboard a week ago and decided that I just MUST have an RGB backlight keyboard and this one looked awesome! However the more I read the forums here the more worried I get. Are people still happy with it? Does this fliuckering occur with the other two competing products?

Thanks

[Proffo]

I started looking for a new keyboard a week ago and decided that I just MUST have an RGB backlight keyboard and this one looked awesome! However the more I read the forums here the more worried I get. Are people still happy with it? Does this fliuckering occur with the other two competing products?

Thanks

 

I don't think the flickering occurs with the other two competing products.

 

I can tell you that Corsair's RGB keyboards have a good physical design. The aluminium plate, key caps, layout etc give a very good impression. The software, although a bit hard to get to grips with, is powerful and provides a lot of customisation. The lighting is a bit of a let down, unless you are happy with 512 colours. 16.8 million colours are available, but you'll almost certainly see some flickering if you want colour animation. Corsair haven't addressed bugs in the software very quickly, but they do seem to be trying. I'd recommend a Kxx RGB keyboard if you want customisable static colouring and a keyboard that feels like it should last a long time.

[delslow]

Does this fliuckering occur with the other two competing products?

Thanks

 

No. Corsair's answer to this is: "our software is much more powerful." I don't buy it. Corsair seems to have skimped somewhere where they shouldn't have and it's coming back to bite them in the ****.

[Paul S]

Well its got to be something to do with the software cause the flickering didnt happen before

[Proffo]

No. Corsair's answer to this is: "our software is much more powerful." I don't buy it. Corsair seems to have skimped somewhere where they shouldn't have and it's coming back to bite them in the ****.

 

The problem is with the hardware. The update enables 16.8million colours, but the hardware is not really up to the task of what the Corsair would like the software to be able to do (flicker free 16.8million colour animation). Yes, the effect is caused by what the software is doing, but there is little to no chance of the problem being cured because the hardware is lacking and the software is pretty well "doing the best it can". It's a bit like playing a modern 3D computer game on a 5 year old PC. If you turn the graphic settings to maximum the frame rate will slow down. The only way you can get the game to run smoothly is to reduce the graphic settings.

 

I'm suprised this has happened. At an early stage of the design, the software and hardware engineers should have looked at what they wanted to achieve and checked that the hardware was up to the task. I would have thought they'd build a prototype to make sure that the hardware they choose is capable of delivering what's required, or at least take a detailed look at the hardware specs to ensure that it's good enough for the job. And if anyone says "yes, but that costs money, they're in business to make as much profit as possible", my answer would be "how much reputation and sales will they lose due to the lack of time spent in product design and development ?".

[stevvie]

if anyone says "yes, but that costs money, they're in business to make as much profit as possible", my answer would be "how much reputation and sales will they lose due to the lack of time spent in product design and development ?".

 

Well I can tell you for one they've lost me as a customer I'll NEVER buy another corsair product after this K95 RGB, the keyboard is a joy to use, it's a shame it's NOT as advertised. I'm hanging onto it until I work out what to replace it with, the logitech is nice to look at but horrid to use compared to this, the steal series looks really nice and feels ok (my mate has one) and I can assure you his 16 million colours do NOT flicker like mine. And I'm still reading up on the static Rosewill RGB80 keyboard. But the more I read up the more I see how little our keyboards are actually supported in games for the colour effects.

[neofu]

I'd love to hear why 16bit colors aren't an option. I'm really trying to love his keyboard. The build quality is awesome and it works well. But sadly I had to turn 16.8m colors off again because the flickering is very distractive. But the stuttering animations with 8bit colors are also ugly (Extremely noticable while type lighting green over red).

[CodilX]

I'm just curious if it would work. I think the 16bit color spectrum for this device should have enough for smooth color transitions, and hopefully less data flowing could result in a faster refresh rate and no flickering. But, we'll probably never know. Corsair isn't too open about these things publicly..

 

Right now I toggle between 512 and 16.8m colors. If I want a static color with no animation - having 16.8m colors works best. However for animations (like the rainbow effect) I revert to 512 :/ Even though there are far too few colors for smooth transitions between them, it does perform so much better than having 16.8m :/ What a shame ...

[ScarredMecha]

Well I can tell you for one they've lost me as a customer I'll NEVER buy another corsair product after this K95 RGB, the keyboard is a joy to use, it's a shame it's NOT as advertised. I'm hanging onto it until I work out what to replace it with, the logitech is nice to look at but horrid to use compared to this, the steal series looks really nice and feels ok (my mate has one) and I can assure you his 16 million colours do NOT flicker like mine. And I'm still reading up on the static Rosewill RGB80 keyboard. But the more I read up the more I see how little our keyboards are actually supported in games for the colour effects.

 

I'd love to hear why 16bit colors aren't an option. I'm really trying to love his keyboard. The build quality is awesome and it works well. But sadly I had to turn 16.8m colors off again because the flickering is very distractive. But the stuttering animations with 8bit colors are also ugly (Extremely noticable while type lighting green over red).

 

I'm just curious if it would work. I think the 16bit color spectrum for this device should have enough for smooth color transitions, and hopefully less data flowing could result in a faster refresh rate and no flickering. But, we'll probably never know. Corsair isn't too open about these things publicly..

 

Right now I toggle between 512 and 16.8m colors. If I want a static color with no animation - having 16.8m colors works best. However for animations (like the rainbow effect) I revert to 512 :/ Even though there are far too few colors for smooth transitions between them, it does perform so much better than having 16.8m :/ What a shame ...

 

Frankly, if Corsair would have just said at any point during the past few months that this implementation wouldn't be possible without the flickering, I think people would be a lot less unhappy than how Corsair instead chose to do it, which was to be non-transparent about the technical details and keep everyone waiting for a long time, only to drop the new update and basically say, "Oh, by the way, there's this flickering that happens if you use 16.8m colors that we can't fix. Sorry!"

[Proffo]

I'd love to hear why 16bit colors aren't an option. I'm really trying to love his keyboard. The build quality is awesome and it works well. But sadly I had to turn 16.8m colors off again because the flickering is very distractive. But the stuttering animations with 8bit colors are also ugly (Extremely noticable while type lighting green over red).

 

It may well be that 16 bit colour will not eliminate the flicker. It might lower the load on the controller CPU, but it may still be too much for it to handle without causing flicker.

[Corsair James]

Frankly, if Corsair would have just said at any point during the past few months that this implementation wouldn't be possible without the flickering, I think people would be a lot less unhappy than how Corsair instead chose to do it, which was to be non-transparent about the technical details and keep everyone waiting for a long time, only to drop the new update and basically say, "Oh, by the way, there's this flickering that happens if you use 16.8m colors that we can't fix. Sorry!"

 

I don't totally disagree with you but it wasn't held a secret for the sake of being non-transparent. It was because we literally worked up until the last week to try to solve this issue. Anything we could have done was done to make the solution as ideal as possible. Unfortunately, there were certain limitations we couldn't overcome and it wasn't ideal. Is it perfect? No. But it still is a better solution than what didn't exist before.

[ScarredMecha]

I don't totally disagree with you but it wasn't held a secret for the sake of being non-transparent. It was because we literally worked up until the last week to try to solve this issue. Anything we could have done was done to make the solution as ideal as possible. Unfortunately, there were certain limitations we couldn't overcome and it wasn't ideal. Is it perfect? No. But it still is a better solution than what didn't exist before.

 

Fair enough. It's unfortunate that you guys at Corsair are forced to work with hardware that can't get the job done as perfectly as everyone is hoping. Still though, it's a nice keyboard, and the software behind it is very powerful.

 

Are there any foreseeable plans to release a line of keyboards with updated hardware in the future? The lighting is literally the only flaw with my K70 RGB that I can think of right now.

[Corsair James]

Fair enough. It's unfortunate that you guys at Corsair are forced to work with hardware that can't get the job done as perfectly as everyone is hoping. Still though, it's a nice keyboard, and the software behind it is very powerful.

 

Are there any foreseeable plans to release a line of keyboards with updated hardware in the future? The lighting is literally the only flaw with my K70 RGB that I can think of right now.

 

We can't comment on future products as things change on a daily basis. I can say though that every product released by Corsair is always to improve and increase the user experience based on feedback from the community as well as improvements in technology.

[Jong]

James, you really need to look at Jucko's idea in the 16.8M color sticky. If you were working up to the wire maybe you missed this.

[Corsair James]

James, you really need to look at Jucko's idea in the 16.8M color sticky. If you were working up to the wire maybe you missed this.

 

I saw it and replied if we're referencing the same post. We did a lot of tweaks here and there as well. The issue is that there are conditions that you can rid of flicker, for example, registering colors in 6bit. However, depending on the type of foreground lighting you do, it can look terrible.

 

Thats why I referenced that our greatest feature of customization with lighting is also one of the difficult things to work around. Now if we completely limited lighting to only a fraction of what you can do today, then yes, there are definitely ways to hide the flicker. That type of compromise was something the team ruled out.

[Jong]

Ah, you replied to an identical post in a different thread.

 

But Jucko really does seem to think the problem is largely resolved in his test environment: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showpost.php?p=775539&postcount=69. Maybe there are two problems causing flicker and his tweak might make things a lot better?

[haggyman]

The whole purpose of the 16.8M colors goes to waste with the flickering problem if you ask me.

The reason to want so many colors is to have smooth transitions between different colors. But when all the lights are flickering, it doesn't look smooth at all. So I don't see the benefit of having this option right now, but maybe I'm missing something...

[morris8809]

This whole update seems kinda pointless to me.... 16.8m colors that we can't use in animation due to flickering.... Updated software that doesn't crash while running said flickering animations. Don't really need the software for static lighting displays.... Sure im glad they fixed the sw freezing issue so You can run macros/512 color animations but it seems we aren't far from where we were 8 months ago....

[Inheritance]

The 8 months were also spent fixing other issues. They had to redo the entire protocol to fix all the freezing issues, and im guessing a lot more time went towards fixing the freezing issue.

[Jong]

This whole update seems kinda pointless to me.... 16.8m colors that we can't use in animation due to flickering.... Updated software that doesn't crash while running said flickering animations. Don't really need the software for static lighting displays.... Sure im glad they fixed the sw freezing issue so You can run macros/512 color animations but it seems we aren't far from where we were 8 months ago....

 

Can't say I agree with that. The Steam/USB compatibility issue was massive and affected a lot of people. While those who bought this keyboard for 16.8M deserve a refund if they want it, I suspect that the number of people truly bothered by that are small and as long as they have an RGB keyboard with hundreds of colors that doesn't lock up on them repeatedly they will be very happy.

[PrimE11]

So I red the following statement in another thread:

Running at higher framerate could bring improvement to perceived (blanking) flicker, but running at higher framerate could make the keyboard less responsive, which is not desired for a gaming keyboard.

 

I heard someone saying this atleast twice now, that there is a way to reduce or eliminate the flicker but it would make the keyboard less responsive.

I think Corsair`s official statement was that "performance" was their biggest priority and this person says the same thing, that it would not be desired for gaming.

 

Here is the quote from Corsair:

Originally Posted by Corsair James View Post

Each of us see colors differently so you may or may not perceive a huge difference with 16.8 million color mode enabled. Visit our forums, load up a few profiles and see for yourself. Hopefully you like what you see. Similarly, some users may notice flicker in some combination of effects. While reducing flicker is possible, this would have impacted the keyboard response time. Performance is top priority at Corsair and we made the decision to keep the advance lighting options available despite some side effects. We hope you agree and if you find the flicker objectionable, you can revert to the original color mode for certain lighting profiles.

 

Now I completely agree that when I`m gaming, I want a keyboard that is as responsive as possible, but at the same time, when I`m gaming I also dont use a complex "lightshow" profile, with flashy effects, since it would heavily distract me.

When I`m gaming I would just use a static color, with maybe different key colors for the keys I use in that particular game, thats it.

 

Now however when I`m surfing the web, when I`m writing some short sentences here and there, or when I`m not doing anything at all at the keyboard, I would enjoy more complex lightings and effects, that makes the keyboard seem alive.

That being said, I wouldn`t care at all about a slight delay, if we are still talking about ranges in the milisecond area, if it would mean that the processor would be able to handle all the effects while 16,8 million colours are being enabled.

So why not give us an option for a mode where the keyboard is "less responsive", whatever that may mean... but therefor we get the whole spectrum of colours and effects without flickering.

Some sort of casual mode, that can be used in instances where responsiveness is not so terribly important.

 

I would like to hear your thoughts whether or not you think this would be possible and how much you think, the responsiveness would be affected by such a mode.

 

Are we really talking about delays that are unacceptable or are we just talking about delays in the miliseconds that you only really exclusively notice while gaming, but wouldn`t care about while using the keyboard casually.