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Gaming Gear Showdown, Simplicity vs. Hype
Slack3r78 writes "Gizmodo is running a feature putting the gaming marketing hype to the test and seeing whether it really makes your playing any more 1337. They match up the latest products from Razer and SteelSeries along with some five-year-old Logitech products and come to the conclusion that ... it doesn't seem to matter that much. It looks like maybe you can't buy your way into finally beating that annoying 13-year-old at your favorite FPS after all."
It seems that "leet" mostly means a side window, big fans (preferably with a control panel in one of the drive bays), really weird SATA cables, and lots and lots of blue LEDs.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
it is in how you use it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I disagree. Sure "fancy" stuff won't make you game better, but functionality DEFINITELY has a huge effect on gameplay.
The functionality of your mouse makes the greatest difference in a FPS: binding the extra buttons to prevent keyboard movement allowing you to continuously move/jump/crouch etc. to dodge instead of "press whatever key to throw grenade/use good gun". This assumes you have 2-3 fingers for movement, 1-2 for movement actions, you only have at best 1-2 random fingers lingering for a select few keys.
My personal example would be playing spy in TF2, before I had my 8 button mouse I had issues stabbing engies while placing sappers immediately. Now, I can do it with 90% success - meaning I don't die. Why? Cause all I have to do is press left click, thumb click, left click, while maneuvering with keyboard effectively.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Comfortable or not, it'll be a cold day in hell before I drop $150 on a keyboard, and another $90 for the mouse. The article really doesn't dwell on the cost factor, which for me is the major deterrent to buying "gaming gear."
You have more faith in humanity than I do.
You could just as easily say that no one really believes their Monster cables make their stereos sound better. And yet, that company is still in business.
I think for most people there is a psychological relationship between how expensive something is and how good it is. If these things cost $20, no one would even consider the idea that they would make anyone play better, even if they were built exactly the same. At $300, though, people are more likely to believe it.
Blue? You haven't gone to UV yet? I hear it's worth at least an extra 0.4FPS.
You could just as easily say that no one really believes their Monster cables make their stereos sound better.
;)
Knowledgeable people don't believe it.
And yet, that company is still in business.
The world is full of stupid people.
I think for most people there is a psychological relationship between how expensive something is and how good it is.
Yep, see above.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
an optical mouse is better than a ball,
And a laser mouse is better than an optical mouse.
a silent and/or small motion motion keyboard helps
I tend to say, "go with what is most comfortable". Quality keyboards tend to have 2 crucial gaming features:
1) more simultaneous key presses. Nothing sucks worse than side strafe moving while crouching and flicking the reload button and having nothing happen.
2) quality = durability/consistency. the only thing that sucks worse than 1) above is playing on a keyboard where one of the w-a-s-d has gone 'squishy' or 'sticky' or otherwise doesn't have the same feel or travel as the other 3, for example. Any keyboard can fail, but cheap ones fail sooner and more often.
most of these 15 button mice are useless because only the standard 5 buttons can normally be mapped without having to run some special software in the background which impeeds the performance
Trading 0.1 fps to be able to run a useful mouse macro is nearly always worth it. The trick is coming up with useful macros -- some games have them... some don't.
What is spending $150 on a Keyboard and $90 on a mouse when your talking about spending countless hours using them. Your getting a lot more bang for your buck then you would for darn near anything else you'd spend the money on.
I dunno, your mom is going to want you to EVENTUALLY kick in for food and use of basement.....
Monstar L
So, if that's what it all boils down to, than why bother calling this stuff "gaming" equipment?
/.er will take. You should have something better than a dollar-store wrist-rapist for that.
Its marketing. They've identified a target demographic with:
a) interest in the product
b) disposable income
Your average enterprise manager isn't interested in equiping his team with higher quality peripherals, and is even less interested in shelling out for them. To a phb, they only reason you got an optical mouse was that they were the same price as wheel.
Why can't you get the same features and comfort on something that doesn't have that doesn't make you look like a status-whore to own?
You can actually. Razer for example has a 'pro' series of its mice that are white. And the product name is 'Click v1.6' or something instead of 'Death Adder in Biohazard Green', specifically to be more palatable to getting your PO approved at the 'office'.
Logitech and Microsoft also make decent quality mice that aren't overly garish.
But at the end of the day the big market for this stuff are teens. And they buy it as much for the status as the performance. And there is plenty of 'gaming hardware' that is ALL flash and no substance. The same 'Razer' that makes extremely good quality mice also has a 'cord manager' (to keep your mouse cord from getting out of control, pulling, tangling, etc. That little dohickey is little more than steel bolt and screw that that they charge $20 bucks for. You could improvise somethign equivalent from the hardware store for maybe $2.
Other products, like gamers computer cases are often poorly designed cheap plastic monstrosities -- while others are genuinely high end product.
Mousing around for eight hours a day is a significant part of many jobs the average
You should. Do you? If not, why not?
UV is nothing.
My rig puts out high intensity GAMMA radiation, have it face into my roommate's rooms so they know what I have...haven't heard from them in a while though, and their rooms are starting to smell funny, but I'm not gonna walk across the stream or leave my rig.
Keeps my pizza warm tho.
Stop talking about Razer.
I both mocked and applauded them in the same post.
Why does anybody care about them?
They make very good quality mice in general.
They make very good quality AMBIDEXTROUS mice in particular.
I hate ergonomic mice. As a left hander I find most of them, being designed for right handed people, extremely uncomfortable. Logitech, for example, doesn't make any of their worthwhile products in a left handed configuration, hell they don't make anything really good that's ambidextrous.
Their mice only have two buttons,
Mine (copperhead) has 6 'buttons', two of which are hard to reach. Plus a clickable scrollwheel, so 7 if you count that. Being that its ambidextrous I can forgive 2 buttons being hard to reach because its symmetrial. The buttons I can't reach are the right hand thumb buttons. I'm sure a right hander would find it equally awkward to press the two left hand buttons. But all the buttons are discrete and can be mapped independantly.
and half of them have the laser in the ass for some bizarre reason.
A lot of gamers hold the mouse with their fingers instead of resting their hand on it. And they make fine left/right mouse movements by swivelling the mouse with their thumb and ring finger, instead of actually pushing the whole mouse because you can make much more precise movements with minimal effort - e.g. for sniping. (imagine it was bolted to the table through the scrollwheel; that's the rough axis its swivelled on). Locating the laser in the 'ass' gives you better control and range doing this.
Razer's not for everyone. I like their mice, not much else. Their cable management system and 'mouse surfaces' are a scam on par with Monster, I prefer the saitek eclipseII to their keyboards, and their headsets? Nothing wrong with them, but I use plantronics . And honestly evem with mice I recommend logitech to most people. They make some very well regarded mice. But if you are a left handed mouser logitech sucks complete and total ass.
Like I said in my original post... you have to separate the quality products from the hype.
No need to worry about your roommate. You just need a shower. How could they rot after death with continuous gamma ray exposure killing all of the microbes?