Keyboard for Gaming

[aynjell]

I'm sorry about the obscure title, and I'm sure most of you think this is yet another gaming keyboard thread, but...

I've settled on cherry browns. Having access to blacks, blues, browns, and alps blacks, of all of those I enjoyed the cherry browns the most.

Thing is, I know what keyboard to buy, the Das Keyboard S Professional Silent (jeez that's a mouthful) as it was the one I tried and I loved it... responsiveness was much improved in gaming over the blues. But I can't help but wonder if a tenkeyless would be better. Any good gaming grade keyboards with brown switches that are 10keyless and READILY AVAILABLE?

Features I'd like to see:

• Cherry MX Brown
• Tenkeyless
• 6KRO on USB (NKRO on PS2 a plus)
• READILY AVAILABLE (as in, I can order now preferably from a US retailer)
• Reasonable Price (I understand mechy's are 100$+ usually)

As some background, I've only ever owned blue based boards. I've used an oldschool mechy deck legend and they just feel... dirty to me. The resistance is just barely too high. I'm pretty confident the one I've used is the linear variety.

[bugfix]

How about this one?

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_details.asp?PRODUCT=624

Or just the the DAS. I use mine for gamung too and it's great.

[aynjell]

How about this one?

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_details.asp?PRODUCT=624

Or just the the DAS. I use mine for gamung too and it's great.

The majestouch is the only one I could find as well but that's only available from europe and after the conversion appears to come out to 175$+. I imagine shipping would rape me silly.

[leapius]

Try a sidewinder X4 - not MX Brown but feels very close imo and has usb NKRO.

[aynjell]

Try a sidewinder X4 - not MX Brown but feels very close imo and has usb NKRO.

No trolling, please. X4 is dome, is known to have ghosting issues, and has extra features I neither want nor need.

[kidchunks]

Any good gaming grade keyboards with brown switches that are 10keyless and READILY AVAILBLE?

Not in the US.

Better off ordering over seas or looking in classifieds to see if someone is selling one.

[arc2]

No trolling, please. X4 is dome, is known to have ghosting issues, and has extra features I neither want nor need.

I had the X4 before I bought a filco with cherry blues, to be honest I thought it was excellent for a rubber dome, certainly no kro issues that I am aware of. (maybe you are thinking of the X6 ?)

In saying that now I have my filco it's like night and day, so much better.

**weird did you edit your original post I am sure you said kro***

Anyway. I did not notice any ghosting issues and I believe there is a post somewhere discussing this.

Hey gang!

I am the researcher behind the Sidewinder X4 anti-ghosting technology. I wanted to clear up some misconceptions I've noticed in this forum.

The "ghosting" referred to in the quote above is not from the keyboard. That's a software bug on the PC side. You can see the same behavior with competitive USB keyboards that report large number of keys. For what it's worth, I have only seen this behavior when you exceed 11 simultaneous keys from a single keyboard, so it's probably not much of an issue for most people. This is all discussed on our web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/SideWinderX4.mspx

On that page, you'll see that we fully document what X4 can and cannot do. The people in this forum seem to be unusually well informed about keyboard issues, so I hope you'll appreciate having all this information plainly stated.

In addition to this, there has been some misinformation about how X4 works. We add a fixed resistor in series with each key. Every resistor is nominally the same value, although this is not critical. Ultimately, the system is just making on/off measurements, checking to see if a current exceeds a simple threshold. I know this is quite an innovation in the keyboard space, but this type of technique is how many multitouch systems work and has been used for decades in industrial sensors (e.g. Tekscan).

In order to help cut through the confusion, we've put up a browser based keyboard tester. You can find it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/KeyboardGhostingDemo.mspx

It's capabilities will depend somewhat on what browser and what operating system you are using. But it should be good enough to give most people a quick way to test their keyboards for obvious problems. Here's what I do when I want to show just how bad most keyboards are:

Press and hold ASDW. Now try pressing every other key while continuing to hold ASDW. You will probably find a number of keys that don't work. When you find these, try releasing some of the ASDW keys. You will probably be able to narrow it down to specific 3-key combinations that don't work.

Anyhow, I hope this is helpful!

[aynjell]

I had the X4 before I bought a filco with cherry blues, to be honest I thought it was excellent for a rubber dome, certainly no kro issues that I am aware of. (maybe you are thinking of the X6 ?)

In saying that now I have my filco it's like night and day, so much better.

**weird did you edit your original post I am sure you said kro***

Anyway. I did not notice any ghosting issues and I believe there is a post somewhere discussing this.

I have many mechanical keyboards, I wouldn't downgrade to a dome. I also wasn't open to alternatives to cherry browns... and I was pretty specific.

[arc2]

I have many mechanical keyboards, I wouldn't downgrade to a dome. I also wasn't open to alternatives to cherry browns... and I was pretty specific.

Yeah, me neither. Just responding to your comments on the X4.

[aynjell]

Yeah, me neither. Just responding to your comments on the X4.

Still, I have no aspirations of owning a dome. Regardless of how close they are, it's not browns. having tried browns, greens, blacks, and blues, I'm VERY particular about browns now.

[bugfix]

But does it really have to be a tenkeyless?

[aynjell]

But does it really have to be a tenkeyless?

Well that was the whole point of the thread, to find something tenkeyless with browns. I know of a great keyboard that meets my needs that has tenkey... I'm just looking for tenkeyless options.

[arc2]

I guess if you can wait a while this could be a good option for you.

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=13258&highlight=leopold

"According to the Elitekeyboards newsletter, the keyboard is currently scheduled for January or February 2011"

[aynjell]

I'm curious if the WASD keys available for filcos will work with that. If so, I'm probably sold on that and can wait. It looks about the same and seems to meet all the needs I described.

[ManjyomeThunder]

Still, I have no aspirations of owning a dome. Regardless of how close they are, it's not browns. having tried browns, greens, blacks, and blues, I'm VERY particular about browns now.

Cool story bro, I think you've established that about five times now. Just saiyan.



Honestly, if you want Cherry Browns, you've only got a few options to begin with that are readily available: Compaq MX11800, Das Silent, or the Kinesis Advantage.

Of those, you've only got one options with a compact layout: the Compaq MX11800, which has **** rollover IIRC.

I suggest you check the classifieds section often. Try to find someone selling a Ducky or Filco with MX Browns. Those are really your only two options besides just settling with the full sized Das.

[aynjell]

Cool story bro, I think you've established that about five times now. Just saiyan.

Show Image

And yet somehow I got a recommendation for a dome board.

I am pretty settled on the Leopold, as it gives me some time to save up and should meet my needs for a good gaming keyboard and the led placement is very nice as well.

[ManjyomeThunder]

And yet somehow I got a recommendation for a dome board.

I am pretty settled on the Leopold, as it gives me some time to save up and should meet my needs for a good gaming keyboard and the led placement is very nice as well.

Yeah, you did, and you commented on the fact that you did three times. Bit superfluous and unnecessary, we get it.

Good choice with the Leopold though, if you can wait.

[aynjell]

Yeah, you did, and you commented on the fact that you did three times. Bit superfluous and unnecessary, we get it.

Good choice with the Leopold though, if you can wait.

Time will tell. My DK isn't exactly bad to type or game on.

[leapius]

Actually it's the X5 that has the ghosting issues not the X4 and yes it's a dome but a damn fine one at that.   Honestly give it a try somewhere you might be surprised.

[aynjell]

I'll use the word das then. :O

[db_Iodine]

Was ist das? Das ist meine Tastatur, Das Keyboard.

[bugfix]

Was ist das? Das ist meine Tastatur, Das Keyboard.

Nice German.

15char

[muchadoaboutnothing]

DK for Das Keyboard would be a bit confusing around here.   There is a keyboard called the DKSaver from the KBDMania guys.

this will take a while to load, the reason I don't hang around there...

Save us the pain and just rehost the image next time.

Drag the image onto min.us

Get the link:
[noparse][/noparse]

Then use it:


There! The image no longer takes a day to load.

Or, if you're lazy, Imgur has an upload by URL option that you can paste the URL into. Usually works, but Imgur has been flaky as of late on the uploader for me.

[iMav]

Or, if you're lazy, Imgur has an upload by URL option that you can paste the URL into. Usually works, but Imgur has been flaky as of late on the uploader for me.

You can also upload by URL and attach the image(s) to your post here.  We've got lots of disk space!

[NamelessPFG]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the DSI Modular Mac yet...or, actually, I shouldn't be because only two people here seem to own this board, and SirClickAlot's the other one.

No PS/2 support for full N-key rollover AFAIK, but I tried it with a green PS/2 adapter, not a purple one (as if they might be wired any differently). It probably wouldn't support it at all given how the target market would've used ADB instead of PS/2. Still, I haven't found anything that disproves 6KRO over USB.

There's also some big rubber feet on the bottom that provide a good grip. Mine hasn't slipped on me yet!

The only detractors might be the non-standard layout (it's not simply IBM extended with the numpad cut off, as the pics show) and users insisting on Win/Cmd/Super/Meta being between Ctrl and Alt, as well as it now being $100 instead of $80 like it was earlier.

But if you're going to hold off for the Leopold FC200R, that's fine too. Looks like quite a nice board, actually, and I like the detachable cable-a feature I might miss if I quit using my Model Ms.

[theferenc]

Nameless, I'm not sure what about that keyboard layout is non-standard. The vertical navigation scheme is used in lots of places, and it's relatively easy to swap super and alt back to the windows-standard locations, rather than the mac-standard locations.

I actually rather like the looks of that keyboard. Too bad it's more ANSI and less UNIX.

[aynjell]

So what would be better, filco majestouch or the fc200r? I suppose either might be doable then.

[db_Iodine]

So what would be better, filco majestouch or the fc200r? I suppose either might be doable then.

Out of those two I would choose the one that's cheaper.

[aynjell]

Out of those two I would choose the one that's cheaper.

I did some experimentation and my gaming posture and comfort was vastly improved by pushing my keyboard about to the place that a 10keyless would sit. I am pretty much sold on a 10keyless... so I'm gonna have to figure this out really really soon. I think, given all circumstances I wanna do a filco as it seems to have more aftermarket going for it.

[eMps]

90 pounds is 139.896 USD. Not sure where you got your currency conversion from.

108 pounds including VAT.

[NamelessPFG]

Nameless, I'm not sure what about that keyboard layout is non-standard. The vertical navigation scheme is used in lots of places, and it's relatively easy to swap super and alt back to the windows-standard locations, rather than the mac-standard locations.

I actually rather like the looks of that keyboard. Too bad it's more ANSI and less UNIX.

By "non-standard", I meant how a lot of tenkeyless boards basically don't try to squeeze in the arrow keys and the Insert/Delete/Home/End/Page Up/Page Down block so close to the main alphanumeric cluster. That's something I only usually see done on laptops for obvious reasons. (On the other hand, it's a lot closer to standard than the HHKB or canned Miniguru.)

When you look at most other tenkeyless boards, the only thing that separates them layout-wise from full-size keyboards is that the numpad's missing. Pretty much everything else is identical, specifically the arrow keys and the six-key cluster above them I mentioned earlier.

As for ANSI-vs.-UNIX preferences...we really need more boards that are programmable at the firmware level. Want to swap Ctrl and Caps Lock? Go right ahead. Swap Alt with Win/Cmd/Super/Meta? Nothing's stopping you. Dvorak or Colemak? Not a problem.

[bugfix]

 I'm also assuming (please correct if wrong) that vat is collected by the receiving country,

Wrong. But as a foreigner you might be eligible to reclaim the tax from the UK.

[fssbzz]

This is why Manyak had to takedown all the key images from the OCN Mechanical Keyboard Guide.  Looks WEIRD now.  I'd say embarrassing.

that looks so blank. lol

[aynjell]

Speaking of blank, I really hope that the leopold board is shipped with something akin to the otaku edition. I would love to go blank again.

[aynjell]

After reading about some really really weird issues with the Leopold (namely with stuff or repeating keys or something to do with pause) I decided not to wait for an unknown and just bought another das keyboard. Here's the best part, I got it for seventy dollars.

[bugfix]

After reading about some really really weird issues with the Leopold (namely with stuff or repeating keys or something to do with pause) I decided not to wait for an unknown and just bought another das keyboard. Here's the best part, I got it for seventy dollars.

You won't regret it.

[kidchunks]

Yeah, it does seem like Majestouch is taking a while.  He shoulda just filled up this suitcases while in Japan.

I pondered doing that, leaving my clothes and stuffing my case with keyboards.
Don't think they would let me out without some questioning though.

[aynjell]

You won't regret it.

I still want a tenkeyless. that's my next endeavor, but for now a 70$ upgrade to browns for gaming will suffice. I tried them and in quake it was amazing. The difference was unreal. (bad pun)