Filco Gen 2 Scan Rate?

[dr/owned]

Perhaps something similar to Razer's "anti-ghosting" keyboards.  Allow the keyboard to support up to 1000 polls / second similar to a G500 mouse supporting up to 1000 polls / second (makes cpu usage spike though and 1 ms accuracy is excessive even for a mouse).  For a keyboard the stock 125 hz USB polling rate should be more than enough.  Unless you can hit a key 60 times a second

Some linkies: http://www.overclock.net/faqs/73418-how-improve-mouse-response-accuracy-changing.html
http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.169417800/parentCategoryID.35156900/categoryId.54626400

[Shazb0t]

Curious to find out the answer.

[BucklingSpring]

Not seeing anything interesting in Device Manager under HID descriptors.

I bet you won't see anything else either with the Razer.

Just curious... Do you see mice polling speed in HID descriptors?

[dr/owned]

Just curious... Do you see mice polling speed in HID descriptors?

Nope, and I wouldn't expect to either since it's implemented at the software level.  It has to be otherwise you wouldn't see a prog being able to turn it up/down.  I'm guessing when they say "we support 1000 hz" they mean the board physically can update the onboard USB controller that fast and Windows can be set to use it.

Mindblower: isn't PS/2 80 Hz and USB 125 Hz....so you trade NKRO for slower updates.

[Zet]

Is any of you guys into RTS games, perhaps Starcraft Brood War/2 Wings of Liberty? I saw some pretty amazing APM's from the Korean pro gamers, perhaps they can use of the higher polling rates eh? what is interesting is that almost all of them preffer rubber dome keyboards instead of mechanicals... I guess they get to the 5M keypress really fast and change them over and over for new ones...

by the way ripster, how do the filco with red switches go as for typing? the difference on the force to bottom is that much more noticeable than lets say with browns?

[False_Dmitry_II]

I think PS/2 is 75, but that only applies to mice. Keyboards have an instant hardware interrupt, there is no such thing as polling a keyboard in PS/2. Which is one of the reasons my keyboard is plugged in there (along with I only have one blue cube, and its on my laptop) and my mouse is USB at 1ms/1000hz. I'd be surprised if you couldn't tell the difference between 1000hz and 125hz for a mouse. Also, by programs to turn it up/down, you mean drivers. Those are a step above/below software. Especially with the mice that keep that stuff on internal firmware, and then care not what's on the host computer.

You could try one of the usb polling apps, but all the ones I found only tested mice. I'd like to know how fast the blue cube and the iMate are, just because. So if you find a method to test and find out what its doing, let us know.

[dr/owned]

I think it's just a terrible japanese translation.  The page also mentions something about updated software...but even looking at the japanese site I don't see any links to actual software...just registry stuff.  "We made it enable by bringing up a level of data transmission rate to maximum." could mean it will make you have faster data entry.

Everything I'm finding is telling me that unless you have 3rd party software like Logi's SetPoint handling the drivers, or you run the polling hack, you won't get > 125 Hz no matter what the device supports.  I also can't find anything that can test how fast a keyboard is.  I suspect it's possible to write up an application that simply polls the USB port as fast as Windows will allow and coordinate that with a high precision timer value.

And yes I can tell a difference moving from 125 to 1000 on my mouse...it's much smoother and responds to any jitters I make.  But the cpu spikes are noticeable even on a 3.6 Ghz machine.  1000 vs 500 I doubt you'll notice a difference since no monitor has 1 ms gray to gray response. 2 ms a best.  5 ms typical.  Since keyboards do have hysteresis I doubt moving up past 125 would be beneficial.  Last thing we need is the keys mis-firing 100 times every press.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Er, there are ways to force ALL USB devices into higher polling rates. But that's supposedly potentially dangerous, and the last time I read about that was probably... before vista. If that's what they're talking about, that's pretty lame.

[dr/owned]

So how does Razer BlackWidow do it?  I always assumed it was some slider in their driver like for mice?

I don't own a Razer product, but reading the manual that has pics of the driver software for the BW Ultimate there is no sliders or anything...just key binding macro stuff and profiles.  So must be 1000 Hz all the time.

Q:     How does Razer measure the polling rate (ultrapolling) and response rates of their keyboards and mice?
A:     Razer uses digital scopes and USB analyzers connected directly to the motherboard to obtain real and accurate measurements of polling rates.

[dusii]

Yeah. I have no experience with the BW, but other razer keyboards are always 1000hz. Mice definitely don't need software to do it, so I assume it's set in firmware or something.

[Soarer]

I'm pretty damn sure there's no such polling for keyboards even on USB; that only applies to mice to avoid swamping the system with mouse move messages.

Both PS/2 and USB keyboards can report at up to about 1000Hz to the system, although since PS/2 keyboards use scan code set 2 (which sends more than one byte for some key events) they can't acheive that rate fully.

So I think the only place to speed up a keyboard is the rate it scans it's matrix - many scan it at less than 1000Hz.

[MartZink]

If you press the buttons more than 1000 per second, you should notice it.

I don't really mind but when I get over 9000 keypresses/second it starts to get annoying.  

[MartZink]

I just finished my 1000 keypresses on my PRETENTIOUS and LIMITED EDITION Filco Red.

Now get a new one, that one is sooo overused, I mean 1000 keypresses come on you're not gonna kepp it forever are you?

[Soarer]

Bingo!

Answering my own questions is what makes me A-Team Commando Number One Expert.

No wonder with my Gen2 I'm posting so fast.  Sounds to me like they increased the USB report rate AND sped up the controller.

Working from the other end, I posted the same conclusion 90 minutes ago ;-)

Polling rate and reporting rate are different ways of saying the same thing, so I don't think it's a given that they sped up the controller as well.

[woody]

Good point.  I was wondering where that 1ms thing came from given the keybounce is somewhere around 5ms.

That's easy to answer - after a switch change is debounced it will be reported with up-to 1ms latency, compared to up-to 10ms latency.
Some gammers might argue that 10ms latency is close to a frame (normally 1/60th sec, ~16.7 msec) and therefore is a deal breaker.

[woody]

To complicate things bit more, "scan rate" used in the context of USB poll rate and "scan rate" used in the context of scanning the actual switch matrix are completely different things.

[Soarer]

This is what I don't get.  If you have to wait 5ms for the switch to debounce how can you EVER get 1ms latency?

All the bits of latency add up... woody was only comparing the delay between an event being ready to send, and it actually being sent, for those two polling rates.

Reducing the delay between pressing a key and having an event ready to send, is another matter. I think it could also be reduced, but even so there might be 1mS for scanning, 1mS for debounce (or rather, EMI rejection), 1mS for USB polling, 1mS for transmission and then god knows how long for the OS to get round to passing it to a program (probably at least 1mS). Total about 5mS at the absolute minimum.

[Soarer]

Maybe THIS is why Elitekeyboards kept haranguing you in that debouncing algorithm thread.

Must be a sensitive subject if Filcos are indeed faster than Leopolds.

Dunno, but he went quiet after I made that post with pictures :-D

I think he just likes to heckle, but we have better hecklers here too.

Pretty sure there's no significant difference between them as far as the debouncing and general processing goes :shrug:

[False_Dmitry_II]

But that's also why I'd like to know those things about old keyboards. How long does it really take a model f to have scanned its matrix?

How much time does a ps/2 to usb or adb to usb add onto it, etc?

[Soarer]

But that's also why I'd like to know those things about old keyboards. How long does it really take a model f to have scanned its matrix?

Very long! About 15mS for this AT-F...

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 26349[/ATTACH]

But the flip side is that being capacitive means it doesn't need to do much debouncing, just re-reads a row when a key in that row changes (taking an extra mS, roughly).

How much time does a ps/2 to usb or adb to usb add onto it, etc?

That depends :-) For the AT-F, it's more a question of when it gets round to sending a code - once it's started it takes about a mS.

[rootwyrm]

Very long! About 15mS for this AT-F...

What clock rate was the PS/2 port operating at? That's one of the things that annoys me about it to this day - acceptable operating clocks are 8, 12, 16MHz. Most of the modern PS/2 controllers are operating at 12MHz, I've found. (I still prefer 16MHz, but it's nonadjustable - internal clock is fixed. The Good Stuff(TM) relied on an external 16 or 33MHz crystal.)

[Soarer]

What clock rate was the PS/2 port operating at? That's one of the things that annoys me about it to this day - acceptable operating clocks are 8, 12, 16MHz. Most of the modern PS/2 controllers are operating at 12MHz, I've found. (I still prefer 16MHz, but it's nonadjustable - internal clock is fixed. The Good Stuff(TM) relied on an external 16 or 33MHz crystal.)

The AT-F's clock output is about 10kHz. Its CPU runs at 5.364MHz. God knows what clock was feeding the port's controller on my motherboard, but it's not going to affect what the keyboard does internally! :-)

[pitashen]

max USB polling rate = 1000Hz ->  USB is acquiring data 1000 times per second. Marketing gimmik, especially for keyboards.

There are small apps that would tell u the polling rate of the USB ur mouse is connected to and it needs to calculated the rate by having your mouse being moved around.