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An anonymous coward writes "Anyone know of good affordable keyboards that are low latency (preferably backed by actual stats)? Low latency is not the same as polling rate.
I had an old keyboard that was high latency (added about 30-50ms more latency when compared to a "gaming" mouse I had!) so I bought a low end "gaming" keyboard[1] which is lower latency but the keys "stick" sometimes (e.g. the system thinks keys are still being held down even though they aren't have to press the offending keys again to unstick them). I don't want to buy an expensive keyboard and find the latency to not be really much better or even worse[2]. And yes 30-50ms can be a noticeable and significant difference in games (2-3 frames).
I've done those reaction time test stuff and I get about 150-170ms using my "fastest" mouse (I have two), 170-190 with my new keyboard and 200+ms with my old keyboard. I see many people get 200+ ( see: http://cognitivefun.net/stat/1 ). At work on my employer's macbook pro I get 220+ms. So it's likely that high latency mice/keyboards[2] and screens[3] are too common. And you can appear to have 50-80ms faster reflexes just by having better equipment.
[1] an A4Tech G800V keyboard, based on one of the few less useless responses from the Other Site when I asked a similar question. Maybe it's faulty but it's going to be hard to prove since it's intermittent. FWIW I got it for half the newegg price and the place I bought it from doesn't sell A4tech mice or keyboards anymore.
[2] http://www.blackboxtoolkit.com/responsedevices.htm l
http://www.pstnet.com/eprimedevice.cfm
[3] http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/"
I had an old keyboard that was high latency (added about 30-50ms more latency when compared to a "gaming" mouse I had!) so I bought a low end "gaming" keyboard[1] which is lower latency but the keys "stick" sometimes (e.g. the system thinks keys are still being held down even though they aren't have to press the offending keys again to unstick them). I don't want to buy an expensive keyboard and find the latency to not be really much better or even worse[2]. And yes 30-50ms can be a noticeable and significant difference in games (2-3 frames).
I've done those reaction time test stuff and I get about 150-170ms using my "fastest" mouse (I have two), 170-190 with my new keyboard and 200+ms with my old keyboard. I see many people get 200+ ( see: http://cognitivefun.net/stat/1 ). At work on my employer's macbook pro I get 220+ms. So it's likely that high latency mice/keyboards[2] and screens[3] are too common. And you can appear to have 50-80ms faster reflexes just by having better equipment.
[1] an A4Tech G800V keyboard, based on one of the few less useless responses from the Other Site when I asked a similar question. Maybe it's faulty but it's going to be hard to prove since it's intermittent. FWIW I got it for half the newegg price and the place I bought it from doesn't sell A4tech mice or keyboards anymore.
[2] http://www.blackboxtoolkit.com/responsedevices.htm l
http://www.pstnet.com/eprimedevice.cfm
[3] http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/"
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(Score: 0, Offtopic) by mmcmonster on Thursday March 06 2014, @11:35AM
I was wondering why backlit USB keyboards aren't popular.
Only a couple reasons I could think of:
1 - The LED backlighting and ambient light sensors must be more expensive than would support a commodity product
2 - A driver would be necessary for the OS to turn the backlight off when the screensaver was on
Any other thoughts? Or do they exist and just outside my price range?
(Score: 1) by Urlax on Thursday March 06 2014, @12:12PM
why would you ask the PC?
just turn of the leds if there was no input for 10 minutes. that happens to be the default timeout for screensavers, so that the majority of people won't notice.
(not that screensavers have any use with LCD's, as long as you don't have a static image for 2 weeks straight)
but anyways, i don't see much cheak backlit keyboards, so maybe they only have high-end stuff
(Score: 1) by Dachannien on Thursday March 06 2014, @01:41PM
I had a backlit USB keyboard for a while, and I hated it (the backlight, anyway). When it was in my peripheral vision, I could actually just barely detect the flash rate. It had multiple brightness settings, and apparently, it used PWM to adjust the brightness, at a rate that was just a little bit too slow.
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:40PM
I would guess on that they are unpopular because one really doesn't want a lightsource in the periphial vision.. also very few (ie: none) backlight keyboards I've seen allow for low enough light to avoid being blinding.
Or another theory of why backlit keyboards are unpopular: Because many of us fail to see the point of it? (seriously, can someone explain why? or is it just bling?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @12:10AM
from my experience, the correct answer would be 1.
a mechanical keyboard with LED backlit keys will cost at least twice the non-backlit version (even if they're using the same switch).
the price scaling is insane.