Simple Saturday post to round out the "Introduce Yourself Week" of Blaugust 2024. Here is my current gaming mouse of choice: Glorious Model I (wired). Skip down for some thoughts.
Model I (wired)
Reasons I like the mouse:
The mouse is lightweight which I didn't realize I liked until I started using light weight mice instead of chunky "gaming" mice
It has the classic shape that I've loved since my early days of PC gaming with similar shaped Logitech mice
There are four side buttons
The only aspect I don't like about the mouse is the feel of the scroll wheel. It is not my favorite scroll wheel but is not enough of a detractor to make me want to switch.
Friendship ended with Wooting 60HE and friendship started with Wooting 80HE! Well not started yet, but the Wooting80HE is entering it's founders period today and I'm jumping on the buy button if I can snag one!
80% layout!? WTF!
As I've said before playing with my Wooting 60HE feels like cheating. I gave up my old Glorious GMMK to my teenager when I moved to the Wooting and the few times I go to use his PC I immediately miss my Wooting.
While I love my Wooting 60HE I have to admit I am not a fan of the 60% layout. I really liked the 75% layout of the GMMK. The good news is Wooting is bringing us a bigger layout with the 80HE with all of the other features I've come to enjoy and rely on to be the l33t gamer that I am (not really)!
In classic Wooting fashion they couldn't just be like the rest of the world and give us a standard 75% layout and instead landed at an 80%. It is hard to say what actually makes the up the 5% difference and there was a small uproar in the keyboard community about the placement of the arrow keys (too far to the left). The arrow keys will be moved to the right slightly in the final version.
For me I just want my F# keys back and arrow keys. As much as I've adapted to using customized key settings and the FN key on my 60HE I will be happy to be back to just using an F key or an actual arrow key. Also delete instead of FN + Backspace will be nice.
Of course all of the other Wooting goodness will be there and I'll still be legally cheating in all the games I play because of it :)
It's that time of year again where we share what we bought over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shop-a-thon. For me I nabbed a few gamer things!
First up was what my teenager has been waiting for: his own gaming PC. We ordered all the parts which will make up his holiday haul. He is also getting some hand-me-downs from my recent upgrade (GPU and PSU). We went with an AMD build again; Ryzen 7600X CPU, 5700 XT GPU (hand me down), 2 TB NVMe SSD, and 32 GB memory. I'd say I got great deals but it was pretty lackluster as far as deals go this year.
Next I snagged a couple items for myself. First I jumped on Glorious's free shipping deal to get my Model I wired mouse. I have a Model O wired currently and it sold me on the lightweight mouse. The only downside of the Model O for me is that it has only two side buttons. The Model I brings three side buttons and a fourth "sniper" button (defaults to lower DPI for sniping in FPS games). It will take a bit to retrain myself to the four buttons but so far so good and it keeps the same lightweight feel!
I was nostalgic for some holiday season tunes ringing through the halls (home office) so am finally filling the "no speakers" gap for my home PC. I grabbed this soundbar to fill the role.
Lastly I surfed the board game sales and like PC parts... it felt like a down year as far as deals go. I did end up grabbing the Arkham Horror The Card Game Revised Core Set which was at an all time low. This was on my "want to try" list and now that I have a teenager in the family it felt like the right time to adult our co-op games. Looking forward to giving this a whirl.
I have been rocking a Ryzen 5 3600X for a while and I think it's time for an upgrade. My current thought is to go with a Ryzen 7 5800x3D. This upgrade path will take me to the top end of CPUs that my motherboard (Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite) can support and should improve performance in New World.
The AMD x3D CPUs have been noted to improve gaming performance for many games and seem particularly well suited to gaming performance over other processing tasks. However, there is a recommendation to upgrade to a 1,000W PSU (power supply) at the same time.
I have a current 650W PSU that has followed me for multiple builds now. It has been ole' reliable but with recent crashing issues requiring me to undervolt my GPU the PSU is showing its underpowered nature. So I will be on the hunt for a 1,000W PSU and open to any suggestions. I am hoping to find a modular PSU so I can swap the PSUs without having to redo cabling.
I am having issues logging New World's performance (external tracking is now showing an average FPS of 0.1....). I do want to figure this out so I can do some good before and after to share with the New World community so open to ideas here as well.
Still under the weather and facing down travel for work so going to keep things general topic for a few days here and yes I know I said 2023 blogging would be more about gaming moments/memories instead of opinion and blather but bear with me as I fail yet again to do what I say I'll do. With that said today I wanted to chime in on my experience so far with the Wooting 60HE keyboard. It is like legal cheating.
What you can do with this keyboard creates immediate difference in how you play games; especially any game where quick movement via WASD, such as side to side strafing, is advantageous (which is basically all FPS). Out of the box this wasn't apparent but after watching YouTube videos like the one below and tweaking settings I found the difference remarkable.
The main tweak enabled by the keyboard's lekkar switches is per key actuation settings. Setting one key to actuate (i.e. register that it was pressed and released) at 0.7 mm and another to actuate only at full key press 4.0 mm lets you have keys be super responsive or require a full key press (i.e. eliminate you hitting it by accident).
My Wooting 60HE
In my use case, as in the video, it is FPS games and WASD at 0.7 mm which gives such a crazy sense of response. It is the closest I've ever felt to movement keys responding to the speed my brain is working at. Depending on the game and how snappy movement is influences the feeling, but for many modern games such as Overwatch in the video or Battlefield 2042 for me it changes how you move in the game.
Movement advantage wasn't as obvious in New World, but what is clear is being able to avoid accidental activation of things like my heartrune (like an ultimate ability) or key skills I want to be purposeful in using.
There is also capability that other keyboards have such as mod tap where a single key can be set to do one thing with a tap or something else if it is held. I don't have many creative game uses for this but since its a 60% keyboard with no arrow keys I have keys set up to act as arrow keys on tap but their normal action on hold. No arrow keys is probably my biggest gripe with moving to a 60% board.
The difference is not just noticeable in games, but in general productivity as well. If, like me, you are prone to typing errors because you hit keys by accident going in and setting those keys to longer actuation or shorter if they are one's you miss easily (for me its P that I set to actuate faster just the way I reach for P).
Then throw in things like the keyboard saving all the settings on the keyboard itself, being able to manage via a web browser instead of needing an app, and just so many nice quality of ownership features and this thing is crazy. Any serious PC gamer is at a disadvantage without this keyboard. Will it make you into a chad gamer just by using it? No, but you should feel a difference and that is saying a lot for a $175 keyboard when there are many more expensive "gaming" keyboards out there that don't do anything remarkable.
I am a fan of Glorious mice and keyboards (I still use a GMMK for work even with my recent Wooting 60HE purchase). I also own a few odds and ends from Glorious such as their headphones hook, wrist pads, and mouse bungee. Even with this investment in Glorious I was still using an old "freebie" mouse pad borrowed from my office now that I work from home. That changed when I grabbed the Glorious Elements Ice mouse pad on sale recently. I didn't know mouse pads could be this good and change how you use a mouse so much!
Moments after placing the pad on my desk and moving my Glorious Model O mouse across the surface I knew this was going to be a difference maker in my set up. The mouse glides effortlessly with almost no resistance. The movement is so smooth I am baffled how long it took me to realize such pads existed.
It wasn't long after getting the pad that I booted up Battlefield 2042 and New World and gave it a whirl in game. The difference was immediate. Mouse movement was the most smooth I've ever had in a game. Not once did I feel like I was hitting a limit of my physical area and the times I needed to move the mouse to make larger swipes felt glorious (pun intended)!
I am about a month into gaming with the pad and while it took a week or two to get used to the ice skate smoothness I can't imagine anything else now. Even outside of games it is a game changer for productivity during work. It is just easier now to use my mouse as it floats across the surface. Sometimes you just don't know until you know!
Ordered a Wooting 60HE a while ago and it finally got shipped to me. So far love the keyboard; especially setting the lekkar switches actuation point (you can customize how far you need to press the key to activate it). More thoughts to come as I get some gaming time with it.
