retiring my Logitech G5 for a G700

[ccgr]

old mouse

Loving my new one!

what mouse do you use?

[ArchAngel]

Pretty sweet!

This one's my bad boy: The Razor Naga.
The 12 key pad on the side is really useful. For most games, it's helpful have the keypad open for my right thumb, whether select spells, squads, or weapons, but it really shines for MMOs like Guild Wars 2. I can easily strafe and dodge an enemy while just pounding different skills ones one after another.

[ccgr]

Jay has the 2011 version it's blue, he likes it and uses that plus a PlayStation Move instead of WASD, easier on his wrists

[ArchAngel]

I'm looking into the Nostromo for my left hand.

So, he uses controler with the D Pad or the lollipop? I'm assuming d-pad, but I thought I'd ask. I just like the idea of the him swinging his left hand around on a PC game.

[ccgr]

quite sure it's the d-pad. He tried the Nostromo and the Logitech's offerings and returned them both and is content with the Move.

though this looks intriguing he doesn't think it'll have enough buttons

[ScotchRobbins]

*Doesn't have gaming mouse*



Have you ever played a FPS with a touchpad of a laptop? It's infuriating.

So now I use a plain old wireless mouse/keyboard combo.

[ArchAngel]

I remember doing that and I hated it.

The WASDIO is kind of interesting. Not sure if it's something I'd want to spring for. I'd be curious to try it out, though.

[IBJamon]

I use the PlayStation Move Navigation controller. It's actually really great. You use the analog stick to move, the L1, L2, and L3 buttons for quick actions, the X and O keys for common stuff like use/reload, and the d-pad and PS button for less used actions or menus. My Naga covers most of my 1-0 and misc action needs. It's a really great combo!

Random youtube:



The main reason I went with it is that my hands badly cramp doing WASD - it never bothered me until the last couple of years, where my decades of PC work + gaming have finally started to catch up to me. I never realized that my left hand gets very tense while gaming on a keyboard, and being able to hold my left hand in literally any position is a huge lifesaver (well, armsaver). That tenseness can start to be painful within about 10 minutes.

The Naga is not the most ergo mouse I have ever used, but it's pretty good, and balances out my hands well enough, and enables me to not use a keyboard for the left hand, which is critical. I would have seriously considered (or bought!) the G600 if it existed when I bought my Naga, but that's okay - I do like this mouse very much!

The Logitech G13 and Razer Nostromo are both good in their own ways, and also very bad in their own ways. For me, using my thumb as movement is a required dealbreaker. If I wanted to game simulated WASD, I would use a keyboard... though I can understand why some refuse to kick the habit. But after getting used to moving with the thumb, my goal in using those devices was to free up the fingers for other actions, making possible things like complex actions while moving, which WASD makes difficult.

The Razer Nostromo is probably the more comfortable of the two devices. At least if you are going to use the thumb. But I was upset with it for two reasons: 1) the thumb d-pad is sloppy and 2) the software is really bad. I had to search half of the internets to find an older driver that supported remapping the d-pad to WASD and handling diagonals correctly... otherwise you have to remap the game to the arrow keys. Unacceptable, to me.

The Logitech G13 has awesome software. I also loved the LCD screen, colors, etc. The keyboard is also quite nice; if I wanted to do a stright up WASD replacement I would probably give a slight nod to the G13, though it's not a slam dunk. But the buttons near the joystick are functional but not the easiest to use often (I wouldn't use them instead of a spacebar, for example) but the joystick is just rediculous. First, the 'hat' comes to a point instead of being flat. While I understand why, it's too difficult to accurately change directions in the middle of a firefight. The reason they did it that way is the same reason the Razer is more comfortable: the joystick (it's analog, a big plus for the G13) is laid out such that you use it with the side of your thumb, not the bottom. If they angled the thumbstick area to be an angle instead of sticking straight up, it might have been perfect. So to compensate, they give it this rediculous shape. Just bad all around. It's too bad because I really, REALLY wanted to like it!

So, I ended up getting the PS Nav controller first, wanted more buttons, tried the competition, and then returned them and kept using the Nav. And none of the products got close to the PS Nav in comfort, perhaps the most important aspect of them all. So do I still want more buttons? Yes, but with the Naga I think I can make do a bit longer by taking better advantage of the profiles feature of the Naga.

Believe me, if a better product comes out that addresses all of these concerns and still allows for fast reactions (which I believe the WASDIO may lack), I will be all over it. Until then, PS Nav is it. And it's still very nice!

IBJamon

[IBJamon]

Actually, the WASDIO might double up as a nice throttle controller, which might make it worth it since typical throttle controllers aren't exactly multipurpose.

IBJamon

[ArchAngel]

Nice overview! I can second what you said about the Naga.

As for the Nostromo, I'm not sure when you used it last, but Razor is starting to use this cloud-synced application and it's been... well... it's been something. Easy enough to modify my NAGA, but at one point wouldn't start up in the tray whenever it booted, and that was bothersome. Not sure if this fixed the functionality of the d-pad for you, or this actually had the issue you mentioned.

Yeah, as for the WASDIO, I was wondering if it'd be too cumbersome to be an effect replacement for WASD. And yeah, the first thing that came to my head was a throttle contoller, but I doubt that'd push it over for me, not when it's near $100.

[IBJamon]

The Nostromo is not Synapse 2.0 compatible. I literally did this shootout less than 2 weeks ago, so the drivers were very fresh. The only change since then was the release of the Windows 8 drivers. The 2.02 drivers I tested did the annoying diagonal behavior; I found an old 1.03 driver version which behaves correctly (at the cost of some features I didn't really need). The macros also don't support two simultaneous buttons, only sequential, which substantially limits their usefulness. I also forgot to mention that the Nostromo can easily tilt if you use it in the 'large hands' position. I ended up putting something behind/under it while I was testing it.

IBJamon

[ArchAngel]

Oh, wow, no simultaneous macros any more? Does this include using the d-pad as an alt keybind? I remember a friend telling me using his dpad as modifier really made it useful. I hope they just didn't make it even stupider with later releases.

[IBJamon]

No that works, I just meant that one button can't do w+a at the same time in a holding fashion, only w then a, then release in whatever order you want, then key repeat kicks in. So you can have it press both and then release afterwards, but you can't use it to hold both of the buttons. When trying to simulate diagonals with a macro, you basically took small steps left then up, alternating quickly. It was slow and painful.

The d-pad as a modifier I'm pretty sure would work fine, especially since there are 8 profiles, so you would want that part to work right. Using the d-pad for multiple profiles would work pretty well I think, just using it as movement works, but is either too sensitive or not sensitive enough depending on what you are looking for.

IBJamon

[ArchAngel]

Ahh, gotcha. That's too bad.

[selderane]

I've only recently got back into the PC gaming scene. I'm just using my plain old mouse and keyboard. Any recommendations for improvements that wouldn't aggravate my non-gaming wife when she uses the PC?