Gaming Peripheral Apps, Ranked From Worst to Worst

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Funny you have Armory Crate & Icue at top, they now work together to at least make it easier to integrate their rgb together.
Armory crate causes more trouble than its worth, generally don't need any motherboard apps though. Best off turning the switch off in BIOS that offers to install it on 1st boot after an install.
oh no, Icue uses hdd space... its not like you have to be restricted in size any more, just buy a bigger drive. Drive space restrictions can be a thing of past. Not like we are using a phone here.
Icue is more than just rgb, if you have an AIO it can be handy for changing fan or pump speeds.
Synapse is worse than G Hub. Synapse is enough reason to not use Razer hardware.
Steelseries mostly stays out of my way. Of all the apps mentioned its least annoying.
 
Thanks for this, I’m actually highly surprised it took so long for you all to produce such a write up.
As a user of Asus’ motherboards for YEARS, I (and many others) can tell you of all the woes their ”control centres” cause. I’ve heard even worse things about MSI’s apps but (thankfully) I don’t have experience there
 
I've said it before. I'll say it again. If your Corsair device doesn't use RGB, and/or is supported by the old Corsair LINK program, count your lucky stars!

It takes almost no resources and has just been sitting in my systray, like a good little program, controlling and monitoring my H80i v2, for the past 2 years.
 
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Unfortunately this has been going on for years and years. And I've seen game developers specifically mention these apps as culprits behind game crashes on a number of occasions too. It all makes me afraid to ever buy a new mouse - my current one uses the older Logitech Gaming Software and I do not want to go near G-Hub or any other brand's software.
 
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For the Asus monitor there are two types of systems aura rgb and aura sync.

Normally aura sync to work with the monitor, in it's on screen display menu you have to enable it in monitor.

After you need to also plug in the usb cable from the monitor to the motherboard. Don't just plug in a DP or HDMI cable The usb needs to be also connected for it to work.

If your monitor does not have a usb port that means it's just aura rgb and you can't use it with the software all would be done in monitor alone with no rgb sync.

If it still don't work welp just means your sheets* out of luck.

Yes the software is buggy but over time it's been better.

My entire system uses aura sync, keyboard, mouse, monitor, motherboard, ram, case, psu.

So far it's been working great just like I want it. Only thing I hate is at times when I turn off all rbg and turn the pc off randomly at times something rgb turns back on for no reason and just a quick boot back up and shutdown fixes it but annoying it is.
 
Thank you for writing this! I feel more articles like this need to be written being honest when things aren't good. Often, lists of product comparisons on tech sites are just looking at the positives (to help promote buying stuff) when really all the options kinda suck, and especially in this case with gaming peripheral software.

I've long been a Razer fan (since the OG diamondback days) and I've stuck with them basically because I love the feel and shape of the death adder and haven't found anything else as good for me. One thing I've always hated though, is synapse. Synapse 2, 3, they were and are both garbage for many of the reasons you (the author) mentioned. I've often wondered, maybe I should switch just for better software, but now reading this I know I don't need to since the others have their own issues.

I wonder, what about Glorious Core? Has anyone here or the author tried it? Is it better? I know they recently moved from specific software for their devices to now Core handles everything, and I wonder if thats a better experience. I think ideally one app would be better for the software engineering team and the customer, but it has to work right and still be relatively simple.
 
Well this makes me more dubious about messing around too much with RGB customisation. I held off on that sort of thing until upgrading to my still-current 3700X setup with a stock Wraith Prism HSF. Otherwise in my case there are just two RGB strips and mainly there to light up a case in which everything is black [probably not always the best choice of colour].

I've pretty much always used Logitech keyboards and mice, TBH the most I ever did for configuration is setup extra mouse buttons to support FP gaming to my liking so I haven't seen much of the reported shenanigans. The closest experience I've had that I can recall [and won't forget] is Norton's Crash Guard a few decades ago, TLDR; it performed very much contrary to it's intended function.
 
This is so freaking funny because iCue IS awful! It's so freaking bad I sold my Corsair K15 keyboard on Ebay just to get out of iCue and I bought a Logitech keyboard instead. I was so happy then. But G-Hub is horrible too! But not as bad as iCue. Nothing is that bad!
 
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Quite a few years ago I remember a couple of the companies asking users what they wanted and a lot of people (myself included) asked for unified apps instead of having different installs for a mouse app, keyboard app, headset app, etc. Now I really, really want to go back to the old way where we had an app for each peripheral. Sadly that's unlikely to happen.

Corsair at least is asking users what they want to see in upcoming versions of ICUE. Hopefully some positive changes will actually happen. https://forum.corsair.com/forums/topic/178687-were-listening-icue-favorites-suggestions/

Regardless of the company behind the app, I'd like to see them go to a modular install instead of monolithic. Install a minimal core app and then everything you install if your choice. If the only peripheral you're using is a mouse then you only get the mouse driver/settings plugin for that mouse installed. Not the 30 other mice they also sell, not the keyboards, not the headsets, not the radiators, screens, cams and whatever else they can shoehorn in.

And while we're at it provide meaningful naming and toggle-able options for things. If you're going to throw a dozen processes in task scheduler I should be able choose which ones I actually want(need) and choose them. As the author points out, don't want autoupdate - let me toggle that choice. Don't want hardware monitoring - let me toggle that too.
 
There are other reasons as well, but the chances of me ever buying any ASUS motherboards in the future were obliterated by the nail in the coffin of ASUS requiring Armoury crate in order to install ANY drivers on any system running newer ASUS boards. I was already decidedly moving away from them due to poor product and customer support in many of my own experiences as well as quite a few other members here, inexcusable lack of even basic acceptable levels of support, but upon discovering that Armoury Crate was now a mandatory factor for most of their hardware to work they are being permanently put into the same category as NZXT with their hunk of crap intrusive phone home CAM software.

Gigabyte and ASRock will be getting my business from now on and my recommendations will reflect that. I will not recommend ANY products to other members, clients or users that require you to install Armoury Crate in order to obtain even basic driver support from ASUS. No thanks. There are other just as good alternatives without such requirements.
 
Admin said:
Buggy, bloated, and broken PC gaming peripheral software makes me want to buy a console.
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if all you do is play games, its probably best idea. But if you want to do anything productive, probably not.

@Darkbreeze you can't just go to source and get the drivers? like visit realtek and get drivers from them, or Intel or AMD? Its normally what i do when suggesting drivers here, rarely use drivers from the MB site... I just use those as a guide for what to get. Sure, Asus have a tendency to rename the drivers but there are still ways to figure out who really makes it.

Asus making people install Armoury crate for any Asus hardware they buy is dumb. Don't need it if you just bought a GPU, surely? Should be able to get drivers from AMD or Nvidia.
 
Not for an ASUS motherboard. And it's been YEARS since Intel allowed you to download chipset specific drivers from their website like they used to for all their chipsets. This is because each manufacturer customizes the drivers these days for their own specific implementation. ASUS no longer allows you to simply download their chipset, network adapter, storage controller or audio controller drivers. For all their newer boards you MUST install Armoury crate or else settle for whatever generic drivers Microshaft has to offer, IF they do.

Realtek has not for a long, mainly, allowed users to directly download drivers, because again, most of these audio chipsets are customized by the motherboard manufacturer and generally require equally customized drivers to work properly. ASUS can pound sand IMO until they quit this garbage and also get their customer service back to being a priority instead of doing every damn thing they can to make life difficult on the very people who keep them in business. They used to be among the best in that regard. Now, they are IMO among the worst.
 
Darkbreeze said:
Not for an ASUS motherboard. And it's been YEARS since Intel allowed you to download chipset specific drivers from their website like they used to for all their chipsets. This is because each manufacturer customizes the drivers these days for their own specific implementation. ASUS no longer allows you to simply download their chipset, network adapter, storage controller or audio controller drivers. For all their newer boards you MUST install Armoury crate or else settle for whatever generic drivers Microshaft has to offer, IF they do.

Realtek has not for a long, mainly, allowed users to directly download drivers, because again, most of these audio chipsets are customized by the motherboard manufacturer and generally require equally customized drivers to work properly. ASUS can pound sand IMO until they quit this garbage and also get their customer service back to being a priority instead of doing every damn thing they can to make life difficult on the very people who keep them in business. They used to be among the best in that regard. Now, they are IMO among the worst.
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Are you sure about that? Because I've built two brand new Intel setups for friends in the last month and you could easily download the drivers for the boards from the Asus site.

Just an example: https://rog.asus.com/au/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z690-e-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_download/

It's possible that some drivers are lagging behind Crate (I'm not sure don't use it). But the Chipset drivers are literally a week old. So they're reasonably up to date.

Intel is weird, I'm having problems finding the drivers on their site at the moment, but again I downloaded them in the last month when building the two PCs for my friends. I even still have the link in my browser but it goes to a dead page. Maybe they're reshuffling the site like they do every now and then.

As for realtek drivers, I'd rather go with the customized drivers from the vendor. And Asus do tend to lag behind in that regard. However there are experts (Mokichu) on the ROG forums who regularly post updated Realtek drivers for example:
rog.asus.com

[DRIVERS] Realtek Audio (AMD 3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx/8xx & Intel 2xx/3xx/4xx/5xx/6xx/7xx/8xx)

Hi everyone, - Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASUS ROG RTK-Dolby) : Drivers : 6.0.9761.1 WHQL [19/11/2024] Dolby Extension Driver : 9.524.657.1 WHQL [23/05/2024] Dolby HSA SoftwareComponent Driver : 3.30704.740.0 WHQL [02/09/2024] Download : Link ASUS ROG Realtek|Dolby Atmos motherboards ...
rog.asus.com rog.asus.com
 
So, might be more to it as Colif was just asking me elsewhere. This was my reply.

That's weird, because almost every board since Z390 I've looked at lately have all listed ONLY Armoury crate under their driver downloads but now it looks like only SOME of them are this way. Also looks different depending on WHICH ASUS website, US, Global, AUS, etc. you visit maybe are all different.

Like this one:

www.asus.com

ASUS TUF Gaming Motherboards｜Motherboards｜ASUS USA

ASUS TUF Gaming motherboards distill essential elements of the latest Intel® platform and combine them with game-ready features and proven durability.
www.asus.com www.asus.com

Which I discovered based on this thread and then started looking into it and basically everything I looked at was the same but now some ASUS motherboard product pages look different than others so I am wondering if this is only being implemented now, or rolled back due to backlash, or is simply a board by board model basis. IDK for sure but I do know that five different boards I looked at the other day were all like this and the only reason I looked was because of this thread.

Question - Asus Armoury Crate Tool (drivers section) not appearing

I have been having a bug in my system that causes BOS, the error code was 0x00000133 . I got in touch with Microsoft and they said to update or reinstall chipset and motherboard drivers. However, the drivers section is not showing on my software, does anyone know how to get it?
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com


And there are plenty of forum threads out there that directly address this exact thing. But looking more closely it seems that only SOME boards are REQUIRING Armoury crate or at least don't offer downloads on their product page without it. So I guess that isn't AS bad, but it's still pretty lame.

Also the fact that they are injecting what amounts to a rootkit into the OS install if you don't disable it in the BIOS, should be a civil lawsuit liability.
 
My reply to darkbreeze elsewhere (that he hasn't seen yet) could explain the lack of win 11 drivers apart from Armoury Crate. Look at the win 10 tab, they only update drivers if there are specifically win 11 drivers. Can use Win 10 ones otherwise.

Another possible reason is its an old board and while they added a WIn 11 section for it, they only update the armoury crate and put it on all boards at the same time. They don't populate all other areas with new drivers unless they get one.
comedichistorian said:
Yessss. Logitech webcam software was always the easiest to operate. I kept coming back to it for years
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You lucky Logitech got the 2013 drivers for webcams approved to work with win 10/11, or they would have been problems 5 years ago.
 
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Darkbreeze said:
That's weird, because almost every board since Z390 I've looked at lately have all listed ONLY Armoury crate under their driver downloads but now it looks like only SOME of them are this way. Also looks different depending on WHICH ASUS website, US, Global, AUS, etc. you visit maybe are all different.
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Ugh, that's another problem that bugs me. The difference between sites. Unless there is a specific hardware difference between an AU and US or EU version then the apps and drivers should all be the same across the board. But you're right sadly they're often different 🙁
 
Thanks for finally calling out all this bad practice! Nobody needs that crap, and I never saw reason why the software needs to look gamery or has skins. Reminds me of winamp in the early ‘00. At least that was good software
 
At the end an article that deserves attention and exposes what every gamer and workers suffers. I am reading tomshardware from the dinosaur era of riva tnt article. Yes, the only way to get max performance of your hardware is by not installing anything of these... and in the case you think that you have enought power... you should not install any of these crap (here i am polite) software utilities for the shake of stability. Yes we loose all the extras funcionalities that we were dreaming. I would like to sentence all of the ceos of these companies to sit down and play or work with the items they produce and sell, with a lot of bloatware stuffs, requests for logins, 50% cpu or gpu usage doing nothing... I don't wander about the causes, companies hiring juniors to develop what at the end are critical tasks, contracting third companies to develop what at the end should be part of the main chain value of the company because programming is considered commodity and not especialiced engineering... the facts and consequencies are there, crap utilities and software. For example, seriously
, we need to login in order to update drivers for something we have PAY? Every time? They have applied on us the boiled frog... every year they are a bit worse...
Sorry, whenever I think of these things I am entering on the dark side of the force.
Good article. These should be an entire chapter inside tomshardware. Quality, usability, fiability etc of driver/utilities.
 
Colif said:
oh no, Icue uses hdd space... its not like you have to be restricted in size any more, just buy a bigger drive. Drive space restrictions can be a thing of past. Not like we are using a phone here.
Icue is more than just rgb, if you have an AIO it can be handy for changing fan or pump speeds.
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iCue also uses a LOT of system resources. In fact, Link did the same thing to a lesser extent. I no longer run either one with Corsair AIO coolers because performance in my benchmarks dropped 3~5%, plus issues with things like app stability. You'll note that Sarah says, "I can spare the 3.54GB, but I’ll admit that I’m pretty curious to know why iCue needs so much space just to change the colors of, like, seven lights. I know iCue also monitors hardware (unsolicitedly — I didn’t ask for this from my RGB software, Corsair), and this explains some of the app’s heavier resource usage but not its size."

As an interesting aside, and as someone with a Computer Science degree, the entirety of Windows 95 was about 4GB back in the day. That's a whole operating system that needed about as much space as some of these peripheral suites. Again, it's not just about the disk space. The amount of resources consumed by these apps — and being ready just in case you might actually decide to use feature X that you've never used to date! — is beyond ludicrous. Bloated doesn't even begin to describe what we have these days. I'm not asking people to write in ASM, but let's also not write interfaces that use Java-esque just in time runtime libraries that inevitably run at half the performance of natively compiled code. (I did Java software development for a couple of years; we started calling it Jaba because it was so slow an bloated.)

All of these tools remind me of the differences between the old-style motherboard BIOS interfaces and the new UEFI options. Lots of extra graphics and pretty stuff that just makes it harder to do what I need to do. I was quite happy when one of the AM4 motherboards I used reached the point where they had to kill off the UEFI prettified interface in order to have more storage for the CPU models support table.
 
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If your computer crashes because of Armory Crate or Icue, the problem is on your side, not theirs (maybe stop using trash programs that create more issues than they solve like "PatchCleaner" or "CCleaner", which, at best, don't do shibs to make a system better outside clearing a few GBs of temp files...). I build gaming PC for a living since early 2000s. Since 2016, 90%+ of the builds I make are Asus and Corsair centric. While I'm not defending the software size, ressource usage or ease-of-use, both are stable and function properly. Armory crate is quintessential to keep many Asus driver framework updated. iCue is a fantastic piece of software for gamers, as it allows easy creation of multiple profiles (Lighting, mouse button configs, fans control, etc) which can be activated automatically when launching a game.

The only finnicky aspect to iCue is its integration of other companies' RGB control, like Asus and EVGA, both of which are spotty at best.

If multiple software crashes on your PC, 99% of the time the problems is on the user, not the software devs.
 
Admin said:
Buggy, bloated, and broken PC gaming peripheral software makes me want to buy a console.

Gaming Peripheral Apps, Ranked From Worst to Worst : Read more
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I LOATHE Corsair iCue. From a programming perspective, it's hot garbage. IF you engage the debug logs, you will see that the iCue software is programmatically changing the hardware in real time for things like RGB! No hardware offloading, just a bunch of gets and puts to the hardware to change colors and operations. For the premium Corsair expects you to pay, this is unacceptable.

Razor and it's various plugins have ALWAYS been hot garbage in terms of stability. I noticed it's worse when 3rd party apps try to use them.

G Hub is okay, but I agree with your assessment, it's not intuitive at all. Luckly the Oracle of knowledge (youtube) shows you how to do basics. That said, macros do not work if it shuts down. But simple key binding still works for my G613 keyboard. The Brio is also dated by the newest contenders AVerMedia PS515/PW513, Elegato Facecam, and Insta360

I do wish Logitech would create a plugin for OBS. Their Blue Yeti settings in GHub don't work well with OBS. What's the point of having a nice mic if you can't adjust it to your needs?
 
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