Gaming Peripheral Apps, Ranked From Worst to Worst

[Admin]

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

 

[thestryker]

My favorite thing regarding Armoury Crate is that the ROG Ally launched with a largely competent version which was proprietary to the handheld. I don't know if there has been a convergence between that and the one for the rest, but it has largely remained a solid piece of software on the Ally. Reinforcing that they know how to do it mostly right so why wasn't it this way for everything from the start.

 

[AloofBrit]

The last time I messed with Armoury Crate it got into a loop of saying there was an update, downloading whatever update it was, and then giving a 'update failed to install' message

I tried a couple of things to fix it, but ended up throwing in the towel and uninstalling

 

[Blastomonas]

Enjoyed this article very much. I empathize with your frustration entirely. There seems to be a belief that being flashy and complicated is the best way to go.

 

[micheal_15]

Have you guys SEEN the HP UWP hotkey utility?

It requires a MINIMUM of 2GB of memory (usage can spike upto 8GB on a 16GB PC 'somehow'). and 25% CPU of ALL CORES of raptor lake equivelents....

What does it do? it checks if a user pressed FN and another key to change brightness etc. Thats it. it does NOTHING ELSE.

 

[NayWard]

I use Corair coolers (well, when I could get them). I found that iCue was taking up over 4.2GB on my SSD. I'm not a fan of RGB (excuse the pun). So all I want is fan control and temp monitoring without having to use multiple pieces of software. Fan Control does the job in one 40mb program.

I have a razer mouse. Sometimes I take my laptop camping where I have no internet access. Razer Synapse 3 won't even work without Internet access. So when I go off the grid I can't take my preferred mouse with me. That's a huge package too - around 1GB.

In the end I just don't install any peripheral software at all. I have gotten used to the mouses distracting RGB and turned it off everywhere I can (Eg case, motherboard etc), without having to use software. My SSD thanks me for it.

Same with my logitech keyboard. I need software to turn the RGB off. This seems silly to me. Someone once said install the software and turn off the RGB then uninstall the software but I've never tried that. So I just put up with the rotating colors that distract me on long word sessions.

I found also that the Logitech Gaming Software also polls every device on the network looking for other Logitech devices. Why on earth...?

Another aspect of these software packages is the telemetry and how much they thrash your SSD. For example, NZXT's CAM, another program that won't work without an internet connection, also quite large, thrashes my SDD writing to a log file several times a second.

All of these programs continuously phone home sending (IMHO), unjustifiably large amounts of data out.

 

[waltc3]

I call this class of software, junkware...😉 It reminds me of the old days when you'd buy a system, and it would come with about 120 CD-ROM disks in a portfolio with all kinds of cruddy, bad software and several "demos" of then-popular software supposed to whet your appetite to buy the real thing. (Try 50+ 3.5", 880k floppy disks that came with my first Amiga Toaster system!) Anyway, in most of these cases, I would suggest using only your peripheral drivers or else generic drivers that ship with Windows. Usually, you won't need anything else to obtain full control of the peripheral device. Back in 1995 when I bought my last pre-assembled box (a Micron, IIRC) it was the junk software and often cheap peripherals that made me switch to building my own boxes from cherry-picked components and peripheral purchases--which today is on a difficulty par with Leggo blocks...😉 Never bought another pre-built. This article also reminded me of crummy motherboard software which does almost nothing, I've found, over the years. As mentioned in the article these software "apps" for peripherals sound like Nirvana from the ad copy created by the manufacturers, but as the author states, they are really often just junk, for the most part.

The only peripheral apps I use today in my gaming system are for my Razer Basilisk V2 mouse (Synapse) and my Razer Kraken phones, THX Spacial Audio. I use the "Mouse" page inside Synapse and the THX page works with very little fuss, I'm happy to note. Both programs update every couple/few weeks, or at longer intervals, and do so only when I boot the system for the first time in the mornings. Synapse is sufficient for remapping the Basilisk V2 buttons, all I use it for, and the THX software adds quite a bit of fidelity to the performance of my headphones, so I do find them useful and fairly non-intrusive, and I'm grateful not to share the author's experience with Synapse!...😉

This article makes excellent points and hit a chord with me. Yes, junk software is still being peddled with hardware today, but most of the time it's superfluous and if you are running Windows then you'll need very little aside from the basic drivers.

 

[Sergei Tachenov]

As a programmer, I can guess why it's like that. They're doing it completely the wrong way, and if I were to guess the reason, I think they're trying to cut costs by using the most modern tools and hiring inexperienced developers.

But what they need to make a good software of this class is exactly the opposite: you need to ditch almost every tool and write something really low-level and old-fashioned, likely in plain C or C++, like 30 years ago. This way you can write a program that takes 5 MB and runs blazingly fast. You'll have to create the GUI from scratch, of course, but, hey, it's something I did back in early 2000s when I was a student. If you have a team of, say, 3 experienced people and give them a couple of months, you'll get a great product.

 

[Diesel Boats]

As a programmer, I can guess why it's like that. They're doing it completely the wrong way, and if I were to guess the reason, I think they're trying to cut costs by using the most modern tools and hiring inexperienced developers.

Sergei, what I don't get is how UNIVERSALLY BAD the this peripheral software is. Yes, inexperienced developers. But can you imagine what would happen if just one... any one of these peripheral providers actually went the extra mile and developed some robust C++-based software? Any one of them could absolutely stomp the competition within 3 years.

Any solutions? I'm thinking of going to Redragon to at least get a mouse - too frustrated with all the others. Even the last Redragon I bought during Prime days (M991?)... never could connect it.

 

[Sergei Tachenov]

I don't fully get that UNIVERSALLY BAD part either. I think it's a kind of "fashion": "Everybody does that, so why should we be different?" kind of thing. It's crazy of course, but the world is full of crazy things...