Can we all please admit that we merely tolerate keyboard as a gaming input device because of the precision that mouse provides? (Except maybe some special cases, like RTS) It’s a glorified typewriter, and we (PC gamers) use it only because at some point, it was all that we had and we just got used to it. There must be something better than a panel of buttons.
As I said, except special occasions. But ultimately, it’s still not perfect for anything but typing-heavy games. I can probably imagine a better propriety input method even for RTS that would forgo finger gymnastics.
Gaming sticks (and weird ass abominations like trackball mice) were quite popular for some time during late 90s and early 00s, but now they’re mostly limited to certain games like flight/space games and usually part of a HOTAS setup.
What I miss on keyboard & mouse setups is any form of analogue input, usually best for driving in games and walking faster/slower etc. But nothing is stopping me from just plugging in any controller and it’ll usually work on PC just fine.
For everything else I simply prefer keyboard anyway, many more buttons and combinations that controllers often lack. Lots of controller supported games these days need ways around having too many buttons by adding modifiers or having to use select-wheels and what not.
Hell I’d even go as far as adding a Stream Deck to my setup (I don’t even stream), just to have another panel of (configurable) buttons to use for various games and stuff.
You can technically get analog keyboard switches for your WASD movement and such, but afaik it’d be quite expensive and require a fairly customized keyboard to pull off. But it can be done!
Also I love having extra mouse buttons for all my modifiers. I use mine in WoW to access all my hotbars without moving my hand to press any modifier keys on the keyboard, really nice setup.
Yeah I thought about trying an analogue keyboard but I don’t think I’ll enjoy how those keys would work, just doesn’t feel natural on a keyboard.
I also recently got a mouse with 12 buttons, specifically for WoW at the time lol. I have whole grid set up for just using those buttons. So many more (easy) keybinds opened up because of that.
Yup I’m with you here. I love KBM and it’s my preferred way to play for most games, but when it comes to driving I’d much prefer a controller with analogue triggers and a stick (unless it’s a sim racer, in which case a wheel of course) for that extra precision.
Unfortunately I can’t think of a good design to give that level of control to just one hand. Analogue keys are a thing but they sound awful, nowhere near enough precision due to the short travel of them.
On PC, I game exclusively with trackballs and have since the nineties. I’ve never not been given the side eye when someone found out that’s how I play.
When was this magical time during which they were popular?
I remember a friend had one of those things, it was some experience lol
I think one of my uncles and one of my teachers had one too, but it’s been like 24 years or so.
They were also featured heavily on just about every computer expo we went to during that time, I think it was a pretty short period that they were marketed but I remember seeing them everywhere for that time. Like it was the hype at the moment, like how 3D screens and VR had been hyped really hard for a short while and then just died down kinda quickly.
Well, fair enough that you were exposed to them. I didn’t have a lot of friends, especially not those even remotely into any kind of tech, as a kid; I think I first heard of trackballs from a programming teacher in about 1996 and bought one to try out of curiosity. Ever since then I’ve used one whenever it was an option.
I’ve even mostly used the same model. If you look in my comment history, you can see I recently mentioned that most of what I use is Kensington Orbits. I’ve tried other models, but they don’t work for me.
The one PC gaming exception for me is Minecraft. In that game you have to right-click a lot (as I’m sure you know) and I guess I haven’t developed the muscles for that because it makes my wrist very tired very quickly. Still, I play a lot of FPS games and have no problem holding the right click for zoom and such; only quick, repetitive right-clicking causes problems for me.
edit: To address your original comment, I have one friend who uses a trackball at work but a regular mouse for anything else. Other than that, I rarely meet anyone who has even heard of them, let alone used them, let alone consistently done so.
I remember playing Red Alert on 90s Toshiba Satellite Pro laptops with the cursor nipple in the middle of the keyboard, I got pretty good at using the nipple (lmao). But they didn’t really come back on newer laptop models after that.
Same seemed to happen with most trackball hype, although I knew they were still around. I don’t recall if it was one with the ball on top or on the left side, all I remember not being able to ever scroll in the direction I needed because the angle was always off for me.
Another thing from that time that stuck with me is that gaming joysticks were more common. I had one for some favorite games, but because I used it so much I am now crippled with the “Invert Y” syndrome. Whenever I play games with controllers I will have to invert the Y axis, because that’s what makes most sense based on the joysticks from back then.
Who in their right mind plays souls games or any action RPG with mouse / keyboard?? You cannot even play demon souls with a mouse. A mouse is for aiming in shooters and the like.
Can you not? I’ve played various third person combat games (are they all part of “hack n slash”?) with a mouse just fine. I do prefer controller, but there’s nothing wrong with using a kb/mouse in most of those games. Is Dark Souls control scheme really that bad?
Notice, that I didn’t say it’s impossible to use KB for gaming, I just said (or implied) that it’s not optimal. It’s not good, it’s just what we have and what we are used to, and there’s a lot of room for improvement. And I say this as a PC gamer of 30+ years. So much so that when I lay my hand on a keyboard it automatically assumes the WASD position, even if I intend to type.
And I’m glad that I brought this perspective to your attention, because we often don’t question what we are used to since childhood. Hopefully, these discussions will eventually bring us something better, that we have not yet thought of.
It is optimal though. I don’t understand why you are saying it’s not? Aiming with a mouse is 9 million % more effective than thumbsticks. Like that’s reality. If you had two equal skilled teams, one on controllers, and one on kb/m (and it’s a first person shooter), the kb/m gang will win like 99% of the time just based on that.
You’re just taking your own opinion about kb/m and assuming that it applies to the masses. It doesn’t. Vast majority of people would agree with me. Kb/m is better for non-controller games.
A lack of analog controls is definitely an issue. Having digital buttons on keys that are either 100% on or off loses a ton of fine control.
Playing GTA and need to make a slight left while driving? On a gamepad you just slightly tilt the stick left to make a smooth turn. On keyboard you have to do a bunch of short little taps on A (and D when you inevitably oversteer) to stop yourself from jerking the wheel left.
I remember really wanting a Logitech G13 when they came out but I could never justify spending the money on one.
For movement I would take something like a HOTAS over keyboard. For example in games with multiple movement speeds finding the right speed is rather cumbersome on keyboard because the key press is an on/off and not a scale.
Similarly on keyboard movement is restricted to 8 directions. If you need to move in some other direction most people actually use a mouse to compensate for the lack of movement options because it’s too cumbersome with a keyboard.
There are benefits to using keyboards but there are places where you can use something better. Analogue input simply gives better movement options.
You’re missing my point and just sticking to the usual false dichotomy of KBM vs. gamepads. I’m saying, we should come up with something better than a device designed for entering text, and I didn’t even criticize mice. Keyboard isn’t and can’t be “optimal” gaming device because that’s not its purpose, and it’s not what it was optimized for. Games just adapted to accommodate the devices already included with every PC, with varying degrees of success. That is just a fact, not an opinion. Keyboards weren’t made for playing games, we just adapted to using them, therefore they aren’t optimal.
Which means that we are yet to develop the optimal device for gaming to use in conjunction with the mouse, one that was designed specifically for that purpose. Just because you “don’t know what else would be better when combined with the mouse” (quote from your other comment) it doesn’t mean that nobody can design something better.
Yes, controller are purpose built for gaming, and they are definitely far superior in a lot of game genres. But mouse still is better for precision control, be it aiming a gun or selecting a unit. And keyboard is holding it back, because it’s just an unoptimized row of buttons.
I didn’t set a goal to pitch something better, I just pointed the fact that we use unoptimized hardware and hopefully somebody is working on something better.
What do you imagine being better though? Like just in general? Some sort of gamepad that has directionals that you use in your left hand while you use the mouse with your right? Something totally different? Like what else is there?
In the very least, something more rounded and ergonomic than a row of buttons, something that lays out the buttons in such a way that they are more easily reachable without moving or contorting your hand. Fewer buttons for the pinky, more buttons for the thumb, which is now pretty much only used to hit spacebar. Maybe a big analog stick that sits under your palm, so you can tilt your entire hand to move (IDK how how useful that would be, but you wanted me to imagine something), leaving your fingers free to perform other actions.
Which is a good thing, I think. The good thing about keyboards is that they can control (to various degrees of efficiency) everything going on on a computer. It’s an allrounder and imo does many things well. I’m not denying that there may be better ways to play games (although some outright require a kb, e.g. games with a text chat), but games supporting keyboards is good and natural considering their allrounder nature.
Might as well throw in a full body haptic feedback suit with a built in fleshlight. In all seriousness idk wtf I’m even arguing about anymore in this thread. Keyboard is totally fine.
For precise inputs keyboards are really good, stuff like tactical shooters, a lot of custom fighting game controllers are basically just paired down keyboards too.
Keyboards are pretty fucking cool, analog sticks are easy to use and good if you need the 360 degree movement, but otherwise keyboards all the way.
You’re misinterpreting my point. We can make a device with precise inputs that isn’t a flat slab of buttons, we just haven’t yet. This is not a gamepad vs. KBM argument.
As you mentioned, it’s still a slab, that is only good for a few genres of games. Basically, a flat controller without the analog sticks, which is opposite of ergonomic, and you don’t use that with a mouse.
Nah, mouse and keyboard is great for a lot of things. Strategy games, most MMORPGs. Heck even fighting games are actually really nice on a keyboard if you can get used to it, you can do very complicated movements by just pressing a few buttons, the actual analog input is actually completely unutilized in most fighting games anyway.
Having such a precise control over the buttons you press as well as having such a large amount of them is really important to a lot of games. And honestly even if we made a unique controller to replicate this precise input, we would still end up using a keyboard anyway because you can actually type messages on it, too.
I specifically mentioned those special cases. It’s obviously nearly impossible to play RTS and MMORPGs with a controller effectively. And of course another reason we use keyboards is that some games are just text input/typing-heavy, it would be mighty inconvenient switching to and from another input method very often.
But I also think that it’s easy to argue the point that the device designed with the sole purpose of entering text is not optimal for navigating characters in 2D/3D space. Something better just hasn’t come along yet or it hasn’t been popularized enough. An improved mouse design could also offload a lot of inputs from the kb hand, like those MMORPG mice with macro buttons. There’s definitely room for improvement.
Idk, anything that does what a keyboard does for gaming will basically just end up being a keyboard honestly. If you want a set of easily accessible, customizable buttons for a videogame, what better than just a whole board filled with them really. I think that KBM has stuck around so long is that it is just a great way to play a lot of games.
My main point is just that I don’t think a lot of people are “tolerating” keyboard controls like you initially said.
I think it stuck around because the primary purpose of a computer is still information handling, and thus almost all of them require a keyboard. And since keyboard is always included and is “good enough” people just kept using what was available. History is littered with cases where something stuck merely because it was good enough and easily available. The QWERTY layout itself is a good example. There are layouts that are much better, yet 99% of the keyboards still use it. Because alt layout keyboards are scarce and using them requires relearning. All while QWERTY is good enough.
Azeron cyborg is really nice but takes a bit to setup you keybinds for each game since even between fps games they can’t decide what key opens a door.
On the azeron your thumb has a joystick which is w a s d then that leaves all your other fingers with multiple keys each so you don’t really have to move your hand around that much. Still need a keyboard around for typing though in chat or a game where you name stuff
I used to play with a guy who was awesome with a mouse in his right hand and a controller in his left. Pretty cool setup. I tried it out and it wasn’t for me
My wife does this because shes purely a M+K player and one game, she was sucking st. So she plugged in one of my controllers and moved with the controller, but looked with the mouse.
I’m almost entirely mouse/keyboard but some games are just better with controllers…Rocket League, MGS, Yakuza…couldn’t imagine enjoying them without it.
I’ve been thinking of a mouse / controller hybrid solution being the ultimate gaming peripheral. Joystick to walk and drive, mouse to aim. Should easily hold its own in PC shooters and console racers.
As I get older I’ve grown to just appreciate comfort over precision. I don’t play competitive multiplayer, in fact the only multiplayer I play is COD zombies with some buddies once a week. And we all suck anyways so we’re just having a laugh. I’d much rather just lean back in my chair with a controller.
As a longtime PC gamer, Games like Dark Souls was impossible for me to play with a keyboard. But I kept watching my friends play it and really liked it a lot. Got one of those discount Xbox controller knockoffs and got pretty good with the game using a controller.
When the Steamdeck came around, I felt right at home with a controller.
It’s shifted dramatically where 90% of games, I’m playing controller. But still can’t play FPSes with one. (Even though I got pretty good with Halo back in the day)
I’m one of the very few people who loves the Steam Controller. If given an option between KBM and Steam Controller, I generally do the latter. The right pad as mouse isn’t as accurate as a mouse, but damned if it isn’t way more comfy from the couch.
I guess what I’m saying is: I’d suggest it is less about KBM and more about what games you play, where you play them, and probably whether or not you play multiplayer.
I’m not sure I agree with “tolerating” keyboard. I quite like it over a joystick! The benefit in complex games (like RTS, as you mention) is obvious, but even in most 3D games I prefer the instant reaction and definite axis of WASD over the 360° analog inputs of a joystick. There are not many times I would rather move at 2° forwards-right at a ramping 95% speed instead of simply moving forwards at 100% instantly. As for racing or other games that require precise analog inputs, I would generally prefer something that is bigger than my thumb i.e a racing wheel.
That isn’t to say I completely disagree, though! The ergonomics are a clear disadvantage. Most keyboards are not ergonomic for typing, let alone gaming. It would be fantastic to see more gaming-specialised keypad devices other than that one Razor one and whatever Chinese Amazon specials are kicking around. But the keypad format is not something I would want to forego as any FPS I play for more than 20 hours I usually have the entire left half of the keyboard bound to something for quick access.
I upvoted you because this is a great discussion point. :)
Yeah, I’m not strictly comparing KBM vs. gamepad. As you mentioned, keyboards are just not ergonomic, and that’s what I was basically saying. So you understood my point precisely, I, too, want to see more options.
You could configure a thumbstick to operate how you want whereas with a board you can never have fully porpotional control.
On top of that, most controllers have directional pads.
So true. I distinctly remember instances while playing GTAV with controller in the left hand and mouse in the right. lol
Would love to find a dedicated peripheral that i liked to be used similarly.
Game pads that use keyboard keys with custom switches and unique form factors are where I think we’re heading. Like the razer tartarus v2, which I have. It is great for gaming, better than a standard keyboard that uses identical switches, but still not ideal. It is similar enough to the layout of a keyboard that finger positioning can be the same and the learning curve is smooth.
It’s closer to your “ideal” but not there yet. And I completely agree that we need to go in that direction.
There are some exceptions but I generally agree. The keyboard isn’t anywhere as precise as an analogue stick. Ideally I would use something like HOTAS for movement and mouse for aiming.
The irony is, the top world record runs on Trackmania (a not-a-hot-wheels track time trial driving game) tracks are done by keyboard drivers. Driving a high performance car on a crazy, loop-de-loopy jumps and bumps and speed boosters tracks is quickest with … WASD controls.
It’s not really that ironic. Something more ergonomic with the same tactile short travel buttons would’ve worked even better, you can just also do it with a keyboard, albeit not as comfortably.
I find it very difficult to believe that you don’t like a single Spielberg movie, just on a quantity level. He’s made so many at this point, at least one must tickle your fancy.
It’s a good input system even better if your mouse has side buttons, the problem is lazy, often japanese devs, ports, I remember Nioh 1.0 having no mouse support at all, you had to use keyboard buttons to rotate the camera, it arrived later with a few updates.
I used to be kbm exclusive but there have been some pretty good controller improvements made over the years, things like hotkey layers in Skyrim UI mods or the final fantasy MMO giving dozens of unique hotkeys on a controller, and new hardware with back buttons and shoulder buttons that keep both thumbs on the thumbsticks. Can’t beat mouse for precision, but there are tradeoffs for that.
Steam Controller and Steam Deck converted me to controller. Trackpads and touch activated gyroscope are complete game changers. I still can’t play first person games with a thumbstick though.
There used to be stories (not sure how many were true) of him going to events like E3, Tokyo Game Show, Gamescom, and other developer-centric game conventions.
Rather, a program superficially imitating the first level of Doom is able to run on a simulator of a quantum computer.
Not to diminish this accomplishment, but based on the level geometry on display there this is obviously a bespoke but very basic 3D-ish engine, extremely simplified, built from the ground up to do this and is not an actual source port of Doom before anybody gets too excited.
While it’s amusing I don’t think it really serves to illustrate too well the actual exciting parts of what quantum computing is actually theoretically capable of. Regular old boring Turing-compatible binary computers are already perfectly capable of running Doom already. ^[citation^ ^needed]^
How come Steven Spielberg hasn’t done a video game movie? I envision a heartwarming tale of a young boy befriending a Strogg from Quake by giving it Reece’s Pieces.
I was shocked to find his highest rated movie was Postal. Maybe not that shocked, since it’s actually kinda good. At least, strictly as a comedy; didn’t follow the game at all. But it’s not like the game has a real story, either lol
Imagine you would save all YouTube videos on your hard drive. You don’t have enough space for that (and time to download anyway). So the next best thing is to just stream those videos and parts you actually watch.
And this is kind of how this game works; it will only deliver those parts and download in the background (which is called streaming) what you currently visit and need. Because you don’t have enough space on your drive.
mbtrhcs wasn't saying that you specifically don't have a big enough hard drive, they're saying that MS Flight Simulator is simply too big of a game to completely store on a player's computer.
MS Flight Simulator has a fairly accurate 3D model of the entire earth. Like, the whole thing. So it's constantly downloading the parts that the player is currently in, and deleting the parts that they are not in.
I hope there is a manual download function for your favorite areas to play them offline, that do not get deleted over time. Kind of how maps on your phone work, just with lot more requirements.
Live information from the earth like weather and other data. If its raining in your city, then it will be raining in the game at this place too. Plus the game does not have all other data anyway, because entire earth is too big for your drive.
My first reply said it was streaming high-res data from the cloud. Considering it’s a flight simulator advertising to cover the entire world, most people would intuit that would include textures and 3d models.
I’m not going to sit here and argue with you, have a nice day.
My first reply said it was streaming high-res data from the cloud.
Your first reply also stated that it needed 180mbps to stream weather data.
Considering it’s a flight simulator advertising to cover the entire world, most people would intuit that would include textures and 3d models.
You can fit the entire world’s texture and 3d models on a super small file. The file size is entirely dependent on the level of detail of those textures and models. Hence the MS Paint analogy.
I appreciate you not arguing anymore, at least you know when to quit.
Then I have no idea what reply you were referring to. Your first reply to me was a snarky one about digital representation of the Earth. Maybe check usernames next time.
And your point about fitting the entire world’s albedo, normal, roughness, specular, height, etc etc textures as well as high-fidelity 3D models is laughably false.
It would be, had I made such a comment. But I didn’t. You just pulled that out of your ass. I made a comment about storing “The Earth” on your local machine.
you are literally the only person confused about this.
Confused because people like you are making me that way.
It’s not weather, it’s terrain and textures. It’s a high resolution stream of where you are flying over so you don’t need to keep the earth on your PC. The base install is supposed to be only ~30GB data, that’s not enough to see your house.
It’s dumb. I’d much rather have a 500GB install. They might as well just make the game a streaming service. It also ensures an early death for the game and no functionality without an internet connection.
I don’t think requiring online functionality is the death knell of a game in the year 2024. Personally, I’m excited. Their servers were so damn slow to download on initial install and I hated MSFS2020 taking up a quarter of my game drive.
I 100% disagree. Any game that requires connection to a remote server for single player functionality is dead to me. And any suggestion otherwise I take personal offense to.
This makes your local game dependent on someone else’s server. That someone else, at any time, can shut down that server with zero consequences. They can change the terms of the deal, with zero consequences. Their servers may unintentionally go down or experience other technical issues, depriving you of the product you paid for, with zero consequences. Also you simply cannot use it away from an internet connection.
You are at the mercy of the provider, who has absolutely no legal obligations to you.
Their servers were so damn slow to download on initial install
And you can’t see why that would be a massive problem while trying to livestream your game from their server?
Only the installs were slow. Terrain streaming worked just fine right from the start (I played it from day one) - and once it’s cached on your machine, they can shut down the servers all they want, it’s still on your machine.
More than that, actually. I measured well over 250 over large cities. Others have reported more than 300.
That’s not how cache works.
In this case, it does. The cache for this simulator is a disk cache - and it’s completely configurable. You can manually designate its size and which parts of the world it’ll permanently contain. There’s also a default rolling cache (also on SSD - this program doesn’t even support hard drives), which does get overwritten over time.
The CDN to download the initial files were slow, the in game streaming was fine.
Yes, ownership sucks these days, but I don’t know how they’d technically pull this off as well without using a remote server. As a philosophy, if we’re purchasing games the only real choice is GoG, anything else ends up with us locked into some server-based licensing system.
FS 2020 had an offline mode. I don’t see why this one wouldn’t have one as well. It’s either using procedurally generated or cached data.
You can not get the same visual fidelity and low latency with game streaming. I’ve tried nearly every service there is (going as far back as OnLive - remember that one?) and they are all extremely subpar, including Microsoft’s own game streaming service.
FS 2020 is available for streaming, by the way, and FS 2024 is likely going to be as well. You’re only getting the console version though. Officially, the resolution is “up to” 1080p, but due to extremely heavy compression, it looks far worse than that. It’s comparable to 720p at best, which means that nearly all fine detail is lost behind huge compression artifacts. On anything larger than a smartphone screen, it looks horrible. That’s on top of connection issues and waiting times that are still plaguing this service.
But…that’s what you’re doing? Streaming the game at 180mbps…
No. Map and weather data is being streamed, cached on your SSD and then the game engine loads it from there into RAM and uses it in combination with other locally stored data and locally performed physics calculation to render the game on your machine. You get an uncompressed, high quality image and low-latency input, freshly baked by your graphics card for your eyes only. At 1080p and 60 fps, that’s already 2.98 Gbit/s per second generated by your GPU and sent to the screen as is. At 1440p, we are at 5.31 Gbit/s and at 4K, 11.94 Gbit/s. DisplayPort can handle up to 20 Gbit/s per lane and use up to four lanes, by the way.
Xbox Cloud Streaming only uses up to 20 Mbit/s (and that’s very optimistic). At the advertised 1080p, this means that only 6.7% as much data as generated on the server is reaching your screen.
The problem with game streaming is that in order to limit latency, they have to compress the image and send it very quickly, 60 times per second, which means they have just 16.7 milliseconds for each frame - and do this for potentially millions of users at the same time. This cannot physically be done at any decent level of quality. It is far easier to send much larger amounts of map data that is not time critical: It doesn’t matter if it’s even a few seconds late on your machine, since the game engine will render something with the data it already has. At worst, you get some building or terrain pop-in, whereas if even a single of the 60 frames required for direct game streaming is being dropped, you’ll immediately notice it as stuttering.
That sounds like a great reason not to buy this game.
If you don’t have the hardware to play this game locally, then I would not recommend it. If you have - and a base Xbox Series S is enough for a reasonable experience, which costs just 300 bucks new or about half as much used - then there is no reason for using the streaming service, unless you absolutely have to play it on your phone at work.
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