G-Series Gaming Keyboards

[Modelover]

Hi, I'd like to consider myself someone who avidly supports and follows logitech products like god.

I've purchased tons of Quickcams , Bluetooth MX Keyboards, Gamepads, Speakers.. I'd be fooling myself if I said logitech isn't a part of my lifestyle.

I sit here, with my Quickcam Pro 4000 camming it up on MSN, typing on my Dinovo Edge, moving it with my MX Mouse, listening to some random song through my Z-5500 speakers while trying to find placement for this monolith of a gameboard...

Not just any gameboard... it's the G13... the holy grail that surpassed the Belkin and the Saitek Gameboard of which I could have purchased if it had not existed.

I'm writing about the G13 Gameboard.

I just purchased this as a pre-order after a long wait since December from Amazon, I got it today. It's nice and all, but I wanna put my 2 cents in.

All in all,  this ended up close to $92... a sizeable chunk of my hard earned paycheck, especially in this time of economical crisis. (low blow by the consumer ftw)

79.99 for the board + tax (and prime overnight shipping)

I would have expected a better manual. it was just a thin skimpy sheet of paper that pretty much was along the line of those image macros.. "Push button, receive bacon".

I'll forgive for that. the unit itself seems very well made, as is all the Logitech products i've purchased.

But the one thing thats really not floating well with me is not what stems from poor product design for the keyboard I currently use... you can try to justify that the keyboard (Dinovo Edge) isn't for gaming and it's more for HTPC, but regardless, it's what I have.

I own a Dinovo Edge...  I also use that in conjunction with a bluetooth mouse that came with the Freedom MX it's a MX something thats for sure since the decal on the underside of the mouse has long since faded... I've gone through about 4 (I believe i spent well over $1000 in 6 Sets minimum total for the cordless bluetooth over the course of 3+ years or so - I abuse keyboards) of those so I've got spares. I eventually got the Dinovo Edge (since plexiglass = win). What the Dinovo Edge lacked for me was the NUMLOCK Side of the keyboard... I kept putting off getting something to take it's place, until recently with the release of the G13 Gameboard...

Because the Dinovo Edge lacks the numpad side, you'd need to use onscreen keyboard to map the G-Key functions. 

Why there wasn't another way to map the numpad side is beyond me.. but I managed to get the keys mapped through another means (since my windows OSK didn't work)

But whats got me depressed is the fact that Gameguard seems to neuter the board in it's entirely.

I can't use it even if I only have it set to do 1 key function.... Numpad 1. -_-

Are the keys not hardware mapped into the unit? What?

There has to be a way for Logitech to protect their own hardware and software against such acts of terrorism because right now,

the product I purchased is not functioning because some hack of a company decided to throw a fit about what I can and can't run or use on my computer.

Quite frankly, I don't know what else to put. I've got a pretty expensive paper weight right now that looks awesome. I love your products..

I only wish it was much more.

Seriously you guys,

I love your products, but you need to step up.

I only hope that someone can take this to heart and work on either a way to make this work as a normal keyboard at LEAST as a numpad replacement -_- or make it function as it should. a gaming platform.

P.S. If anyone knows of a way to encrypt it so that the G-Profiler can work (ala process guard maybe?) or at least allow the use of MINIMAL functionality for games (and the lamer companies that think they know best) that decide you're not allowed to buy nice things, to work again please let everyone know..  (this is a feedback review disguised as a tech support / feature support request. >_>) aka, really expensive $.02.economic crisis inflation $.02 FTL... The cake was a lie.

Message Edited by Modelover on 01-27-2009 05:41 PM

[SpecialK]

Last I checked, GameGuard actually TERMINATED the G-series Profiler upon game launch, and then relaunched the Profiler upon game end.

How exactly, is Logitech supposed to prevent GameGuard from terminating the Profiler?

Honestly, there's not a whole lot you can do since the terms of use for the game you are running, most likely, prohibit you from running macro software, and GameGuard is their way of enforcing it. Solution? Don't buy games that use GameGuard.

[Modelover]

I had actually thought the G13 was a hardware based gameboard that it set the macros into it.. I'd assume hardware that'd be harder to break on Gameguard's end unless the decide to blatantly nitpick on what hardware can and can't be used on your computer.

The key data is stored on the onboard memory right?

I actually don't see why it didn't function as a normal keyboard if only 1 key was set to a button.

I think the solution I'd probably guess is like along the same lines as Daemon-tools (virtual drive emulator). They way they have the drivers set up, (well from what I know anyways, so please correct if wrong), you actually can rename and etc it, so that it becomes harder to blacklist? 

gameguard I believe actually only blacklists the process, not the hardware.so rename the process handles on the profiler program itself maybe?..  If you can't crack it at one end (gameguard), you crack it from the other (logitech).

Well, true to what you say about the TOS, but what about the person who got banned on WoW EU for using his G15? 

http://infernix.net/wowban/

The way he worded it, the final response from blizzard was the correct one. unattended gameplay but took alot of red tape to get to that conclusion.

(TLR = macroing is ok, unattended macroing not ok, but anyone should have known better)

If you put it that way, any form of macroing is against the spirit of fair play in the eyes of the company you're paying monies to play on.

If god forbid they start blacklisting this keyboard and the Profiler on WoW, and all of a sudden everything just doesn't work anymore,  i'm sure the backlash from the community will be more large.. most of times just lame (since they've broken wow mods before already).

I don't wanna spark this into a debate about if macros are ok or not fair or not, because we've got ton of those already on just about every board on the net..  

But another solution, if I can kindly add, since you state that "prohibit from running macro software",

would be to make a version of the profiler that isn't a macro program. 

Outside of when it can't be used, when it can actually be used, it does a hell of a job doing it.

Anyways, theres always something you can do, as you suggest, one solution is to not play games that use gameguard...

the other solutions, are a bit more TOS breaking or not, depending on who's TOS you mean.

Sorry, but i'm one of those people who purposely break warranties be it a good thing or bad.  

I only hope that my rants can be useful in making something work in places it once did not.

Message Edited by Modelover on 01-29-2009 04:12 PM

[SpecialK]

You are quite the prolific poster... :-)

Even if the G13 played back macros in kernel mode (which it doesn't), GameGuard could VERY easily do exactly the same thing, but instead of dealing with the process, it disables and then re-enables the driver. So, running macros in the hardware would not solve anything. I'm pretty sure they probably do this now to other devices that play macros in hardware.

Regarding the WoW user, you basically asked a question and then answered it yourself. The WoW user was not banned for using a macro, but was banned for "unattended botting".

Blizzard has always been supportive of the G15, even going so far as to have native LCD support. It's pointless to come up with "what if"s. What if Blizzard were to go out of business? What if Blizzard were to not allow any keyboard/mouse support and only allow "voice activation" to control your character? What if Blizzard only allowed men to play their games? What if ... [pointless].

There's lots of things besides macros that gives one a competitive advantage: a faster machine, a USB headset, a quicker reflex, not having a life, etc.

[Grendel]

Got my G13 yesterday and I'm too disappointed. Since the G13 has it's own memory for profiles I thought the device is designed as a HID keybord device. Not so, the profiler has to be running in order for it to work. BIG disappointment, esp. since the n52te does exactly that, you can just plug it in and it registers itself as a HID keyboard, no software needed.

However, the real turn-off for me is that the "analog stick" is in reality only a 4/8 direction pad. What's the point in that ? I really want its analog values in form of a mini joystick. Bummer. I hope I can get to those values via scripting and add a virtual stick, looking around for infos when I came across this thread.

[Rosier]

Today, i became the proud owner of a G13 game pad that costed me over 70 US dls.

as soon as i got home i conected it to my laptop and found out that the only fps game that

i play (Combat Arms) does not work with it.

My friend got a cheeper n52te (50 dls.) and it works perfect.

so how can it be possible that such a great company like logitech (i say great becouse im the proud owner of a G9, G15 and a set of G speakers, that at the moment i cannot remember their name.) anyhow how can it be that a 50 dl. game pad works better than a G13!!!

i am very dissapointed in this matter, and as so i have taken the desision to return my G13 to frys.

logitech should find ways around these issues.

(For aditional info, i do not even use the macro keys, i use a laptop and was looking for a way to avoid messing up my laptop keyboard since it cannot be replaced like a normal keyboard.)

So, for now im giving logitech a minus.