logitech playing stupid games?

xorbe

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My brother bought a K740 from Logitech. Turns out while playing games, W (forward) + shift (run) + spacebar (jump) doesn't work. Logitech support said he needed to by the gaming model for that key combo to work. Or basically, they've purposefully broken some of their keyboards to push some consumers to higher priced models now that actually work as expected?

If this is true, I'm assuming they didn't bother to make this clear, wasting their (ex-)customers' time.
 
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WTF? Really, this is the most asinine thing I have ever heard. Looks like I will stop buying logitech keyboards or mice in the future.
 
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I don't think it's anything intentional on Logitech's part. It's probably a limitation of their "Perfectstroke" system they're using to keep the keys quiet. Could be limiting the number of key presses that each zone of the key membrane matrix can detect at one time. 'W', Shift and Space are most likely all in the same zone based on their proximity. By the way, this issue has been known about for years on this particular keyboard. First posting I found about it was made back in 2010. The K740 is not the only keyboard out there with this limitation.

You should tell your brother he should have gotten a Corsair K55. It can be found for half the price of that Logitech POS.
 
The thing about key rollover is you never know what combos wont work, that is why gamers and anyone who knows about this look for N key rollover keyboard because they will work with any combinations of inputs up 6, or 18 or whatever per model. And it doesnt matter how much money you pay or anything else. Even most gaming laptops have problems. You simply must test for your self with ANY keyboard you purchase that doesnt advertise NKRO. I remember one time spending months going all over to find the major laptop makers looking for the one with the best key rollover. It was hell.

So you have 2 choices, 1 buy a keyboard with NKRO, or 2 you remap the keys in game to something that works. Personally I recommend that you just buy a NKRO keyboard this way you dont have to remap anything and if you ever get a laptop where you cant change the key layout, then you can adjust on the laptop to whatever works and mirror the same configuration on your NKRO keyboard.
 
Old cheap keyboards that use the PS/2 connector don't have this problem.
Cheap keyboards that use USB will have problems registering some keys if they are pressed simultaneously. Thus, your problem.
USB keyboards advertised as having NKRO (this is an extra feature) do not have this problem. Most "gaming" keyboards have NKRO because it is typical to press multiple keys simultaneously while playing games.
 
Old cheap keyboards that use the PS/2 connector don't have this problem.
Cheap keyboards that use USB will have problems registering some keys if they are pressed simultaneously. Thus, your problem.
USB keyboards advertised as having NKRO (this is an extra feature) do not have this problem. Most "gaming" keyboards have NKRO because it is typical to press multiple keys simultaneously while playing games.

Not true this problem with key rollover is specific to the hardware in the keyboard what connection it uses doesnt matter. It has to do with how the engineers map the traces and choose which keys have rollover. Typically they focus on the modifiers and space so those will work in the most combinations. I noticed this problem way back in the late 90s on PS2 keyboards.

Also you should be careful how you use the term cheap many people will interpret that to be about cost of the keyboard in dollars. But the number of dollars you pay for a keyboard has no bearing on how the rollover will work. $200 keyboards have the problem and so do $3 keyboards.
 
After reading this (and being clueless), I discovered some interesting results with my own keyboards. I tested them using both shift keys and trying various letters, numbers, and keys.
My 10+ year old K250 seems to have no issues whatsoever with anything.
My K270 randomly can't handle certain letters with multiple keys. "R" being a major one.
My K330 at work can't handle "D" or "F" The K350 seems to have the exact same issue.

What's funny is that the keys are always mysteriously located right around WASD. That can't be accidental. I use the arrow keys (and didn't notice any issues with them on any keyboards), but found this odd and amusing.
 
After reading this (and being clueless), I discovered some interesting results with my own keyboards. I tested them using both shift keys and trying various letters, numbers, and keys.
My 10+ year old K250 seems to have no issues whatsoever with anything.
My K270 randomly can't handle certain letters with multiple keys. "R" being a major one.
My K330 at work can't handle "D" or "F" The K350 seems to have the exact same issue.

What's funny is that the keys are always mysteriously located right around WASD. That can't be accidental. I use the arrow keys (and didn't notice any issues with them on any keyboards), but found this odd and amusing.

Lol, you really think Logitech is trying to make their non-gaming keyboards bad for gaming so you buy another Logitech keyboard?

The conspiracy theories people come up with lmfao.

The real reason is because Tencent owns a 40% stake in Logitech and the keylogger can't send those combinations through the chinese firewall.
 
Lol, you really think Logitech is trying to make their non-gaming keyboards bad for gaming so you buy another Logitech keyboard?

The conspiracy theories people come up with lmfao.

The Logitech rep himself literally told us to buy their gaming model because the model he bought didn't support gaming key combos. We didn't come up with that, Logitech told my brother that.
 
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My brother bought a K740 from Logitech. Turns out while playing games, W (forward) + shift (run) + spacebar (jump) doesn't work. Logitech support said he needed to by the gaming model for that key combo to work. Or basically, they've purposefully broken some of their keyboards to push some consumers to higher priced models now that actually work as expected?

If this is true, I'm assuming they didn't bother to make this clear, wasting their (ex-)customers' time.
Same here. I have the original K740 I bought back in 2009....holding down left shift, i can still jump with the space bar in Cold War. I bought the same model for a second set up because I love my old one so much and I just noticed tonight that I can NOT hold the shift key down and space jump at the same time. Sure, i can just let go of Shift and my guy keep running but I'm just used to holding down shift with my pinky as I run.

So I can only assume since you said Logitech told you to get a gaming keyboard, they fucked with the K740 maybe knowing a lot of folks used it for gaming and wanted future gamers to get a more expensive "gaming" Logitech. I do have a K55 Platinum, but I just love the laptop key feel/clicky of the K740.

EDIT: I was just on Logi's site and see that they have a blurb about the K740 saying:

"Some multi-key combinations do not work on K740 keyboard

The K740 keyboard uses a matrix to let the computer know which keys are being pressed. The matrix used is optimized for desktop typing, and doesn't support the "W + Shift + Space" key and some other multiple-key commands. This is a design limitation typical of non-gaming keyboards to avoid potential conflicts with other key combinations."


What a bunch of bullshiza. I returning this crap to Amazon. AND the keys feel not as nice as my original. Just feel off. Not the same "ahhhh...laptop clickly travel feel"
 
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The Logitech rep himself literally told us to buy their gaming model because the model he bought didn't support gaming key combos. We didn't come up with that, Logitech told my brother that.
They know how their products work it doesnt mean they purposely design them that way, only they are aware of the issue. Key rollover and key jamming are known issues for decades they are simply a function of how cheap keyboards work usually a matrxi with a membrane switch. Most lay people like yourself dont understand these nuances. The point is the gaming keyboards are specifically engineered to avoid these problems, the solutions cost more money to implement and therefore are typically left out of consumer keyboards meant for soccer moms like the k740. Its not like a logitech engineer was there are was given instructions to make these specific keyboard have a problem that would be common with gamers. Its more like he was just told hey make this keyboard work as intended with the lowest costs possible and this was the accidental result. And it may have been needed to make sure that other common desktop 3 key combinations like ctrl alt delete do work. Just take this opportunity to educate yourself about key rollover, key jamming, and mechanical keyboards and the problem will never happen to you again and you can get some pretty cheap NKRO keyboards now days.
 
Logitech has become a dumpster fire of a company. Every single product I have bought from them in the last 10 years have all broken or gone defective in under a year.
 
First, I can't believe what I'm reading. Logitech has stellar customer service. I've experienced it myself. They sent me a speaker stand for FREE after my nephew broke it. Now as others have said there are certain keyboards that advertise N-key rollover. I'm using a 10+ year old Rosewill mechanical ps/2 keyboard with it. But even the cheapest USB keyboards in the world can register 3 keystrokes. Umm, CTRL ALT DEL has to work. If that works, any three keys should work. Where you usually run into problems with membrane USB keyboards is with 5+ keys press simultaneously. You can use the first test on this page to try it out.

http://gadzikowski.com/nkeyrollover.html
 
You should read my comment above Oface, just because one key combination works at 3KRO does not mean all will, many keyboard only promise 2KRO but of course they make sure specific key combinations that are common on the OS will work at higher key combos. However only 2 keys are promised across all combinations.
 
First, I can't believe what I'm reading. Logitech has stellar customer service. I've experienced it myself. They sent me a speaker stand for FREE after my nephew broke it. Now as others have said there are certain keyboards that advertise N-key rollover. I'm using a 10+ year old Rosewill mechanical ps/2 keyboard with it. But even the cheapest USB keyboards in the world can register 3 keystrokes. Umm, CTRL ALT DEL has to work. If that works, any three keys should work. Where you usually run into problems with membrane USB keyboards is with 5+ keys press simultaneously. You can use the first test on this page to try it out.

http://gadzikowski.com/nkeyrollover.html

pssst, you don't need stellar customer service when your products actually work.

That aside, I've only dealt with their customer service twice, and both times a robot could have done better. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was a robot.
 
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