A very confusing keyboard situation.

Murasaki · December 15, 2019

Hello people. I have an interesting story for y'all. A few months ago I got a keyboard called Logitech G413 which is my first mechanical keyboard ever.

The switches this keyboard came with are Romer-G Tactile, they're not very clacky which I was going for, overall feel nice, no qualms. That is until I tried playing music games like osu! or DJMAX with it. For some reason my accuracy plummited heavily in those games. How on Earth can that happen? I thought I was going crazy so I pulled out an old rubberdome IBM KB-9930 which ive BARELY used and everything was completely fine.

I know nothing about switches and all that so I am seeking some information from all you people who are familiar with this stuff. Any clue what is going on? Are these switches that bad to be worse than an actual rubberdome? Am I just not used to mechanical keyboards?

minibois · December 15, 2019

Romer-G is not my cup of tea, but it should not be much worse than membrane (as I find it comparable to membrane).

Are the switches actually properly working? You could try something like typeracer to see if that is going any worse on a membrane board.

With osu! I believe players usually use 1 or 2 keys, so if your accuracy is worse in that game there can really be only two things happening:

- defective keys

- you not being used to the amount of force needed to press down a key.

Not sure which is more likely tbh

Murasaki · December 15, 2019

2 minutes ago, minibois said:

Romer-G is not my cup of tea, but it should not be much worse than membrane (as I find it comparable to membrane).

Are the switches actually properly working? You could try something like typeracer to see if that is going any worse on a membrane board.

With osu! I believe players usually use 1 or 2 keys, so if your accuracy is worse in that game there can really be only two things happening:

- defective keys

- you not being used to the amount of force needed to press down a key.

Not sure which is more likely tbh

I'm playing beatmania style games so they're keyboard mashing pretty much. Amount of force needed for a press could be it but not really sure. Maybe travel distance or actuation point? People are calling me crazy when I try to explain and they just go "wtf its impossible for a mech to be worse than membrane", it's not what I mean at all but meh..

minibois · December 15, 2019

2 minutes ago, Murasaki said:

I'm playing beatmania style games so they're keyboard mashing pretty much. Amount of force needed for a press could be it but not really sure. Maybe travel distance or actuation point? People are calling me crazy when I try to explain and they just go "wtf its impossible for a mech to be worse than membrane", it's not what I mean at all but meh..

There are good and bad membranes, same for mechanical.

People like to just say 'well my mech is good, so all must be good!', which is just untrue.. Plus you have personal opinions too, so everyone can disagree with whatever everyone else says..

That aside, it could definitely actuation force needed to press it down. From what I remember, Romer-G was designed as a tactile switch, but in my opinion it feels more like a linear switch; because the actuation point is barely noticeable (even less noticeable than a Cherry MX Brown). That can make it kind of unclear when it has been pressed down.

With a membrane board you need to really mash down on each key to active it, while mechanical switches can usually be pressed down half. Perhaps a combo of you thinking "it doesn't need to be pressed down fully" and the lack of clear actuation makes it so your muscle memory is not (yet?) used to pressing it down.

From what I have seen, most rhythm game players seem to use clicky switches, so there is a really a clear actuation point. But I am sure there are many who prefer other sorts of switches.

Murasaki · December 15, 2019

1 minute ago, minibois said:

There are good and bad membranes, same for mechanical.

People like to just say 'well my mech is good, so all must be good!', which is just untrue.. Plus you have personal opinions too, so everyone can disagree with whatever everyone else says..

That aside, it could definitely actuation force needed to press it down. From what I remember, Romer-G was designed as a tactile switch, but in my opinion it feels more like a linear switch; because the actuation point is barely noticeable (even less noticeable than a Cherry MX Brown). That can make it kind of unclear when it has been pressed down.

With a membrane board you need to really mash down on each key to active it, while mechanical switches can usually be pressed down half. Perhaps a combo of you thinking "it doesn't need to be pressed down fully" and the lack of clear actuation makes it so your muscle memory is not (yet?) used to pressing it down.

From what I have seen, most rhythm game players seem to use clicky switches, so there is a really a clear actuation point. But I am sure there are many who prefer other sorts of switches.

I can definitely say im way better with it now in comparison to when i first got it (it was horrendous). But still its not 100% on par with what ive used before in terms of accuracy. Maybe with more time it'll get there I hope. I definitely don't want clicky switches, they drive me INSANE.