Fangame keyboard review thread

[geogeo222]

Hello, friends. After purchasing a new laptop and trying out some fangames, I found myself confronted with the issue of its god-awful keyboard(laptop: Asus G700 series). My previous laptop's(HP Pavilion 17) keyboard had been more than adequate for this, so I haven't had the need for a standalone keyboard as of yet.

In my search for one that was right for me I found myself at a loss for a solid resource in the community to aid this very important and potentially life-changing decision, so I scoured the forum for suggestions, and found some others that I thought worthy of giving a shot. Some cheap ones, and some expensive (mechanical) ones. Here I will be giving an overview of the selection of keyboards that I purchased and how they hold up for fangaming.

First, I will detail the couple that are just worthless. Complete busts for a fangamer. I returned these.

Apple Wired Keyboard
I chose this keyboard for its very low key profile. This attribute had served me well in my old lappy's keyboard. Such short keys require just a small press and usually a very light press also, and I was able to make fast and accurate keypresses with the old laptop keyboard. Unfortunately this keyboard is plagued with a problem that makes it an immediate no-go for fangames, and the same problem my new laptop's keyboard has: it's impossible to make less than a 3 frame jump, and to move less than 6 pixels at a time. Literally impossible. Trust me, I tried for minutes.

Here's the link. Don't buy this for fangames: Apple Wired Keyboard

Rosewill RK-9000 V2 RE w/Reds
Although I liked the feel of this keyboard, which made a soft feel and sound on being pressed, it had an issue of the same sort as the Apple. With this keyboard, you are unable to take less than a 3 frame pause between your jump and re-jump. Even the crummy laptop keyboard and every other one I purchased could do this with ease, so the fact that this one mechanical could have such an issue was surprising. This bug means that you will not be able to perform jumps of a certain height, no matter how hard you try. This board is made by the same OEM as some from Coolermaster. I know some of you have this brand and like it, but I'm curious if they suffer from the same problem.

Rosewill RK-9000 V2 RE

The next one is a mixed bag

Logitech K120
This is a really cheap keyboard, but actually somewhat adequate. The feel is not the greatest, but it's not going to impact your play, I think. One could do a lot of things without trouble on this keyboard, but if you're into intermediate needle expect to have problems. For one, 1 and 2 frames are very possible, but good luck to you because half the time my light presses don't even register and I have to try a few times to get one out. The same goes for 3px movements. I won't be using this, but if you're really between a rock and a hard place this will do. I would suggest this for someone on a tight budget, except I purchased another for just a few dollars more that is insanely better, so you shouldn't bother.
 
Logitech K120

Onto the good shizz

Karnotech Wired Keyboard
Another keyboard I selected based on the low key profile. This one is pretty good. 2 frames and 3 pixel movement are no issue. It's nice and easy on the hands and feels fine. My gripes are the sound the shift key in particular makes, which is not very satisfying, and also this keyboard is EXTREMELY LIGHT. So light that without some sort of slip protection this keyboard will move quite a bit during use. But the performance is on point and you should be able to do anything with this keyboard. If you need a really cheap keyboard for fangames, this is my suggestion for you.

Karnotech Wired Keyboard

Ducky Shine 4 w/Reds
This keyboard is just lovely. Easy 2 frames and 3px movement, and it's very satisfying to play with. When I use it I feel like I'm able to play not necessarily better, but with more accuracy. This keyboard gives you just the response that you want from it. The linear red switches are perfectly fine for me. I don't find the bump in brown switches necessary as it's fairly easy to get a feel for pretty precisely where the keys will activate. I don't know if one switch or the other is better, but I imagine it's somewhat of a trade-off between the lack of interference from a bump that a red switch provides, and the knowledge of exactly where the key will activate that a brown switch provides.
I can't really provide any negatives for this keyboard. In addition to being completely up-to-snuff for fangames, it is a really good looking piece of hardware. The branding is nice, it's a nice shape, and the dual LED settings are rad as hell. Good stuff.

Ducky Shine 4

Das Model S Professional w/Browns
This measures up to the Ducky in terms of performance is just about every way. It will give you just the response that you want every time, which is something that mechanicals have over other types of keyboard. It's possible that 2 framing is just a hair more difficult on this, but it could be just me. Making very fast re-jumps is also marginally more difficult than on the Ducky, but you should be able to do a 2 frame pause and re-jump fairly consistently. I haven't actually been able to perform a one frame pause at all with a single shift key, which is a little dismaying, but the scenarios where this is required are not that common in my experience, so it may not be a significant turn-off. This keyboard also feels great, and is almost even more satisfying to use than the Ducky with the tactile feel of the brown switches.

Das Model S Professional

The Das and the Ducky are by far the best of what I purchased, and I will be giving both a lot of use to try to get a really good idea of what kind of switches are for me. I feel comfortable recommending both of these mechanicals very highly, and I think the biggest point of decision between the 2 is your preference for red or brown switches. Then again, both of these offer a selection between red and brown anyway, but since these keyboards I have have different switch types, I can't really recommend, say, a red switch Das over a red switch Ducky because I don't know how exactly they would differ in that case.

The Karnotech is also quite good, it just doesn't feel as good to use and I feel like accuracy in input response suffers a small bit on this board which is clearly very cheaply made. But again, it's totally passable and a great option if you don't have money for a mechanical.

So, that's that. Let me know what you thought of my assessments if you'd like. I'm not a keyboard expert and arguably not a fangame expert either so let me know if there were any criteria that you think important that I left out, or just tell me that I'm completely full of shit and don't know what I'm going on about. I'd be more than happy to give some more detail on these keyboards to anyone with questions about em. Also feel free to chime in with your own opinion of these keyboards, or other suggestion or reviews of any keyboards you own that may aid keyboard seekers in making a purchase.

Best fangaming wishes, everyone

[Onynekyu]

Thanks a lot for this post geogeo.

It will helps me alot  ༼つ ◕‿◕ ༽つ.

[infern0man1]

I may as well add a review of my own:


Razer Blackwidow Ultimate

This was the first mechanical keyboard I owned (and is still the only one I have owned and the one I currently own today), and after my previous keyboard, which was a standard Logitech keyboard or something or other that I couldn't consistently two-frame on, it was a huge improvement.

After getting accustomed to it, it's really easy to play fangames on. When I first used it, I noticed that I would jump a lot lower with my key-presses because I had to try so hard to no put too much pressure on my previous keyboard; while it was a bit annoying at first, it proved to help out a lot in the long run. For one thing, I was quickly able to one-frame somewhat consistently upon first playing a game that required it, not to mention the fact that two-frames were just as free. I managed to have greater control over the player's movement overall, which helped a lot in certain situations that require one-frame movement. Furthermore, you get a helpful little program called Razer Synapse (which comes with all Razer keyboards as far as I know), which is a much more user-friendly than AutoHotKey in my opinion, and which is useful to remapping keys to be able to better cactus cancel and etc.; the only thing is, you won't acquire the skill of cancelling quite as easily.

My only complaints with this so far is that I did lose the ability to mash well, and if you get keyboard it's probably inevitable that you'll lose it as well. Furthermore, after a good amount of use, my left shift key began to work funkily, and the amount of times I'd do single-key cancels increased so much to the point to where I had to begin using CapsLock as my jump key. Other than that, this keyboard is really good for needle as a whole and pretty cool for bosses and stuff (although it isn't optimal for the latter, unfortunately).

Warning: it's also quite clacky, but it became music to my ears after a while.
Link: https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-ultimate-2016 (I don't know what year mine is, as I got it off of Amazon back in 2014; just so you know).

[Wolsk]

I've owned two Blackwidow keyboards: a Tournament Edition with Razer Greens and an Ultimate 2013 with Cherry MX Blues.  As infern0 said, they are great keyboards for shorthopping and feel very solid.  However, I also have issues mashing quickly with them, and both of the left shift keys on the keyboards started to have issues after not a lot of time.  So yes, they're nice keyboards while they last, but the problem is that they DON'T really last.  The keyboards are relatively cheap as far as mechanical keyboards go, though, so you kinda get what you pay for.

I won't be buying another Razer keyboard and will instead look into the Corsair K-series and Ducky keyboards.  I want to do some testing with other switches (primarily Reds) to see how they feel for fangames, but I have a good feeling Blues are what I will end up sticking with.

Also, I've heard from a few people that it's impossible to 1-frame on Razer Blackwidow Chroma keyboards due to the keys sticking, so I would definitely steer away from those.  There are plenty of other colorful keyboards that are higher quality for similar prices.


Kefitko once bought a keyboard with Topre switches and absolutely hated them so much for fangames that he returned it the day after.  So don't get a Topre keyboard either.

[kapo]

I have the Corsair K70 Mx red, and it is enough.

I also test the Cherry MX 6.0 Board which is cherry MX RED, it is really excellent.

I vaguely tested the QPAD MK-50 Cherry MX Red, it is good but not the best.

I also had the Roccat Ryos MK PRO MX black which for me is more useful than the FPS fangames, perhaps because of the MX black?

Corsair strafe RGB MX silent is good but also has a handful of rest shit: p

THE  GSKILL RGB BROWN MX is not bad at all either but is preferable for FPS that fangames.

Personally I think by the better are the mechanical keyboards RED MX keys with a response time of 1 MS.

I would like to test the channel ducky shine 5 RED MX because it really seems to be the best in its class, too bad there have no wrist rest and qu'ill be very expensive.

[Fireball7d7]

Razer DeathStalker ($60)

All I wanted was a cheap keyboard for gaming and this keyboard may be mechanical, but the way it is designed causes it to break easily.  Multiple times within a years span, the pushback on the left shift key has broken, preventing me from playing fangames. There are no replacement keys online and the company will not email you back if you try to ask fro replacement parts.  DONT BUY THIS FOR FAMGAMES

[TvPvZ]

Second in the recommendation against the Razer Chroma.  I tried it,  and it had the same issue Geo mentioned where it can't do less than 3 frame jumps or 6px movements. It's due to bad minimum press/release reporting time which was ~42ms.

I also have a 2013 Black Widow as well with Blue switches.  Like said before,  great 1 framing keyboard,  the minimum press/release reporting time I could see was 4ms or so,  which is really good.  I would have used this but my dog chewed the cable so I needed a new keyboard.

The one I bought after the Chroma disappointed was the CMStorm Quickfire Ultimate with Red switches. I've come to really love red switches,  this is just my preference right now.  The keyboard can one frame,  but it's not consistent enough to rely on so I learned to cancel.  The minimum press/release reporting time is 9ms,

I mentioned press/release reporting a few times,  this is not the same as polling rate (what is advertised on your keyboard,  1000hz or 1ms etc).  My Quickfire has a press/release minimum of 9ms while at 1000hz polling rate,  but it will be very precise after that.  If it's at 125hz,  the minimum drops to 8ms,  but it will only let you get 8ms precision.  8/16/24/32 etc. If you hold a key for 25ms, it'll become a 32 ms input. Could make accidental 6 pixel movements more likely. 

There really isn't a way I know of to find out the minimum press/release reporting time without testing a keyboard out.  You can view this data with a tool to analyze the inputs going through your USB port. The lower the number is the more consistent one frames can be, since a one frame jump is actually a jump where the press and release happens in the same frame(20ms) Technically zero frame jumps, but that's not what the west calls them.  And since humans aren't tasbots,  sometimes even a 3ms input can overlap a frame and do a 2f, and sometimes a 19ms input will one frame (the accidental one frames we all love) . And then some keyboards have 40ish minimum and can't even shorthop at all like the ones Geo listed.

[geogeo222]

Well, that's a good few reviews there, thanks everyone. I'm sure people looking for some help with their decision will really appreciate this thread.

And thanks tvpvz for the really insightful technical information. It's good to have an idea of the small ways a keyboards technical limitations can actually impact one's play. Can you tell us what program one could use to test a keyboard for the values you mentioned?