K70 RGB keyboard incapable of displaying full color range



I just received my k70 RGB and am having a bit of a problem with the lighting capabilities. As the title would suggest, my keyboard is short a few colors. It was immediately obvious as I set up some slow color transitions. At first, I set my keys jump to a color on press and fade back to the background color over 4 seconds. I then set up my keys to slowly cycle through the rainbow over a period of 20 seconds. What I see is color stepping/popping instead of a smooth transition from one color to another.



As someone who works with arduino LED projects I'm very familiar with the software and the hardware going on under the hood. I figured I'd test this systematically just to make sure I had some hard data. For those reading this thread that aren't aware, you can generate any color of the spectrum with the three primary light colors - red, green and blue. "True color", what we use in computers, is 24 bit color; that is to say each light has to produce a value between 0 and 255 (8 bits) giving us a total of 24 bits for all three channels. Thus, 256 * 256 * 256 = 16,777,216 or the 16.8 million colors advertised on the box.



Testing each color was a matter of clearing every key (turning their background color to off) then making a simple fade from 255 of that color (0 on the other channels) to 0, running it over 10 seconds and counting the unique steps of brightness it produced. If a light could produce a full 256 levels of brightness I shouldn't be able to count them in real time. I could.



Testing each channel produced the same results: 8 steps of brightness each. 8 * 8 * 8 = 512 colors. That leaves us a whole 16,776,704 colors short of the advertised color range.



Now, either I'm doing something terribly wrong in CUE or the proverbial ball was dropped on this product. I really hope that I'm just missing something in CUE but assuming I'm not... IF this is indeed a limitation of the product (software or hardware)... I find it impossible to believe that the engineers building the keyboard and software didn't notice it and, if that's the case, how could you release the product like this? How can you put a giant label on the side of the box touting 16.8 million colors when it can only produce five hundred and twelve?



Please Corsair, I want to love this product. I love my standard k70 at work and have been holding out months on buying a second one for home so I get this bitchin' RGB version. I want to do smooth color fades and cycles over long periods of time. Sadly though, as it currently stands, that's impossible.



Am I doing something wrong?

If not, is this something that can (and will) be fixed in software or firmware updates?

If not... I'm sadly going to be returning this *almost* amazing product... and that makes me very sad.





Here's the test



All keys cleared





Simple fade from 255 to 0 over 10 seconds.





Anyone can run the same test to verify it yourself. If you want video proof, i can put some together, even next to one of my arduino projects that is capable of producing true color. But really, it'll take you a few seconds to set this up and see it in person; no possibility of lag or video compression or anything to taint what your eyes see.









UPDATE POSTED BY CORSAIR JAMES



Quote: Corsair James Originally Posted by



Here are the specifics that detail the issue:

Due to USB stack size and performance issues, we had to reduce MCU processing overhead in the best and quickest manner. The LED controller gives us greater than 8 bits of color depth but we use the 8 bits that give us what we believe to be the best color granularity. Our controller architecture provides for over 100 million color combinations out of which we select 16.8 million to display. We devised a color palette scheme to encode and compress the RGB color data and the data to select and control the current sources that drive the LED array. An unfortunate side effect is that it prevented us from utilizing the full color depth available from the LED controller.



We are in the process of making the necessary improvements so that we can send the uncompressed RGB data to the keyboard. Additionally, we are optimizing the data protocol and LED driver/display algorithms through the display control firmware to handle the uncompressed data, and to more efficiently program the current sources that drive the LED array. This should give our most resourceful customers an easy way to identify the data and be able to easily send standard RGB 8 bit values. This enhancement had already been planned and will be implemented in a few weeks by the release of a software update, which will be announced and be made available to download here and at Corsair.com.



- Corsair Team During development of the keyboard and prior to the release of the RGB keyboard, we came across an issue regarding the possible color combinations. In an effort to get the product out to our customers as committed, we made the tough decision to resolve the issue in a future software release as we believe our customers would enjoy the product as-is.Here are the specifics that detail the issue:This enhancement had already been planned and will be implemented in a few weeks by the release of a software update, which will be announced and be made available to download here and at Corsair.com.- Corsair Team Hey Corsair,I just received my k70 RGB and am having a bit of a problem with the lighting capabilities. As the title would suggest, my keyboard is short a few colors. It was immediately obvious as I set up some slow color transitions. At first, I set my keys jump to a color on press and fade back to the background color over 4 seconds. I then set up my keys to slowly cycle through the rainbow over a period of 20 seconds. What I see is color stepping/popping instead of a smooth transition from one color to another.As someone who works with arduino LED projects I'm very familiar with the software and the hardware going on under the hood. I figured I'd test this systematically just to make sure I had some hard data. For those reading this thread that aren't aware, you can generate any color of the spectrum with the three primary light colors - red, green and blue. "True color", what we use in computers, is 24 bit color; that is to say each light has to produce a value between 0 and 255 (8 bits) giving us a total of 24 bits for all three channels. Thus, 256 * 256 * 256 = 16,777,216 or the 16.8 million colors advertised on the box.Testing each color was a matter of clearing every key (turning their background color to off) then making a simple fade from 255 of that color (0 on the other channels) to 0, running it over 10 seconds and counting the unique steps of brightness it produced. If a light could produce a full 256 levels of brightness I shouldn't be able to count them in real time. I could.Testing each channel produced the same results: 8 steps of brightness each. 8 * 8 * 8 = 512 colors. That leaves us a whole 16,776,704 colors short of the advertised color range.Now, either I'm doing something terribly wrong in CUE or the proverbial ball was dropped on this product. I really hope that I'm just missing something in CUE but assuming I'm not... IF this is indeed a limitation of the product (software or hardware)... I find it impossible to believe that the engineers building the keyboard and software didn't notice it and, if that's the case, how could you release the product like this? How can you put a giant label on the side of the box touting 16.8 million colors when it can only produce five hundred and twelve?Please Corsair, I want to love this product. I love my standard k70 at work and have been holding out months on buying a second one for home so I get this bitchin' RGB version. I want to do smooth color fades and cycles over long periods of time. Sadly though, as it currently stands, that's impossible.Am I doing something wrong?If not, is this something that can (and will) be fixed in software or firmware updates?If not... I'm sadly going to be returning this *almost* amazing product... and that makes me very sad.Here's the testAll keys clearedSimple fade from 255 to 0 over 10 seconds.Anyone can run the same test to verify it yourself. If you want video proof, i can put some together, even next to one of my arduino projects that is capable of producing true color. But really, it'll take you a few seconds to set this up and see it in person; no possibility of lag or video compression or anything to taint what your eyes see. Last edited by Yellowbeard; 10-20-2014 at 03:11 PM .

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