Hey there eggheads, Juan Carlos Bagnell here continuing our celebration of
gaming all month long here in June 2020. Right about now is usually when we'd be
getting ready to cover E3, but with that not happening this year instead it's a good
time to take a look at the gear we actually use to play the games we love.
This time around we're talking about PC gaming peripherals - specifically things
like keyboards, mice, and headsets. Now some of you out there might already
consider yourselves experts in the subject, and that's great, but we see a
lot of comments on our videos and on Newegg.com from people who are new to
this hobby and who are looking to have some important gaming peripheral terms
explained to them. With that in mind let's cover some of the terms you're
going to encounter when you're shopping for PC gaming peripherals. If you think
we miss any terms or if you have some advice of your own, help out your fellow
gamers in the comments down below. First up - mechanical keyboard. When you
hear that phrase know that it's referring to what happens when you
actually press down on one of the keys of your keyboard. Mechanical keyboards
have a physical mechanism under the key cap that engages when you press down. Now
back in the early days of computing mechanical keyboards were the standard,
but over time alternatives like membrane keyboards became more popular for
general use. Your standard office keyboard is probably a membrane board,
which doesn't rely on the same kind of physical switch under the key caps.
Instead there's a conductive circuit under the caps that triggers the
electronic signals when the keys are pressed. Now when it comes to PC gaming
mechanical keyboards have become the generally preferred option because of
the feedback they give, both in terms of a tactile click and the sound they make.
The idea being that the more feedback you're getting from your board the less
likely you are to miss keystrokes in the heat of gaming action. Granted if you're
playing something slow paced like Civilization, the need for a mechanical
keyboard is debatable at best, but many PC gamers just prefer the sound and feel
of mechanical switches in contrast to the sometimes smushy feeling
of membrane keyboards. Mechanical keyboards usually do cost a bit more
than membrane options, but they often also come with other gamer friendly
features like RGB lighting, and there's also a hybrid model of gaming keyboards
that's come out in recent years called mem-chemical which aims to offer more of
the sound and feel of a mechanical keyboard combined with some of the
advantages a membrane board offers like lower costs. In the world of mechanical
keyboards there are a few more terms worth defining. A clicky switch is one
that's designed to give you especially noticeable auditory feedback. A tactile
switch is one in which you'll feel a notable bump as you depress the key cap
letting you know the press has been registered.
While a linear switch is one that's designed to be pressed all the way down
without that same tactile bump. There are also whole families and flavors of
mechanical switch types like Cherry MX and Gateron that all have their own
passionate defenders, but we have other topics to cover in this video so just
head on over to r/mechanicalkeyboards if you want to learn more. When checking
out gaming keyboards you'll also hear a lot about anti-ghosting and n-key
rollover, which both basically refer to the ability of your keyboard to register
multiple keystrokes at once. If you think about normal typing there aren't many
scenarios where you would need to press more than three keys at a time, but when
you're playing games you might need more than that. If you need to move forward,
and run, and jump, and switch weapons, and launch a grenade all at the same time -
assuming you have enough fingers for all of that - then you'll want a keyboard with
n-key rollover since that lets you know it can handle all of the key presses
simultaneously. Next up - macros. This often pops up and
referring to programmable gaming keys on a keyboard or a mouse. A macro is a
complicated sequence or combination of button presses that you have to do a lot
that you can combine and assign to a single button
press. You see these a lot in MMOs and other keyboard intensive games, but if
you have a keyboard or mouse that supports macros, and offers you
programmable buttons the limit is really just your imagination. With the right
keyboard and software support you can open up a chat window and type "Hey man,
great game. Thanks for playing, it was super fun." all with the touch of a
single key. Just one idea off the top of my brain. Wouldn't that be wholesome. One
last thing to know when talking about gaming keyboards - a USB pass-through port
is a USB port usually found on the back edge of the keyboard near the cable that
can provide power or data just like a normal port on your PC. Using one of
these usually means the USB cable coming out of your keyboard will split at the
end and will require you to plug in two ports on your actual system, but the
advantage is you get a USB port that's much more easily accessible right on top
of your desk. All right, let's talk gaming mice. When you look at gaming mice you'll
also hear about switches like to do with keyboards. In the case of mice switches
we're referring to the mechanism that actually clicks when you press the
button down on the mouse. There are a few popular brand names when it comes to
mouse switches, like Omron for example, and you'll usually hear that they're
rated for something like 50 million clicks. That means that the switch is
designed to last a long long time, probably longer than the average gamer
would ever use a mouse. The other major bit of tech you'll hear
about with gaming mice is the sensor, and that refers to the way that the mouse
tracks movement across your desk surface or mouse pad. Mouse sensors are typically
rated in DPI which stands for dots per inch. With higher ratings indicating a
sensors capable of greater sensitivity. Like a lot of things with gaming
peripherals the extreme measurements you'll see in some products are likely
only going to be relevant to extreme gamers. It's unlikely that an average PC
gamer needs a mouse with a sensor capable of 18,000 DPI for example, but if
you're a professional eSports sniper, then you might care about the more
extreme DPI sensitivity settings available. Most modern mice have either
optical or laser sensors which refers to the kind of light they emit from the
bottom to track movement across the surface. Laser mice can have a bad
reputation among gamers because they can have problems with acceleration when
moving rapidly, but if you get a mouse with a high enough polling rate - which
refers to how often the mouse registers its position as you move it - then
acceleration shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Laser mice can perform better on certain surfaces like glass, but for most people
most of the time you're probably gonna want an optical mouse for PC gaming. One
last thing we'll say about mice - and this can apply to keyboards or gaming
headsets too - a braided cable refers to the thicker reinforced type of cable
that you can often find on higher-end peripherals. This is in contrast to a
regular plastic cable, the kind of thing you probably have on your phone charger.
A braided cable is sturdier and can last longer under wear and tear, though they
don't provide quite the same flexibility to twisting in extreme angles as non
braided cables can. All right, last but not least let's move on to one of my
favorite topics - gaming headsets. Now many PC gaming headsets you can get will also
work with consoles or really any device that has a headphone jack if that's the
connection they use, but there are also many that are run through USB not a 3.5
millimeter jack and those tend to be PC only, only if you have limited support
for consoles like the PlayStation 4. Headsets come in a few different styles
including over-ear, that's circumaural, versus on-ear, that's supra-aural. Many
gaming headsets are over-ear which can be better for long term comfort and can
sound better and more realistic because of the larger ear cups creating a more
natural sound environment. On-ear headsets can be cheaper and lighter and
so those can also be a bit more portable. Depending on the headband type an
on-ear might also help you block noise in your environment if that's a concern
by being a bit more clampy to this of your head, but that might also affect
long-term comfort. Another term you'll see a lot with gaming headsets virtual
surround sound. Now most people know what actual surround sound is, whether it's a
5.1 setup with 5 speakers and one subwoofer or 7.1 that ups it to 7
speakers, there are some headsets that have actual true surround sound with
multiple distinct drivers built into the ear cups of the headset mapped to an
accurate surround sound configuration, but these tend to be expensive. Virtual
surround sound is cheaper to include in a headset than actual surround sound, and
it can actually have some other advantages too. Because it's based on
algorithms that distort and delay sound waves so that they seem to be coming
from further away or from specific angles many virtual surround sound
headsets are actually pretty customizable with a variety of settings
that can be tweaked to give you the best experience for different games or if
you're just watching a movie. A lot of audio purists will scoff at virtual
surround sound as not being "real", but as a counter-argument, nothing else in the
games you're playing is actually real either. Right? You're watching a virtual
spaceship fly around in virtual space and listening to sound in relation to
your virtual avatar. Maybe it's OK that your surround sound is virtual too. Not
to mention that some of these headsets can provide a tactical advantage too with
this virtual stereo landscape harder positioning virtual sound effects in
space around you. Of course there's a lot more we could cover about gaming
keyboards, mice, and headsets, but we're gonna kick it over to you in the
comments. Chime in with your best advice for new PC gamers and let us know what
your favorite gaming peripherals are. And you can visit the links right below this
video to head over to Newegg and check out the keyboards, mice, and headsets that
are on sale right now. As always thanks so much for watching, for sharing these
videos, and subscribing to the channel. For Newegg Studios, I'm Juan Carlos Bagnell
and I'll catch y'all on the next video.