ET's Info-Stew

Okay, so a gaming accessory is not necessarily a required component of my new system. But, it is something that I can use now, so I went out and bought a Belkin n52te Gaming Keypad. I've tried it out only briefly, but I can already tell that it is going to be a lot easier to use and more comfortable than my laptop keyboard.

In FPS games, I shoot with my left thumb. Most people use the left mouse button on a right-handed mouse for this. I found I can't do that because my hand tenses up in a fire-fight, and I lose mobility. I've been using the left Alt button on my laptop keyboard, and the awkward hand position starts to make my hand hurt after a bit. With this new gamepad, I've mapped one of the d-pad buttons to be the fire button, and it looks like it will work just fine.

In CODWaW, most of the rifles are semi-automatic, which means you have to pull the trigger once for each round fired. The gaming pad comes with software that will allow you to set macros and repeat key presses, which would effectively make the semi-automatic a slow automatic. However, I wasn't able to get this to work how I wanted. The firing was great when standing still, but firing wasn't consistent when other keys were pressed. Maybe they'll eventually fix this, but for now I'll keep my semi-autos semi.