Back in the day, I knew what I would get from ASUS and their AURA tech. Pretty simple, just choose what you want and go. My LEDs did what I wanted, it was simple. But no… no they said. Instead we want you to download most of a gig of bullshit to do the same thing, but with extra fucking steps.
I’m pretty sure my light controlling software is now tracking me. I’m not sure if the pattern of my LEDs are watching me or not.
How the shit did we let this come to pass? Why do we let these monstrosities into our life?
I’m part of the problem, I know. I just want my lights to do what I tell them to.
What annoys me about all this LED crap is that I have to download whatever companies shitty software to disable that shit. IMO all lights should be off entirely unless you install a program to switch them on.
But I can definitely agree that the software is also shitty.
This is why I bought a mobo with BIOS level RGB. Can disable that shit at the lowest level possible. Still comes on if you clear cmos/the battery dies, but that seldom happens anyways. I still would prefer it not have rgb in the first place though.
RGB software is such garbage. Aura sucks, Synapse sucks, iCue sucks, Polychrome really really really sucks, RGB Fusion sucks, they’re all bloated garbage designed to lock you into an ecosystem and produced by the lowest tier of programmers around apparently as they are unstable and usually incredibly bloated messes.
This nonsense is why I started working on what eventually became OpenRGB.
Great piece of code
Oh lol, I thought I recognized the username. Nice work on OpenRGB! I used it for a couple years, but now my desktop has since been converted into a server chassis, so I’ve killed off all of the lighting.
Still runs great on my girlfriend’s desktop though!
I’m a total OpenRGB noob and just wanted to know of there’s an easy way from Linux to detect the number of LEDs in a device? I only recently wiped my Win11 install and Synapse would tell me how many each had, but I’m struggling at guessing in OpenRGB.
Also, is it possible to edit the colors used in the spectrum effect?
Thanks for the work you’ve put into this, I completely agree that all these systems are garbage, and in so over their bullshit.
Just start at 1, set color, keep incrementing until the last LED in the string doesn’t control anything
openrgb worked great for me. it is available for all OS
The latest two or so versions of OpenRGB have been great. Pretty much all of my RGB is supported in my machine.
Hadn’t heard of that, will look into it. Thanks!
I wasn’t able to get that to place nice with all my RGB garbage. Really great idea though. Wish manufacturers would just lean into it.
it quite easy to add new hw if you got any programming experience
Define “quite easy?” I’d gladly contribute if it’s straight forward, but I’m personally not really interested in learning how to reverse engineering hw vendor shitware or learning i2c communications in C++.
nah most things are i2c based and there is nifty sniffer on their wiki. even with just dumps of your device and its native software, you can help
I’ll take a look, thanks for the tip.
I yearn for the day when this lighting fad dies…my case has no plexiglass yet my ram motherboard and video card has lights…I’m surprised Intel doesn’t have LEDs on their processors yet …
You might be waiting a long time because people were already jamming cold cathode tubes into their PCs 25 years ago before LEDs got popular.
Back when Voodoo cards were popular my local computer store was selling acrylic window conversion kits where you’d need a Dremel to install it, with a rubber gasket, cold cathode and driver. In like, 1999. We’ve been doing this for a while.
Haha I remember those days. Every super hardcore case modding nerd was taking a Dremel to their side panels for more fan space and places for windows. They all used those old school fan grilles screwed onto the outside.
My case is steel and glass but I feel you.
they’ve got lighting on some stock hsf now, so just give 'em time…
I dream that someday there will be a simple piece of OSS that can control all this RGB crap. We’ve very nearly arrived at a single universal RGB header (not quite, but it’s down to 2 major common ones, and one of two oddball proprietary one offs), but the software side of things is still an absolute clusterfuck. At least in the embedded space there’s only a couple standard control protocols.
I use OpenRGB to manage the msi mobo, corsair mouse, reddragon keyboard, and my reference amd gpu. Works pretty flawlessly. There is a comprehensive compatibility list for hardware to look at.
Please do read carefully on the hcl though. Previously the software in older versions was damaging the rgb controllers on some msi boards a few years back. It has since been resolved, but I’m not sure if there are any other possibly incompatible hardwares out there.
I’d second OpenRGB. Works fine with all the stuff I have and has a low footprint and overhead. At least lower than all those other monsters. Would never install a GB of crap just for silly blinking lights.
I think i read that Windows update 22h2 introduces native RGB lighting controls? I don’t know what the limits are, is it only motherboard direct connections like case fans etc? But perhaps they are working with (or against) hardware manufacturers to take rgb control of peripherals as well, idk.
Edit ew it’s windows 11 not 10
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-11-rgb-software-finally-here
Microsoft announced native RGB controls for Windows 11 back in May during its annual developer conference. Since then, Microsoft’s RGB software has been in beta testing with Microsoft Insiders, but apparently, it is now in a mature enough state for everyone to use.
Microsoft’s new RGB control software aims to revolutionize the RGB software industry, potentially killing off dozens of 3rd party RGB software variants. With a proper RGB control solution now integrated into Windows 11, we could be on the verge of a completely unified RGB software experience, across multiple RGB manufacturers, which is something we’ve never seen before.
Currently, if you want to control all RGB devices from one control panel, you need to buy all of your RGB devices from a single manufacturer or invest in third party RGB software like SignalRGB that can control devices from multiple manufacturers. The problem with 3rd part manufacturers is that they don’t get official support like native RGB control software does, which can lead to bugs and issues.
With Windows 11’s control software, that could change. Now manufacturers will be incentivized to focus on supporting Microsoft’s new RGB software.
Another edit: i think Asus is making it a pain intentionally so people will buy another device. Classic anti consumer tactics. Stay classy asus:
dedicated rgb lighting controller hub: https://rog.asus.com/us/armoury-crate/
Its still Windows. Even with RGB lipstick, it’s still a pig.
When I can use Linux to perform my required functions without sacrificing output quality and without taking 5x as long, I’ll gladly switch. But that won’t happen because the professional tools I use are made by companies who benefit from requiring users to retain an insecure operating system so they can pump as much data out of us as possible.
Edit: sorry to the person whose feelings were so butthurt they had to downvote my truths.
Have you tried OpenRGB?
I had really mixed results with NZXT, Asus lights (mobo), whatever the fuck EK uses, and Glorious LEDs.
OpenRGB found half, turned off some, and only allowed me to change some of the colors. In the end, I uninstalled OpenRGB and a bunch of other software and now everything is a permanent white, which is fine.
Its actually worse than that. Their fucking software doesnt work. I had to use the button on the case to have any control over the rgb.
I haven’t had that problem but I would like to know more.
I wish that crap could be customized in the bios and not need software unless you want to change stuff through the desktop OS. I stopped messing with RGB stuff and went to rainbow barf due to not wanting to deal with the software. Next build will be no RGB.
Asusctl on linux works great!
I get you. I have run various distros for over 20 years but I am old and tired and I don’t want to engage with a cli again unless it ends with a t.
I find it far less tiring than navigating frustrating UIs. Modern GUI programs are in the most part awfully designed, slow and ugly.
For most things, and specially tasks like configurations, I prefer to copy paste a command and be done with it.
Asusctl itself provides a GUI called rog-control-center, but I understand you mean cli user across linux itself
FYI with ASUS AURA if you don’t care about special effects or whatever you can set a static color or I think a basic rainbow or turn lights off entirely via the BIOS settings. No need for crapware.
Sort of. While their crapware can reliably control all the LEDs in your system, I’ve found that the options in the BIOS only reliably control the actual motherboard. E.G. I’ve got mine setup to just turn all the LEDs off, but the RAM and GPU still default to a rainbow pattern. If I install their crapware and choose off as the mode everything turns off, not just the motherboard.
It controls the mainboard and everything connected to ASUS AURA RGB headers. Your RAM and GPU likely use a different (non-)standard.
Sure, but my point was the ASUS crapware seems to be able to control the RAM and GPU, while the ASUS BIOS doesn’t. It would be nice if you could get equivalent functionality from both, but I guess supporting the various different schemes in the BIOS is asking too much from such limited storage space. I installed OpenRGB as I hadn’t bothered to install the ASUS Aura software since my most recent reinstall and it seems to be able to handle everything on its own. Based on its output it looks like it’s using AMD SMBus to control the RAM and GPU, and the ASUS Aura USB driver for the motherboard, which is fascinating as AMD SMBus apparently exposes I2C devices, something I wasn’t aware it was capable of.
Also, iirc, you can set it once and uninstall the software and it should (or at least, used to, in 2020) be able to stay on whatever you last set it as. That’s how I got my pump to stay on just white.
Asrock app is trash too. Takes ages to start up and the UI is edgy-looking, wannabe ROG garbage. You can only control the motherboard RGB from the BIOS, so you can’t avoid ditching it if you want everything off on your RAM, etc. and of course the Kingston sticks default to godawful pulsing rainbow eye-cancer. I miss evga so much.
ASRock’s RGB is the worst of the worst, and even the best official RGB software is garbage. ASRock is many tiers of trash below them.
