iGrip Gaming / Dead Key Combos

[windexlight]

In beginning to use my Grip for controlling games, I noted certain key
combinations that weren't registering properly. Wanting to educate
myself as to the specific combos that might be a problem (so as to set
up my binds to minimize issues), I made use of a USB sniffer to do
some testing. I didn't test every possible combination, as that would
take forever, but rather I tested mainly combos involving the "D-
pad" (C, Y, K, L), since those are the keys that I see typically being
held in combination with other keys when playing the genres of games
that I play (World of Warcraft and FPS). These games require a D-pad
of some sort to be used for movement in conjunction with a mouse and
various hotkeys. Many hotkeys are used to trigger abilities/actions
that need to be usable while moving, so they cannot be assigned to
keys that won't trigger when holding down certain combinations of
movement keys. To that end, here's the list of keys that I found
would not register when holding the given combos:

C+Y: D, E, Q, A
Y+L: D, W, A, H
C+K: D, S, Q, M
K+L: S, W, M, H
Y+N: A
C+N: Q
K+N: S
L+N: W

This may be a little specific to my particular play style, but I think
it's quite common to use a D-pad (generally WASD on a QWERTY keyboard)
for moving forward/back, and strafing left/right. I've found (and
I've seen others mention) that the best analogue to WASD on the Grip
is CYKL. I use Y/K for forward/back, and C/L for strafe left/right.
I suspect some of the above conflicts could be alleviated by using
back keys for movement instead of CYKL, as I think the matrices on the
Grip are likely set up such that conflicts between back keys tend to
be combos that can't be held anyway due to the nature of the rocker
switches. Still, I feel like it would be a bit too weird to get used
to movement in a non-D-pad arrangement. I'm sure it could be done,
but the learning curve would be much steeper, and not really
advantageous in any way other than working around the conflicts. The
last four combos listed (with N) were tested because I've remapped T/N
to be my left/right mouse buttons while in-game, since it's not
possible to hit the regular mouse buttons in combination with CYKL.
Particularly in World of Warcraft, it's necessary to hold one of the
mouse buttons in order to move the camera, so the regular mouse
buttons just don't work.

So, it seems that the only keys suitable for mapping to actions that
need to be used while moving are those on the right-hand back side of
the Grip (with the exception that M/H are out, while G/R are in).
Another idiosyncrasy is that the Grip does not actually send the
regular (white) shift keys on their own. This is kind of a shame,
since it would be quite convenient to use shift as a modifier to
switch action bars in WoW.

Now that I know about these limitations, I can set up my mappings to
avoid these conflicts as much as possible. Perhaps the information
might help someone else. All in all, I find the Grip to be a very
good game controller. You have easier access to many more keys than
you do on a QWERTY keyboard, so particularly for games requiring a lot
of hotkeys, you're able to accomplish more in less time (at least once
you get used to your mappings). And, of course, being able to play
comfortably from the couch is a big plus.