Software

For the software on the Strafe Corsair uses a program called Corsair Utility Engine or as they like to call it CUE. Cue is a lot like the software from the other big name peripheral companies in that it goes beyond just one product. What I mean by that is the same program works with most of their keyboard line as well as most of their gaming mice, and their new Void gaming headsets as well. Cue integrates them all down along the bottom of the software just like Logitech and Razer with small pictures and the name of the device, then you can select what you would like to work with.

In the case of the Strafe RGB our home page is actually the assignments page where we can click on any key and assign a function to it. The home page is also where we can flip to the lighting and performance pages. All three keep the same photo of the Strafe. In the case of the lighting page you can click on each key individually and set the color of that key. The lighting page also has a brightness setting that you can use to turn the lighting own if you would like or you can dig into the effects listing to just an effect and just let it run. A lot of the effects have their own individual settings pages as well to set the colors the role through for example. I will show off a few of the different lighting effects later in the performance section. The performance tab is where we can turn off things like the windows key, alt+tab, alt+f4, and shift+tab. These are all things that can pull you out of game, personally I use alt + tab all of the time so disabling it would cause to many issues, but it’s good to know it’s an option.

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The second set of tabs up top let us dive into more complex settings. Specifically, on the actions tab you can create macros and shortcuts to use back on the home page for key settings. You have the option to input and export settings that you make as well.

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The most important, and most likely the only page you might spend any real time in on the top settings tab is the lighting tab. Here you can actually create your own lighting effects from the ground up. Once you make them you can jump back over to the normal lighting page and set them to run on the strafe or you can export them and upload them right on Corsairs RGB share page. That same page lets you download effects from other people as well. Seeing as the lighting effects options basically made or break an RGB keyboard it’s great to see that you basically have unlimited options with the Strafe.

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The settings tab is exactly what you would expect. Here you can turn off Cue booting at startup if you want and get into on screen display settings. You can also turn of and off support for media players for when you combine use with your void headset to have audio based lighting effects.

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All in all the software for the strafe has all of the options you need. I was especially impressed with the ability to create or download and import full RGB lighting effects. Really my only complaint with the software would be in the layout of the menu options. The top tabs imply they are the most important so when I went change the lighting on the Strafe I ended up on the page to fully program your own animations. Really the three important tabs are all on the profiles page. I feel like they should rearrange that to put the page’s people want up top and then add the actions and lighting programing pages to those as advanced options. Everything is there, just make it a little easier to find for someone who has never used the software before.

 

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #37583 23 Jan 2016 14:20
Well a day later than I had originally planned but today I check out the Corsair Strafe with the new Cherry MX Silent switches. If you do nothing else you should at least see the different in the video on the performance page. Have a good weekend everyone!

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