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[SOFTWARE MOD] Backlight Controller with LightFX


savvas

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I have been a beta tester since the beginning and I can say this work is awesome! They have been improving it and great things are to still come. I just can't say enough thanks to this community. I am glad I invested on this machine and you guys are that talentous. Cheers

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Alright, I can test now, awesome!

First, specs: P150EM/NP9150, with AMD 7970M and Intel HD 4000 Graphics...

Now, thoughts...

Pros: I like the replacement of the old version, very nice... The graphical interface is easy to follow, after a slight learning curve... Much better than a dialog box. All of the basic, and sound, effects work out of the box...

Not Pros: Maybe it's the high resolution of the screen, but the screen, especially the bottom left, is very cramped. So much so, it overlaps some of the interface (pic included). This only happened once, but the on-screen keyboard colors didn't match the actual backlit keyboard ones. Not a big deal, but I'll try to reproduce and report more on that after some more time with it! Admin Privileges are still needed for a lot of the functions, which launching through the built in "start with windows" setting doesn't provide. Of course you can change the program itself to always run as admin through the control dialog, but that's slightly a pain/nuisance... I don't know if there is anything to do about that, though, I did find a workaround temporarily, which launches the program through Task Scheduler, instead of the built in screen... My 7970M information is loaded once initialized (started a game, etc), in GPU 1, but my Intel card doesn't show anything ever, in the GPU 2 option... Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know...

Personal Suggestions: Although I understand why the 'side' would be black when the 7970M isn't active, for utilization %, (aka it being '0'/the iGPU), but could there be a way to set it do be either blue, like 1-whatever percent, or one of our choosing?! That would be really awesome...

This is just my initial finds, I'll email/PM you guys other thoughts/impressions/bugs that I find as they come up! Thanks again for coming up with, and working on, this! We are all very appreciative...

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Alright, I can test now, awesome!

First, specs: P150EM/NP9150, with AMD 7970M and Intel HD 4000 Graphics...

Now, thoughts...

Pros: I like the replacement of the old version, very nice... The graphical interface is easy to follow, after a slight learning curve... Much better than a dialog box. All of the basic, and sound, effects work out of the box...

Not Pros: Maybe it's the high resolution of the screen, but the screen, especially the bottom left, is very cramped. So much so, it overlaps some of the interface (pic included). This only happened once, but the on-screen keyboard colors didn't match the actual backlit keyboard ones. Not a big deal, but I'll try to reproduce and report more on that after some more time with it! Admin Privileges are still needed for a lot of the functions, which launching through the built in "start with windows" setting doesn't provide. Of course you can change the program itself to always run as admin through the control dialog, but that's slightly a pain/nuisance... I don't know if there is anything to do about that, though, I did find a workaround temporarily, which launches the program through Task Scheduler, instead of the built in screen... My 7970M information is loaded once initialized (started a game, etc), in GPU 1, but my Intel card doesn't show anything ever, in the GPU 2 option... Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know...

Personal Suggestions: Although I understand why the 'side' would be black when the 7970M isn't active, for utilization %, (aka it being '0'/the iGPU), but could there be a way to set it do be either blue, like 1-whatever percent, or one of our choosing?! That would be really awesome...

This is just my initial finds, I'll email/PM you guys other thoughts/impressions/bugs that I find as they come up! Thanks again for coming up with, and working on, this! We are all very appreciative...

thank you for your input. we are discussing the changes for the next version and your input is valuable.

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I have only come to this site to download the file, I have obviously made and account but it says I do not have access to the file. Do I need a certain number of posts in order to download?

yeah you need 5 posts

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First - thanks for working on this app. I love the functionality it provides with respect to temperature and gpu utilization. So here is my feedback and items that I noticed:

1. During the first wave of the keyboard modification app, pizzadude had a function that would change the center color of the keyboard based on whether the igp or gpu was operating. This was nice vs the gpu utilization feature but this is a small thing.

2. On the utilization feature, it would be nice if the gpu is at 0% the color was something other than black. Having some back light is better than none.

3. On occasion in Win 8, the minimize function would not minimize to tray but to a small rectangle (title only) in the lower left hand corner. Not reliably reproducable.. I am working on seeing what conditions would cause this.

4. A big one for myself - Haswell support for IGP and CPU temp polling.

5. Polling would cause 3dmark 11 to crash on an unspecified error with stock Sager Nvidia drivers 311.27. This happened about 30 - 40% of the time with no specific conditions besides both programs running. - this issue was resolved with the new WHQL drivers just released.

6. Is it possible to open the configuration screen in a window vice going full screen or is that pretty much hardcoded with the hotkey app? Just curious.

7. If possible, could the app be set up to automatically disable polling with an "exit" color choice when the laptop is removed to battery and then resume when plugged in? Might be difficult to program that all in and the return might not be worth it. i.e - if going on battery - shut the program down lazy person :)

Most of the above are minor things. I think the Haswell detection is the biggest thing I noted. It cuts the functionality pretty much by 2/3rds for those with the newer models. I want to reiterate this is an awesome start and I appreciate this a lot. I will make this post in the notebook review forums so you all can get more feedback. Thanks again for this app and for your time!

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So, I like this software and the way it work. I noticed on the audio effect, when there is no sound : the color and the luminosity stay like it was at "the last beat". Sometimes it turn off the backlight and I have to put another effect or wait for another sound. If you can, it will be nice when there is no sound that the color and the luminosity revert back to something that we have chosen before (like the settings for the custom effect for example). But it's great, nice work !

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New options are great! I noticed CPU utilization is now working for haswells. Ran a benchmark just to test things out. Had CPU utilization on the left side, GPU utilization in the middle, and GPU temp on the right. The keyboard lit up like a disco ball during the bench. The UI looks much more clean and intuitive. Setting temp colors is perfect - lets me know if I am really really pushing the computer by making red actually showing "red-line".

I am not a huge fan for bling just for blings sake but you turned a fairly meh feature of "look at me!" into a very useful tool. I can see using this under normal circumstances as being important as I use my computer in a fairly "dusty" environment (pets) and this could help day to day monitoring of potential clogging of the heatsinks over time. I had overtemp issues on my macbook pro and it turned out dust bunnies moved in. This app could assist in monitoring for cooling degradation over time without having to watch past graphs from previous months.

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Just found this, so am asking; can this replace the original light controller completely?

yes. it's a complete replacement.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd be willing to help.. within reason :D

you got a PM

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