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Uzair Shabir

At Tech4Gamers, I’m a Senior Error Fix Writer specializing in troubleshooting problems. Each article results from deep research, testing fixes and providing solutions.

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With handhelds competing with one another to push their limits by having beefier specifications so they could run the most demanding games easily, remote play is a feature that still remains very overlooked, despite still being exceptional. 

Sure, the better-performing handhelds are gradually making their way to the top, where they can handle the AAA games without any low framerates, but they still can’t manage to run them at the highest settings. This is where remote play still shines, to this day.

Why You Should Consider Remote Play 

The concept of remote play is to stream your game through your gaming PC at home, with the availability of a fast internet connection. This means you could carry a mind-range handheld and stream all the games from your home setup. 

Hardware Limitations = No Problem

People crave playing games like God of War, Cyberpunk 2077, and Black Myth Wukong from the comfort of their couch or on the go on a handheld, but the hardware aspect of their device usually limits them. Remote play makes this possible. This is perfect for the Steam Deck, which can no longer run recent AAA games.  

Better Battery Life 

The best part about is that you don’t have to worry about the battery life. One of the most common issues about handhelds is that it drains the battery quickly. During remote play, since your device isn’t rendering any or processing the game locally, power draw is drastically lower. 

Your handheld is only displaying the output, much like watching a YouTube video, which barely consumes any battery if you compare it with playing games on it natively.

Cooler Temps & Less Fan Noise

Since the game isn’t being processed, it also means there won’t be any heating issues or fan noise either. With this, you can finally play your favourite games by having true portability that a handheld is intended for. 

120Hz Now Works

While Remote Play is great on all handhelds, it looks outstanding on the Steam Deck because it uses an OLED panel. If you’re more prone to higher refresh rates, then you would enjoy it on the ROG Ally X, which has a 120Hz display. With remote play, you can finally access this higher refresh rate since you’d be getting over 120 FPS. 

Thousands Of Games In A Single Click

Another great aspect about remote play is the ability to access your game library instantly. Since your handheld is streaming all the games from your main computer, you don’t have to download all the games again.

This is crucial since games’ size are ballooning each year with some games reaching over 100GB in file size. It means that you can bypass the storage limitations of your handheld and even cling to cheaper devices that come with 64GB or 128GB internal memory.

Latency Is An Issue Of The Past

Latency is usually a concern for most people regarding remote play, but with the advancement in technology, it isn’t an issue anymore. Mesh networks and the use of WIFI 7 allow you to stream on your handheld without interruptions or delays.   

If You’re Planning On Buying A Handheld…

Suppose you don’t have a handheld and are looking to buy one. In that case, the best course of action is not to splurge money on it; instead, get a decently priced handheld like the Steam Deck.

You could even get a controller that hooks up to your phone or tablet, like the Razer Kishi. Then invest in a stronger internet connection or a better gaming PC if you don’t have one to use remote play effortlessly.

Does The Future Rely On Remote Play?

With how powerful remote play is, it is no wonder that Sony is building a handheld dedicated only to remote play. This means that they’d focus more on the design, comfort and the battery life and not obsess over the hardware of it.

If that’s what they decide to do, it might also be cheaper than other handhelds, even cheaper than the Steam Deck, which would make it an ideal handheld for the masses, and they could dominate this market. But we’ll see 

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Shehryar Khan

Senior Editor and Content Writer:

• Lead the comparison and blog writing teams at Tech4Gamers.
• Oversee teams with a keen eye for detail and precision.
• Ensure hands-on writing, with benchmarks and testing as guiding principles.
• Guarantee the delivery of the best possible results in concise yet impactful tech tales.

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Hall effect keyboards have become quite popular, and it seems like the pro players are switching to them. With its features, it is reasonable to say that it surely gives you an unfair advantage over players who use standard keyboards. Let’s see why that’s the case.

How The Hall Effect Keyboards Give You An Advantage

Wooting has popularized the Hall effect keyboards, and surprisingly, they aren’t just a marketing gimmick because the way they operate is what makes them better than other keyboards. 

How Does It Work?

Hall-effect switches have a magnet placed at the bottom and a sensor at the bottom that detects how far the magnet is from it. When the magnet is pressed, the sensors register it, no matter how far the key is pressed.

Low Actuation Point

It offers extremely precise and low-actuation keys. Simply making contact with your fingertip with the key will register as input from you. This is because its actuation point is as low as 0.1mm. In games, this equates to extremely fast strafing and movements. 

You can also adjust the actuation point for each key using a dedicated software. Since 0.1mm is a bit too responsive, many people prefer to keep 0.1mm for the movement keys and around 0.4mm or above for other keys. However, you should play with the settings to see what naturally suits you. 

Compare this with a mechanical keyboard, where the actuation point is more than 0.9mm. So if you lightly tap on a key above the point of actuation, you’ll find that there’s a dead space, and you mostly have to train yourself to always press beyond this point to register a key as an input. 

No Learning Curve If You Switch

The hall effect keys, in contrast, are more intuitive, and there is almost zero learning curve because they respond to your inputs. This means that if you’re with a standard keyboard and play against someone with a hall effect one, they have a clear advantage over you since they can move quicker if we take all the other factors as constant. 

Rapid Trigger

Not only that, but the rapid trigger has become common, all thanks to these Hall Effect magnetic keyboards. While the low actuation point is related to how the key is pressed, the rapid trigger has everything to do with how you release the keys.

After pressing a key on a typical mechanical keyboard, the key won’t register until you fully release it. However, in a Hall effect keyboard, as soon as the key goes upwards, the key is registered as released. 

This means you don’t have to release it fully, which buys you a few extra milli seconds that are crucial in competitive games. It also means that you can press the key back again from the same point where it’s released to register another key.

Best For Counter-Stripping 

Apart from that, this also allows you to be almost perfect at counter-strafing in games. On a mechanical keyboard, you have to press the key at a certain point, then release it until it reaches a certain point, and most people mess this up, especially in intense gameplay situations. 

Hall effect keyboards eliminate this mismatch, so you can focus on your aim instead of perfecting your keyboard movements. It’s almost like you’re cheating if you think about it.

More Keystrokes

This way, you can get more input from a Hall Effect magnetic keyboard compared to a standard mechanical keyboard. The result is apparent if you repeatedly stroke keys on both keyboards.

Which Hall Effect Keyboard Should You Get?

With the hype of these keyboards, especially from Wooting, many brands have rushed to make their version of Hall Effect keyboards, with Epomaker HE68 being a great budget option.

While you might be tempted to get any Hall Effect keyboard, it is worth noting that not all have the best customization and ability to deliver the best results. Many have only replicated the concept but lacked in software customization.

Some even have issues with the low actuation point, despite claiming to have a minimum actuation point of 0.1mm, the key isn’t registered with a light tap. This is why you should stick to bigger brands. like Wooting and Kechron as they provide the best results in all aspects. 

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Shehryar Khan

Senior Editor and Content Writer:

• Lead the comparison and blog writing teams at Tech4Gamers.
• Oversee teams with a keen eye for detail and precision.
• Ensure hands-on writing, with benchmarks and testing as guiding principles.
• Guarantee the delivery of the best possible results in concise yet impactful tech tales.

See full bio

Aftermarket controllers are becoming more mainstream than ever. First, they were only used by pro players or streamers, but then they became a go-to choice for almost everyone, even for PC players. Let’s see why this is the case and whether you should get one.

Unfair Advantages Of Aftermarket Controllers

If you take a look at most aftermarket controllers, one thing that stands out is that they’re different. These offer some of the features that give you an unfair advantage when you compare them with standard controllers. 

Extra buttons

One of the most prominent features of these controllers is the extra buttons. Most of the controllers typically have these buttons on the backside, and for some of the older SCUF controllers, you had extra paddles instead of buttons. 

These extra buttons come in handy, especially in games where you need to press so many buttons at quick intervals or altogether. Fortnite’s build mode is one prime example of how quickly you need to be pressing a lot of buttons to lay out and edit your builds, all the while shooting your enemies.

This also allows you to not resort to the claw grip on the standard controller due to the lack of buttons. Even on the games that don’t require you to press numerous buttons, such as racing games, these extra buttons at the back allow you to drive comfortably without lifting your thumbs off the joystick.

Not Your Ordinary Joystick

Speaking of joysticks, many of the aftermarket controllers come with adjustable tension. It is like manually adjusting how slow or fast you want each of your sticks to be either from a software or manually by screwing a level like in the Flydegi Apex 4.

This is highly effective, especially in competitive games where you want your camera movements to be precise, so you can only adjust the right stick and leave the left one as it is.

Apart from adjustable tensions, some of these aftermarket controllers, such as the GameSir Cyclone 2, come with extremely precise hall effect sticks. When testing them on the gamepad tester, they give almost negligible average error, which is insane.

To put it into perspective, that means you’re getting extremely accurate aim right off the bat and if you switch from a normal controller to this one, you’ll automatically feel the difference before you even readjust your settings.

Hall Effect Adjustable Triggers

Like joysticks, these controllers’ triggers are also curated to bring the best out of your game. Much like the sticks, most aftermarket controllers also use Hall effect triggers, which are adjustable from the software. Some controllers, such as the GuliKit KK3 Max, also have a trigger lock that can be manually set on the controller. 

So you can adjust at which point the trigger needs to be activated, which, based on your style, gives you the precise response you expect. This eliminates any delay and gives you the precision you need to dominate in competitive games.  

Some of these controllers, such as the SCUF Envision, also come with mouse-click instant triggers, which mimic the clicky sound of a mouse. This makes the triggers as responsive as possible because the standard triggers feel slow and heavy for most gamers. 

Price Points

While most aftermarket controllers are expensive than standard ones, there are a few budget options, such as the GameSir Cyclone 2, which comes with hall effect sticks, a 1000Hz polling rate, RGB lighting, and fully customizable software for only $55. This is almost cheaper than the standard Xbox controller.   

Should You Make The Switch?

If you think you don’t have control over your aim or movements from your standard controller, switching to an aftermarket controller would feel like an awakening, which is why you should try it out.