1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,440 RGB lighting has gone from a niche gimmick to, well, it's still a gimmick, but now it's an 2 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:10,400 incredibly common way to customize your PC. But even though we're just talking about flashing 3 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:16,400 colored lights, they're surprisingly annoying to control. Look at all these different RGB ecosystems, 4 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:22,400 each with their own app, and many of them are notoriously buggy and not particularly user-friendly. 5 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:27,200 And even if you've become an expert in how to use the five different RGB apps you have installed 6 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:32,960 on your one system, it's undoubtedly inconvenient to have to tweak settings in all of them 7 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:37,040 whenever you want to change your PC's overall look. Although there have been other attempts 8 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:42,560 to deal with this problem, such as Signal RGB, Microsoft is trying to integrate its own solution 9 00:00:42,560 --> 00:00:47,600 directly into Windows through a feature called Dynamic Lighting, which popped up in Windows 11 10 00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:54,000 in late 2023. Instead of having separate apps, you can control all of the RGB in your computer 11 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:59,120 through Windows settings. Although sticking a bunch of RGB LEDs in gaming peripherals has been 12 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:04,320 pretty popular for around a decade now, the technology took time to grow in terms of both 13 00:01:04,320 --> 00:01:09,680 product offerings and penetrating the market enough to hit the mainstream and not just be a 14 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:15,200 niche feature for enthusiasts. But now, a good amount of people, including those without high-end 15 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:21,120 setups, have multiple RGB components, so it makes sense that an easier-to-use, unified solution 16 00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:25,920 is now popping up. Windows is taking these disparate RGB products from different companies 17 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:31,920 and putting them under the same proverbial roof, using a standard called HID Lamp Array. 18 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:37,840 So at the heart of Dynamic Lighting is an open standard called HID Lamp Array, which is itself 19 00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:44,080 part of the USB specification. HID Lamp Array provides a variety of options to address each 20 00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:50,080 LED individually, which should allow similar customizability to the various proprietary apps. 21 00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:54,720 And indeed, you can see that Dynamic Lighting provides various effects on its page 22 00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:59,600 in the settings menu. Dynamic Lighting can also respect overrides from other programs on your 23 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:04,800 computer, notably games that sync with your RGB lights depending on what exactly is happening 24 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:08,800 during gameplay. To enable this, you just have to tick the slider that says, 25 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:13,360 Compatible apps in the foreground always control lighting. If it's not working for you, 26 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:19,440 however, you might have RGB hardware that doesn't support Lamp Array. To use Dynamic Lighting, 27 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:25,760 RGB devices have to either support it in their firmware or throw a special driver called a VHF 28 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:30,640 driver. But here's the good news, Microsoft is already working with a good number of RGB device 29 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:37,440 manufacturers, including Razer, ASUS, HyperX, SteelSeries, HP, Logitech, MSI, ADATA, and NZXT, 30 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:42,320 to promote broad support for the standard. There are already some laptops, keyboards, 31 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:47,120 and mice that support Dynamic Lighting, but more products should be following, especially as Dynamic 32 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:52,480 Lighting is intended to provide benefits for manufacturers as well as users. Instead of having 33 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:57,840 to write software or proprietary firmware on their own, brands can instead just take advantage of the 34 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:03,920 Lamp Array standard, leaving them free to instead focus on making the actual hardware better or 35 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:08,400 more innovative. And let's face it, it's not like they were doing a great job with their own software 36 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:14,160 to begin with. Ooh, sick bird. Dynamic Lighting also makes it much easier to have all the RGB in 37 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:18,800 your system sync up in terms of color and effects, even if you've got parts from several different 38 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:24,960 brands. Unfortunately, hardware manufacturers still use different kinds of LEDs that reproduce 39 00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:30,800 colors differently, so it can't alleviate that annoying effect where white looks yellow on your 40 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:36,080 fans, but looks purple on your RAM sticks. Here's us crossing our fingers that over time, 41 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:41,680 greater mixing and matching of RGB parts from different brands, which Dynamic Lighting incentivizes, 42 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:48,640 pushes manufacturers to make their LEDs look the same as well. Please. Please. Hey, that was a tech 43 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:52,320 quickie. Thanks for watching. Like the video if you liked it. Dislike it if you dislike it. 44 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:55,840 Check out this video on the best Windows 11 settings to tweak for gaming. 45 00:03:56,640 --> 00:03:59,760 And comment below with video suggestions. Don't forget to subscribe and follow though. 46 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:02,320 Gamers, am I right?