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Run dual boot Mac Catalina and Win 10. Got a bunch of Razer shit from wife for Bday... super stoked. Big mat, mouse, keyboard.

Works like a charm on Win.

Works for fuck all on Mac. The app to manage device is no longer supported.

Went waaay down the rabbit hole trying to sniff the packets that were being sent to the devices via USB to sync their colors and patterns.

Finally give up that route.

I have now built a VM for windows to run synergy... then a VM for Linux for Polychomatic because the keyboard is older and not supported by synergy.

And I found if I boot them both then quit them both the settings for the peripherals stay until the next reboot.

But JFC... I literally have to boot three operating systems to pull it off.

Talk about some gift of the magi shit... I was so happy with the gift and at this point it has wasted dozens of hours.

Fuck fucking Razer. Looks cool. Doesn’t work.

Comments
  • 1
    Shit like this is why I stopped buying Razer. I've got some Chinese knockoff mouse that looks sort of like a Razer Naga but costs half as much and stores the entire config in onboard memory, so I don't even need to run the application unless I want to change a setting.
  • 2
    Lol I bought one of those redragon mice off amazon for like $20. Works a treat on my MBP 16 inch.
  • 1
    @kejojedi same thing I got. Redragon is pretty good. Honestly I'd even say that their build quality is a bit better than the last couple Razer mice I owned.
  • 3
    Why is it so difficult to open source drivers? Or at least document the APIs?
  • 2
    @Root They DO actually have really good support for their API. Which lets you create your own synchronized color effects. One can do a wave that "waves" across all their various Razer devices.

    Pretty cool.

    BUT, giant BUT,... the API depends on Synergy 3 to be running on your computer... and the fucks don't have a Mac version of Synergy 3. So the API is useless on Mac.

    And worse, the default behavior for their products is the "Color Spectrum"... so it rotates through all the colors. But every device does so separately, so it's just the mess of random RGB all over your desk.

    The amount this triggers my OCD is staggering.

    I've actually been digging through the source of Polychromatic. My intent is to figure out the god damn signals I have to send these peripherals for them to just change to solid fucking blue, and then pack that into some Mac startup script.

    I'd post it somewhere... but it will be specific to my 4 devices, so useless to most other people.

    /followuprant
  • 2
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi think @Root ment the lower level API of the mouse itself not the easy to use library. I fully agree with her. Razer should have some this.

    I hate the Windows app because I need to log in and it logs me out from time to time and than I wonder why the couch everything is so jumpy.
    In Linux no such issues.
    I do love my mouse though it's my second razer and have been using them for almost 20 years. So to me they are of great quality.
    To be fair Mac's/OS X are designed with incompatibility in mind.
  • 1
    @hjk101 oh yeah, I agree.

    I should add all the devices do work as mice or whatever...

    I can easily change the keyboard layout with various 3rd party or built in macOS utilities.

    So they all function. It’s just the inability to easily synchronize their RGB on Mac or Linux, or even just set them all to the same solid color, that’s maddening.
  • 1
    @HiFiWiFiSciFi I went with ducky for keyboard. Liked the design (and switches) better so fortunately do not have that experience.

    There is a tool on Linux (probably reverse engineered) to configure some razer specific stuff but haven't used it in a time razer made keyboards.
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