Microsoft to Standardize RGB Control within Windows 11 Settings

[btarunr]

Soon, you'll no longer have to juggle between several bloated apps to control the RGB lighting of your various peripherals from different brands. Microsoft is set to standardize RGB and aesthetic lighting control within Windows 11. Released as a near-future update to the operating system, the new "Lighting" control seamlessly blends within the Personalization settings, within the Settings app of Windows 11. The Lighting section lists out all your hardware with controllable lighting, be it single-color or RGB; and lets you adjust their brightness, colors, and lighting presets. You can also coordinate their color and lighting patterns to match Windows and its other apps (for example, as ambient lighting). The standardized RGB control should significantly reduce the memory usage compared to having various brand apps running in the background; as well as CPU utilization. Currently, the new Lighting settings can be found in the Windows Insider build 25295.



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[Xeanoa]

I think this is probably the best reason to switch to Windows 11 yet.

 

[Solaris17]

what? that would be awesome!

 

[Placeholder]

I can't believe this is the only reason I ever felt tempted to update to Windows 11.

 

[tabascosauz]

what? that would be awesome!

Talk about pleasant surprises!

Insider and first release builds of 11 were not so great. By the time windowed VRR and tabbed Explorer arrived there was already no way in hell I would take any of my current hardware back to Win 10.

If Windows is able to properly interact with G.skill RGB, that would just be the icing on the cake; currently nothing except G.skill's own utility can reliably control their sticks.

 

[Solaris17]

G.skill RGB

yes and the colors dont stick!

 

[Super Firm Tofu]

Talk about pleasant surprises!

Insider and first release builds of 11 were not so great. By the time windowed VRR and tabbed Explorer arrived there was already no way in hell I would take any of my current hardware back to Win 10.

If Windows is able to properly interact with G.skill RGB, that would just be the icing on the cake; currently nothing except G.skill's own utility can reliably control their sticks.

I had good luck with OpenRGB for my Trident Neos. Had it start at login, turn off the RGB, and then exit. Not sure about anything other than turning them off though.

That being said, if this works from MS, it'd open up more options as I won't buy anything that requires something running all the time to control.

 

[Camm]

Can someone convince Microsoft to add Fan Control as well and we might just never have to deal with another bordering on malware (looking at you ASUS) Motherboard control suite ever again.

 

[mama]

So when does this come into play on a standard update?

 

[Camm]

So when does this come into play on a standard update?

Insider build, might not make it to Main branch at all, but MS has moved to a 'Moment' schedule of updates with usually 3 in a year. I'd expect this either in March or August.

 

[Minus Infinity]

OMG you mean I can uninstall iCUE and Razer Ornata from my PC's. iCUE bloat is horrendous.

 

[Selaya]

openrgb exists. and even that isnt perfect.

you're mad to expect this to be like, more than a tenth as functional as openrgb will ever be.

 

[evernessince]

Talk about pleasant surprises!

Insider and first release builds of 11 were not so great. By the time windowed VRR and tabbed Explorer arrived there was already no way in hell I would take any of my current hardware back to Win 10.

If Windows is able to properly interact with G.skill RGB, that would just be the icing on the cake; currently nothing except G.skill's own utility can reliably control their sticks.

I mean, you have been able to get a tabbed explorer experience since windows 7 through QTTabbar, DO, or XYPlorer.

 

[tabascosauz]

I had good luck with OpenRGB for my Trident Neos. Had it start at login, turn off the RGB, and then exit. Not sure about anything other than turning them off though.

That being said, if this works from MS, it'd open up more options as I won't buy anything that requires something running all the time to control.

OpenRGB never liked either my CJR or Bdie Trident Z RGB kits. About half the time it would set only one stick out of the two. I revisited it a few times but nothing changed; at that point it would be no better than just using G.skill software and manually closing after boot. Pretty good for most other RGB devices though.

Ironically among 3rd party software Armoury Crate had the best luck with G.skill, but obviously not a viable option because it's Armoury Crate

Can someone convince Microsoft to add Fan Control as well and we might just never have to deal with another bordering on malware (looking at you ASUS) Motherboard control suite ever again.

If you have to use in-OS software you may as well just use FanControl. Or why not just set it in BIOS, Qfan is one of the better parts of the Asus BIOS. No PC should have to suffer the indignity of Armoury Crate

I mean, you have been able to get a tabbed explorer experience since windows 7 through QTTabbar, DO, or XYPlorer.

Does that really count? If we're relying on third party software then you can justify just about anything because you can find just about anything out there. I appreciate that those exist, but none of those options look anywhere close to seamless in the Explorer UI.

 

[trsttte]

openrgb exists. and even that isnt perfect.

you're mad to expect this to be like, more than a tenth as functional as openrgb will ever be.

There's reasons to be hopefull, openrgb depends on community support to reverse engineer and get things to work, microsoft can strike it's fist against the table and simply demand the protocol specs for the various rgb devices, no ifs or buts.

Not saying it will be perfect, but it will be something for sure

 

[matar]

I never would have thought windows 11 has anything to offer that i may consider it, now this makes me wanting to try it out. ( Just Try it ) and go back to windows 10

 

[Camm]

If you have to use in-OS software you may as well just use FanControl. Or why not just set it in BIOS, Qfan is one of the better parts of the Asus BIOS. No PC should have to suffer the indignity of Armoury Crate

FanControl requires elevation making it just another annoyance & Qfan doesn't support GPU temp, and isn't all that great with trying to do progressive speed / temp curves now that CPU's want to just hit max package temp and stay there.

 

[Jun]

OpenRGB worked well for me. Had some issues here and there but nothing critical. Always good to have options though, I hope MS pull it off.

 

[freeagent]

yes and the colors dont stick!

You can program them with OpenRGB

 

[Lycanwolfen]

Let me know when they fix the internal bugs first and all the issues with networking, Allowing control over what is installed and whats not. Also the huge memory leaks. I tell ya Windows 11 is the biggest memory leak OS I ever seen. My WIndows 10 Box boots up 2.1 GB in use and that with everything loaded antivirus and most of my normal everyday programs. WIndows 11 same config 7.5 GB of ram just to the desktop WTF.!

Also I hate Edge Because of two reason 1. its not microsoft is based on chrome. and Chromium engine. 2 its nothing but a advertising browser. Yes you can tame it which I do but I hate it trying to take over at any means. Microsoft is back to the old Windows 98 days when they got in trouble with third parties and the courts won. Now there right back to the same practices. They Never Learn!

 

[Chaitanya]

This would be polar opposite from time MS killed Hardware sound and welcomed by entire PC enthusiast community.

 

[Mussels]

Talk about pleasant surprises!

Insider and first release builds of 11 were not so great. By the time windowed VRR and tabbed Explorer arrived there was already no way in hell I would take any of my current hardware back to Win 10.

If Windows is able to properly interact with G.skill RGB, that would just be the icing on the cake; currently nothing except G.skill's own utility can reliably control their sticks.

OpenRGB can. Biggest problem is the UI confuses beginners, and because of their goal of keeping the program extremely simple and lightweight the extras are optional downloads rather than being included but disabled by default

 

[Terronium-12]

This is the first time I've ever been tempted to upgrade to 11. SignalRGB is great when it works, but it's jank.

 

[tabascosauz]

I had good luck with OpenRGB for my Trident Neos. Had it start at login, turn off the RGB, and then exit. Not sure about anything other than turning them off though.

That being said, if this works from MS, it'd open up more options as I won't buy anything that requires something running all the time to control.

You can program them with OpenRGB

OpenRGB can. Biggest problem is the UI confuses beginners

Heh, looks like y'all hopped on the bandwagon at just the right time. v0.8 seems to be now capable of turning off the LEDs then writing them to G.skill DIMMs so they never turn LEDs on again. Never had this option before in older builds. No one-and-done for color control, though, only LEDs Off.

Nope. Just like I remember, everything reverts after a cold boot. At which point there's no practical difference to just running G.skill control on boot and closing it manually.

There's still room for MS to make a difference here.

 

[Mussels]

That's an issue with the hardware, not the software - your RAM itself has no onboard storage and requires software to set it every boot.


OpenRGB has the option to set profile on load and on exit with a very tiny RAM footprint, so you can make it start with windows, load your profile (Even if its disabling all lights) and exit

I have a KB only profile that stealths the rest of the PC, great when it's downloading overnight or 40c and i'll take every watt of reduction