Driver

The driver for the HyperX Alloy FPS RGB and other recent HyperX peripherals is called HyperX NGenuity (get it?) and can be downloaded from this page. The latest version at the time of release was 5.2.6.0 and was used for the review. The installer is 279 MB in size, and its installation process is fairly straightforward. The final package takes up a whopping ~1200 MB itself, which makes it the largest peripheral driver package I have used to date. There is really no excuse for such bloat given nothing seems to really justify it, and I really want to know why HyperX feels they need 4–5 times as much space as any of their mainstream competitors with similar software driver applications.


Once installed, the process will prompt you to open the program. It is best to have the keyboard connected before opening it, especially since this is a good time for a firmware version check. As seen above, there was indeed a newer firmware version available for my specific review sample, which is fairly normal for new hardware, and the update was easy and happened without a hitch.


Opening it for the first time with the keyboard connected, we see a homepage that is product-specific. Given I have no other compatible peripheral for the driver at my disposal, I cannot say if this changes with more than just the keyboard connected simultaneously. As it is, the layout is not the best as far as the user experience goes, especially for beginners. HyperX does make things easier, however, by including help cues on each new screen.

Looking over the homepage again, there are a few things on the screen for quick controls. The settings menu is most obvious here, with the usual suspects, including checking for firmware and driver updates as applicable. You can also pull up an online copy of the manual for your specific product should you want to check on something, but are further away from the included hard copy than you would like. The Alloy FPS RGB keyboard also supports up to three onboard profiles, which can be selected and customized over this screen as well. Profiles can also be imported and exported, which is handy and has been combined with a library of ready-to-go profiles provided by HyperX here. These include lighting profiles, which are hand-in-hand with the instant lighting options we see on the homepage as well.

Hitting the customize button on the homepage takes you to a more product-specific page, which makes me believe that the original homepage is more general to allow for a more combinatorial approach to controlling multiple connected and supported devices simultaneously. As far as the keyboard-specific page goes, we now see three sets of options: Lighting, Game Mode, and Macros. Lighting, as the name suggests, allows for more keyboard backlighting customization, including static and dynamic effects on a per-key basis, or even a group of keys or the entire keyboard. Here too, we see three subsets of options for lighting, and this an examples of a questionable choice HyperX made with the driver in terms of the user experience. In my experience, the more groups of options are put behind menu pages, the less the probability an average end user will even explore them. Organization for the sake of it sounds good in theory, but in this case, there are not enough effects and options to merit such divisions.

The Game Mode option set has some functionality options that are useful for when you are in a gaming session and do not want interruptions, and is similar to what many keyboards do with a dedicated Game Mode button on the keyboard itself. More relevant to the general audience is the Macros page, which does more than just macro recording and enabling. It is effectively a key assignment page with a good number of preset options to choose from, including macros themselves. If you wanted to, say, have dedicated multimedia controls or a Dvorak instead of QWERTY layout for typing, HyperX allows you to do all that and more. The OEM profile for keycaps does make it harder to get used to a different layout, but that is outside the realm of discussion for the driver portion of the review.

This was the first time I had the opportunity to better examine HyperX's take on peripheral software drivers, and having it be a unified driver with no bugs (at least during the time of testing) and help cues with a decent layout is a good effort no doubt. But there remains room for improvement; efficiency is key here, be it with the actual size of the program or specific choices made in organizing the various options.