Software and User Experience

Software drivers for the Mountain MacroPad and DisplayPad come in the form of the aptly-named Base Camp program, whose installer can be found on this page. Given that these keypads had not been announced at the time of testing, Mountain provided me with the beta release version 1.2.1, with a public release v1.2.3 scheduled for when the products are announced. The installer file is ~240 MB in size—a sizable increase over the ~160 MB the last time we saw it earlier this year. The install process is self-explanatory, and I will give props to Mountain for giving more options than most, including the preferred language for the program and an option to run it with system boot-up. The installer does not tell you how much storage space it needs, but mine took up 397 MB once finished, which is reasonable, considering it is otherwise light on system resources and yet higher than the 345 MB in previous versions. I have seen this trend before with larger brands, and want to encourage Mountain to consider adopting a modular approach to its software, given the bloat seen in other peripheral software drivers recently.


Base Camp is a universal driver for Mountain products, including its mice and keyboards too. For a relatively new brand, the user experience is much better than you may think, based on the poor experiences I have had with many other brands over the past couple of years. All compatible products would be listed with thumbnails and names, with the option to go to the device-specific page either by hitting customize underneath or clicking on the product name on top, next to the logo in the left corner. This includes a thumbnail of the two keypad units which is reflected on the screen along with the product name. At the bottom are more generic links, including customer support, a survey, and, of course the Mountain shop, followed by even more links underneath.

The Mountain MacroPad and DisplayPad share a lot in common in that they both have twelve assignable keys, which Base Camp now allows you to map/re-map accordingly. These key mapping options are extensive, as seen above, and include a plethora of shortcuts for specific Adobe software in addition to OBS Studio and DaVinci Resolve that will interest many content creators too. I can also say that the upcoming public release will bring with it native Twitch integration too, but unfortunately I won't be able to test that before this article is published. Others can also easily create macros and associate them with profiles for further customization. Incidentally, this is where things start to shift in favor of the DisplayPad, which can have a theoretically unlimited number of profiles as well as folders to then open up more key assignments in a nested configuration. The ability to also add in icons goes a long way in cutting down the functionality barrier for such devices, and you can set up custom images too. The MacroPad can have up to five profiles at any one time, which in itself is a respectable amount, and then gives you lighting effects in return that are the same as what we saw with the Everest 60 with a mix of static, dynamic, and reactive typing effects depicted via a virtual keyboard. I also appreciated the ability to simply drag and drop things onto either keypad for a helpful, intuitive and logical user interface.


When first powered up, the MacroPad lights up in a rainbow wave effect seen in the video here, whereas the 12 displays keys in the DisplayPad combine to depict the Mountain Logo briefly, before a single key lights up in the logo and the others remain blank with just the backlighting showing up through the small LCD displays. This makes the display keys come off with a light blue hue by default so having all blue icons works better than those with black backgrounds I felt. Either way, they get bright enough to where you can still have custom icons, such as the TechPowerUp logo shown above. I also found the folder option to be quite handy and that earned a permanent spot on the DisplayPad to allow for 2-3 sets of icons and associated functions accordingly. The surface of these keys is also large and lightly curve inward to support your fingers while pressing down on them, and the tactile feedback is more satisfying than it might seem. Of course it's still not as precise as having full-size mechanical switches as on the MacroPad but here you have to rely on your memory more often than not.