Gaming peripherals specialist SteelSeries has released a new beta version of its GameSense software to provide an interesting new dimension to the LED lighting capabilities of its keyboards and other peripherals. Using the new software you can use your SteelSeries hardware to light up various banks of LEDs to indicate game stats like ammo levels, health levels and headshot kill chains. The firm claims that this functionality "can be quite useful".
SteelSeries has published a new video which seeks to illustrate the utility value of this software/hardware integration. Firstly we see the game Counter Strike: Global Offensive on screen. As the player shoots his weapon you can see the illuminated 'F Keys' start to dim one by one as the ammo clip depletes. This player has also configured the upper row of number keys to relate to character health and the QWERTY row to represent armour level.
From the above video and description you might be starting to smell a whiff of potential from the GameSense system. In a blog post announcing this beta software, SteelSeries describes further useful LED lighting options such as "seeing your hunger level, breath, direction you are facing, and even what tool you are holding and it's durability all displayed on your keyboard… getting notified when spells and abilities are available again after their cooldown expires".
GameSense isn't limited to keyboards and the new beta real-time LED lighting level functionality works with all of the RGB illuminated products supported by SteelSeries Engine 3. For example a player's health might be indicated by their headset lighting colour/level.
Right now GameSense is only supported in two major games; the above demonstrated CS:GO and Minecraft ("download the technic launcher, add the GameSense mod, and play"). You will be able to twiddle your settings in either of these games easily via the Engine user interface. For developers interested in adding GameSense support to their titles, SteelSeries says it is "dead simple". You can read more about that on the official blog post.
