ROCCAT Nyth Mouse Review
Overview
I always get quite excited when I get to take a look at a new peripheral from the guys at ROCCAT, the German innovation and design and the love of Gaming always seems to produce a product worth taking a look at! Non more so than their latest product, a mouse with such massive design goals, I’m unsure whether to even call it a mouse let alone a Modular MMO Gaming mouse! What we have here is the ROCCAT Nyth
The Nyth itself is a right-handed ergonomic mouse equipped with a 12,000 DPI Twin-tech Laser Sensor R1 and eighteen (that’s right that’s not a misprint!) buttons. And there’s a 32-bit Arm processor at the core with 576KB of on-board memory. But the big news is that twelve of those eighteen buttons are interchangeable thanks to the supplied carry case that consists of a further 33 buttons, allowing you to customise the thumb area of the mouse for your specific needs and Game. In addition to this there’s also x2 hot-swappable side grips allowing the Nyth to support both Claw and Palm grips. Add to this LED lighting, ROCCAT’s next-gen Driver system (SWARM) and 3D printing support, allowing to make your own buttons; suggests that not only have ROCCAT been very busy of late, but this should also be quite an interesting review…
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‘Nyth meets the demands of MMO play with deep button modularity that fluidly transitions into a MOBA or FPS master tool with ease. Its near boundless customization extends its use far past the competition. No matter the genre or taste, its catalogue of side-parts and buttons joined with an expertly engineered foundation combine to make a revolutionary device that serves the imagination, creativity and high standards of gamers today.’ |
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The ROCCAT Nyth arrived at pcG in an irregular (as is the ROCCAT way, it would seem!) predominately black box with a large image of the Nyth on the front. In addition to the brand and product name ROCCAT highlights the fact that the Nyth is a Modular MMO Gaming mouse (top) and is designed for MMO and MOBAs. In addition to this there’s an image of the included carry case and ROCCAT further highlights the following: 12,000 DPI, Modular Design, Sidegrips, Carry case and the Next-gen ROCCAT SWARM Driver system. Also lurking in the top right of the front of the box there’s the 3D Print Support, which allows you to 3D Print your own buttons, should you have a 3D Printer (not included!). 😉
Looking at the back of the box at the top we find another image of the ROCCAT Nyth from the side, this time ROCCAT highlights the 2D Titan Wheel, Modular Thumb Zone, EasyShift Button, Braided Cable and the integrated TDCU. Below this ROCCAT lists the various features (see Specifications/Features below) found aboard the Nyth in both English and various other languages.
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On the top of the box other than the brand and product name we find again the Modular MMO Gaming Mouse along with the slogan ‘Build Your Victory’. In addition to this we find the following features highlighted: 39 Mouse Functions, Twin-Tech Laser System, Integrated TDCU, ROCCAT Easy-Shift[+], Two-Level Illumination, Sound Feedback, SWARM Compatible, 3D Printing Support and ROCCAT Talk. The bottom of the box informs us of the Package Contents, System Requirements and the Technical Specs (see Specification/Features below).
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On the left side of the box there’s a lot more information provided. Here ROCCAT further highlights and describes, the Modular Thumb Zone, Ergonomic Sidegrips and the ROCCAT SWARM software (supporting Cloud Backup, Sharing and Settings via Smartphones). The other side of the box is held in place by magnets and opens out…
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allowing you to get a sneak peek of the Nyth hiding within and take a look at the Nyth’s ‘Future Ready Philosophy’. As you can see its all rather nicely packaged and presented with the Nyth and its optional Sidegrip taking centre stage, all protected by the plastic blister.
In the box luckily all of those buttons aren’t just found in some plastic bag, they’re nicely tucked away inside that black/blue carry case. In addition to this, and other than the mouse itself and its Sidegrip we find a Quick-Installation Guide, Disposal Information (!?) and of course some stickers.
At the time of writing the ROCCAT Nyth Modular MMO Gaming Mouse is retailing on Amazon
Specifications/Features
courtesy of ROCCAT
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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows® 10, Windows® 8, Windows® 7
Internet connection for driver installation USB 2.0 Port |
* Additional details available here
First Impressions
First impressions of the ROCCAT Nyth are best split into two specific thoughts; the first of which is just to look at the mouse as; well a mouse really, a Gaming mouse obviously! As a pure Gaming mouse the ROCCAT Nyth is a good looking right-handed ergonomic Gaming mouse. It features a pleasant soft touch, smooth (really smooth) surface and seems to be extremely well made. There’s ergonomic support for both Claw grippers and for a Palm style of grip also. There’s some button too, lots of buttons! Now it is this fact that makes me look at the mouse in a different way, this is now a mouse with a mass of buttons, that even a seasoned veteran like me is unlikely to use, apparently this is an MMO/MOBA mouse! And it is this aspect that puts me off, well it did at first anyway, but of course all of those 12 side buttons can be modified. To treat the Nyth as a MMO/MOBA mouse is foolhardy, as the Nyth is so much more than just that! 🙂
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Obviously the big talking point about the ROCCAT Nyth is the twelve thumb buttons, normally the fact that there’s twelve in the first place is impressive enough, but of course the Nyth has a party trick up its sleeve. But we will come to that later on! If we just take a look at the Nyth as it comes out of the box first. The left hand side features twelve (numbered and contoured) buttons, each button is a specific shape, not only so it fits the contours of the mouse but so you can tell some of the buttons apart when using just your thumb! Each button (made from a soft plastic) feels very positive when pressed, which straight away felt better than I would have thought, they don’t feel like they would pop out that’s for sure. In fact the whole feeling from the left side of the mouse is very positive, and although I’m sure I don’t need twelve buttons, I already rather like it! The actual position of the button area is also very good, as we often find that the front button (of the usual 2 thumb buttons) is often to far forward, but not here. There’s also a rather nice contoured shoulder at the base of the left side, just below all of the buttons and this helps to just keep your thumb above the mouse surface.
The right side of the mouse, as it comes out of the box has the ergonomic Siderest for a Claw style of grip attached, in the supplied Carry Case there’s also a larger Sidegrip designed for a Palm style of grip. The Claw (or smaller of the two) Sidegrip suited my bastardised Claw grip very well and I was immediately at home with this grip. The Sidegrip itself attaches by way of four magnets, strong they are too (hold on that sounded a little like Yoda!). 😉
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Looking at the front of the ROCCAT Nyth, things start to look a little more normal. In the centre at the front we find the mouse is attached to a 1.8m long braided cable, while at the other end we find a nice ROCCAT Nyth (and logo) etched onto the surface of the USB plug. Above this and just right of centre we find a button, a specific button for ROCCAT, as this by default is the EasyShift[+] button. This button can act as a modifier button (it can be programmed too) as when this button is held down all other buttons now perform their EasyShift(ed) function. Just imagine it like holding down the shift key on a keyboard! Above this in the centre of the Left/Right button we find the scroll wheel, or the 2D Titan wheel as ROCCAT likes to call it! The wheel itself features a nice grippy (bad word!) rubber tyre and also features subtle yet palpable graduations (clicks!).
When we look at the ROCCAT Nyth from the back, there’s not too much to see (when the mouse is off!), there’s a clue there! As when the mouse is On, not only does the ROCCAT Nyth logo illuminate but the small strip, found in the centre of the upper and lower body illuminates also. Individual colours are also supported as is RGB colour control.
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Looking at the top of the Nyth it’s less busy than you might expect (well we know why that is!), at the front we have the EasyShift[+] (programmable) button, just left of centre and then the 2D Titan scroll wheel. Behind this we have a curious beast! This is another button, well it’s not really a button as you don’t press it, well you don’t press it down anyway! Let me try and explain! This is the Fin, a tilting button that can be moved either left or right, and of course this switch can be programmed. But having tried to move the switch (either left or right) in some clever way, i.e. without taking my hand of the mouse, I have to confess complete failure! For me this switch seems a little weird, yet maybe it’s perfect for a DPI switch! 😉
Flipping the mouse on its back so it cant run away, we find the somewhat off-centre Laser sensor. This particular example features a maximum DPI of 12,000 and supports up to 50G of acceleration. Around the outside of the base we find four glides; three large glides are attached to the mouse permanently and a smaller one that is actually attached to the hot-swappable Siderest. Near the top of the base we see the Release button, that allows all of the twelve buttons to be removed from the side of the mouse, well actually they just fall out!
At this point I would like to just say a little about the build quality of the ROCCAT Nyth. It’s impressive to say the least, not least because this is no carbon copy of some Chinese OEM mouse, and ROCCAT haven’t taken queues from another design and bettered it! No, ROCCAT have made their own mouse, their way, and damn good it is too. And being honest it’s a lot better than I thought it would be…
Hardware Installation
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The ROCCAT Nyth simply connects by way of its single USB 2.0 plug found at the end of the 1.8m braided cable. But notice how ROCCAT have still tried to do a little something with the plug, adorned with the ROCCAT name/logo and the Nyth product name. |
Obviously one of the first things I needed to do was to set up the ROCCAT Nyth so it best suited my style of grip (a bastardised Claw style!) and add/remove thumb buttons until I was happy that I had the most appropriate setup for me. Especially as I knew that twelve buttons was too much for me! First I tried the smaller of the two Sidegrips (designed for a Claw grip) and have to admit that I was more than happy with that! I then tried the Sidegrip that’s designed for a Palm style of grip and, rather surprisingly found it quite comfortable! What was even stranger was that in Windows I preferred the Palm Sidegrip, but in game I found this grip a little too slippery for my liking, especially as I have a bit of a habit of picking the mouse up. In the end I did most of my testing with the Claw Sidegrip attached.
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Next then it was time to decide on those buttons, releasing the switch on the back of the mouse allow all of the buttons to (rather unceremoniously) simply fall out! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but at this point the mouse has a somewhat broken look to it! But fear not, as assembly of the perfect setup is only moments away! Or is it? I say this as one thing that I found odd is that the four long buttons are NOT buttons! They are blanking plates, there are no buttons that span a signal horizontal line (why not!?), why cant we simply have three long thumb buttons, weird! Maybe I need to 3D print my own… oh hold on, I don’t have a 3D printer…
So with that revelation out of the way I set about installing two buttons up top, then a blanking plate followed by a further two button below. This setup meant that I could truly use up to four buttons with my thumb at any one time. Others may be able to use more, or even the full compliment of twelve, but I just don’t have the time (nor the patience) to train my muscle memory…
The whole process of customising your Nyth to best suit you is actually rather rewarding and simply Kinda fun too! There’s simply no other mouse on the market today that offers this level of customisation, and for that reason alone I take my hat off to ROCCAT!
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Testing Methodology/Setup
The ROCCAT Nyth was tested using our Test Rig, a fresh installation of Windows 7 64Bit (service pack 1) was installed along with all appropriate Drivers. No software is supplied with the Nyth but is required for full functionality. The ROCCAT SWARM software can be downloaded (here) and version v1.30 was installed and used throughout testing. After installing the SWARM software the Nyth’s Firmware was also automatically updated to version 1.30. This firmware was again used throughout testing.
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The following games were used during testing:
Hardware Performance
From a pure performance point of view I would have to say that the ROCCAT Nyth performed exceptionally well, but at first it was only extremely good! I say this because at first I was using my regular mouse mat (Aorus Thunder P3 Gaming Mouse Pad
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So with the perfect setup it was time to go into battle with the Nyth, and I have to admit I was impressed! Tracking is the best I’ve know for a very long time (I think it’s probably the best in fact!) maybe it’s just the combination of the Nyth and the Taito I don’t know. But the feeling is soooo smooth, the Nyth just glides with ease across the surface and this just adds to the feeling of that all important tracking. I really felt in control, in control of a precision instrument in fact. The four (that I fitted) thumb button were easy to access and operate and were a godsend when it came to Games like Divinity Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity.
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As far as ergonomics go the Nyth felt good at all times, either with the Claw or the Palm Sidegrip attached. I did have a feeling though the mouse was just a little too smooth for its own good, the surface that is. This didn’t seem to bother me in Game, but it was something that I was aware of! In the end I setup the Fin button atop the mouse as a DPI shifter as this is the function it best lends itself too in my opinion, as you really need to move your hand off the mouse to operate it! As you can see from the images above the Nyth features some nice illumination too! The illumination itself can be controlled via the SWARM software and both the logo and the light strip can be independently controlled, with full RGB support also. There’s also a handful of basic effects, Breathing, Blinking etc.
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Version 1.3 of the ROCCAT SWARM software was used throughout testing and it can be downloaded here. Once up and running it took a little bit of time to get used to the software, as at first I wasn’t aware there was so much vertical scrolling and didn’t appreciate that the first tab (represented by a Pin) was actually fully customisable! Simpy activate the Pin on each Function that you would like to see on the first tab (sounds easy now, doesn’t it!). I opted to add three main functions DPI Switcher, Illumination and Top Buttons. |
The SWARM software is split in three main tabs (Settings, Button Assignment and Advanced Settings) this is then accompanied by two further popups (Profile Manager & Macro Manager) among some others. Everything that you do is always associated to the Profile you’re on at the time, and multiple Profiles can be created and stored within the on-board memory.
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The Settings tab allows you to adjust basic settings like Sensitivity, Vertical Scroll Speed, Horizontal Tilt Speed and Double Click Speed. In addition to this you can also modify the DPI settings for any of the five available. Values from 200 to 12,000 are valid in can be adjusted in increments of 100. But there’s no dedicated DPI LED indicator (normally a bugbear of mine!), but as seems to be the norm ROCCAT has another trick up its sleeve (see Advanced Settings). Finally you can also adjust the Windows Pointer Speed and Enable Mouse Acceleration (a crazy Idea IMHO!) and enable Mouse Trails.
The Button Assignment tab allows you to not only inform the mouse what thumb buttons you have installed, but also allows you to choose from some pre-defined Button Sets, such as Battlefield 4 and League of Legends. Once this has been done, then you can go on and configure them. Numerous options are already here by default, such as assigning a Macro, Keypress or Hotkey or Basic Functions (Click, Scroll Up/Down etc) and Advanced Functions (DPI Up/Down/Cycle etc). Various other functions of the mouse (Left/Right click, scroll etc) can also be assigned here also, via the lower section of the tab that’s accompanied by a cool looking image of the Nyth from above.
The final tab is the Advanced Settings tab, not only here can you modify the X and Y axis independently, change the Polling Rate (best leave it at 1000Hz) and perform a Reset to Factory Defaults. But you can also mess with the TCU. TCU, what’s that I hear you ask! Well that’s the Tracking Control Unit and this is where you come to calibrate your mouse pad, should you wish to use TCU. I did, and got really impressive results with the ROCCAT Taito mouse pad. Here you can also mess with the Nyth’s illumination. You can modify the main two areas independently from one another and full RGB support is here too! And finally we come to another one of ROCCAT’s party tricks. Do you remember my moan about the Nyth’s lack of a dedicated DPI indicator? Well the answer is that you can be informed (by voice) each an every time you change DPI, and that’s any DPI you select! In addition to this you can also get a voice announcement when you, switch Profiles, change Sensitivity and even when you change the Volume. Impressive to Say the least, there’s a joke there somewhere I feel… 😉
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As I mentioned earlier there’s a couple of other useful screens that allow for the management of both Macros and Profiles. As you can see from the image above left I have created a few Profiles; each Profile can have a name, and an image and be linked to a Game. These Profiles are then stored within the Nyth’s on-board memory. Custom lighting goes hand in hand with this, meaning that each Profile can have its own dedicated illumination, helping you to determine what Profile you may have selected at any one time.
I was quite shocked when I got to the Nyth’s macro Manger as I spotted pre-defined Macros for lots of common Games, such as Battlefield 4 and League of Legends. Should you not find what you’re looking for you can obviously record your own and store them in a dedicated folder.
Overall I have to say the ROCCAT SWARM software is one of the finest pieces of Gaming software I seen, period. The polish on this software is amazing, it looks great, it’s packed with features and it’s easy to use. It would appear that not only do ROCCAT have a great Gaming mouse they also have some great software to go with it!
Final Thoughts
The ROCCAT Nyth
The ROCCAT Nyth arrived at pcG in a odd shaped box (as is the ROCCAT way!), the mouse itself was also well packaged and also nicely presented. On opening the box we find that there’s more than just the mouse as the Nyth ships with a smart carry case also that’s packed with buttons and the optional Siderest. With the mouse in the hand the design an quality starts to become apparent, the Nyth is truly unique. ROCCAT obviously had a specific design goal and that has seen them design a unique mouse from the ground up, and for that alone they must be applauded! Everything about the mouse feels well made and well put together, yet it still remains quite light at only 125g.
Of course the main party trick of the ROCCAT Nyth is the ability to customise those thumb buttons. The mouse comes equipped with twelve in an attempt to lure the MMO/MOBA Gamers, but to see the Nyth as a MMO/MOBA mouse would be to miss the point, I think. The Nyth is (logically) an everything mouse, as through the customisation of the thumb buttons (I fitted four) and via the ROCCAT SWARM software you can pretty much accomplish what ever you’re needs desire, giving you a bespoke setup for whatever Games you may play. The only oddity for me was the lack of buttons that spanned across the entire horizontal sections, the parts that look like this (found in the carry case) are just blanks!? Why, cant we have some 4 long buttons, and some single blanks? Maybe the answer is because you can 3D Print your own, now while this is a cool feature, I don’t have a 3D Printer, do you?
The two supplied Sidegrips allow the Nyth to appeal to both Claw and Palm grippers, and in practice it works rather well! I actually favoured the smaller (Claw) grip for my bastardised Claw grip while playing Games, but (rather surprisingly) found the Palm grip to be very usable in Windows! But with the Palm grip in Game I found the Nyth to be a little too slippery as I couldn’t seem to hold the mouse firmly enough for my liking. There’s a point worth noting here, and that’s the fact the Nyth is a little slippery, that soft touch surface may be a little too smooth for its own good! But I have to confess in Game (once my hands had warmed) I found no problem at all while using it and my K/D was as good as ever!
Which brings me nicely on to the tracking performance of the Nyth and its 12,000 DPI Laser sensor. I paired the Nyth up with a ROCCAT Taito mouse mat and calibrated it via the TCU module within the SWARM software. The end result was one of (if not the) best tracking mice that I’ve ever come across. I felt so in control of the Nyth at all times, it felt like a true instrument of precision, at times feeling like it was directly connected to my brain. This reason alone makes me think that I’d love to keep hold of this sample for myself, it really is that good! And that’s even before we talk about the bells ‘n whistles…
Other aspects of the Nyth are really just the icing on the cake. The Illumination is very smart, allowing control of both sections and with full RGB support. The mouse scroll wheel is nice and easy to use with a nice rubber tyre and nicely palpable graduations (clicks). The lack of a dedicated DPI indicator is replaced by a voice over that tells you what DPI you’re on when you switch! Then there’s the SWARM software that looks great and is easy to use and is packed with every feature the average or Pro Gamer could wish for.
You may be wondering if there’s anything wrong with the Nyth, the best answer to that is it depends on where you’re coming from (so to speak). If you really want a fully customisable MMO/MOBA mouse with up to 12 thumb buttons, then this is it! If you just want a highly customisable mouse for everyday Gaming, where two thumb buttons just isn’t enough, then this is it! But if you just want a Gaming mouse, then it’s likely that the Nyth, at approximately £90 may just be a little too expensive for you…
Verdict
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Where possible we always use Amazon’s price for Value… |
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Many thanks to ROCCAT for providing this sample for review
