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I'm thinking about about buying an ergonomic keyboard, but, I'm worried about gaming with it because I had never owned one. I currently have at my eyes at the "Perixx PERIBOARD-512".

Are ergonomic keyboards fine for gaming?

PS: I also have never owned a keyboard specially built for gaming

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    I don't understand the down vote, it's a legitimate question in my opinion.
    – Fred James
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 17:57
  • Now I'm using Genius Slimstar 120. Really standard keyboard, comfortable enough for everything (including games).
    – Arkl1te
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 19:00
  • Gaming keyboards are just regular keyboards with terrible branding :)
    – API-Beast
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 20:22
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    @Mr.Beast - not necessarily true. Google "n-key rollover" and "key ghosting" and note that many, if not most, gaming-focused keyboards include these features, where it's not necessarily a major selling point of other keyboards.
    – Adam V
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 22:01
  • @AdamV What I mean is, a good keyboard is a good keyboard. A good "office" keyboard will rollover enough keys for gaming too. It will only really be a issue if you get a 5$ keyboard in the next super market.
    – API-Beast
    Commented May 3, 2014 at 0:14

2 Answers 2

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I personally use the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 at work and home (including lots of PC gaming). It looks quite similar in layout to the keyboard you mentioned. I've only been bothered by it while gaming on a few occasions over the last 5+ years of using it, and it's usually due to an awkwardly keypress. This is almost always resolvable by remapping the key to something on the left half.

To answer your question as well as I can (without having used the exact keyboard you're looking at) is that you shouldn't hesitate to get an ergonomic keyboard - the day to day benefits of lowered RSI risk far outweigh any negative gaming aspects.

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This is indeed a personal opinion as any answer here is. However with more serious gaming I do not believe that the issue is simply the ergonomic keyboards are poor for gaming, rather the problem lies in that I do not know of any keyboards that are both ergonomic and designed for gaming.

Gaming keyboards have a set of particular traits, they focus on latency, the resistance curve as you push down the key, the distance the keys move and how 'clicky' or 'soft' they feel. They tend to have large keys without gaps between them and the contours on the keys are often less pronounced than normal keyboards. In addition they also focus on allowing many keys to be pressed at once (known as rollover) which is useful in many games.

An ergonomic keyboard rarely considers any of these traits, rather focusing on the shape and spacing of the keys. This is not fundamentally conflicting with the goals of a gaming keyboard but I simply do not know of any keyboards focusing on both gaming and good ergonomics. In short, there is no reason an ergonomic keyboard cannot be a good gaming keyboard but I do not know of any which focus on the needed traits for gaming.

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