schaft0620
Member
I don't see why anyone would care about the light, I sit 5-10 ft away from my TV and I get no reflection unless there is nothing on the screen.
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Sony won't offer option to disable PS4 DualShock 4 light bar
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
CyclopsRock
Member
To people talking about the glow when watching Netflix etc - can't you just not have the light facing the screen? I have a bluetooth speaker that glows bright green when I'm charging it, and it illuminates my entire room at night. So I turn it over. Then it doesn't.
tokyo slim
Banned
Cool.
And these posts just keep coming. It's puzzling how many people seem to believe because it isn't noticeable in their particular environment that it shouldn't be happening at all to anyone else regardless of their setup.
tokyo slim
Banned
My television has a white, illuminated brand name logo that is right below the screen and is not able to turn off. It's annoying, but I tend to just ignore it. My screen, however, is matte. I will not buy a glossy television if I can help it. My living room has poor light control, thus effectively negating any image benefits of a plasma television.
So my solution for you guys is to get brighter living rooms. That way you will stop buying glossy televisions, and the DS4 light will not be a problem.
So my solution for you guys is to get brighter living rooms. That way you will stop buying glossy televisions, and the DS4 light will not be a problem.
NTIETS13A_Superiority
Banned
0-100 slider or 1-10 steps as option would be great.
What is needed:
Games that use camera+LIGHT can ignore user selected brightness(Edit. brightness auto-adjust would be great also).
Checkbox for wether you want system to ignore or not camera telling position of player in splitscreen.
Some others I have not thought about yet.
That is what i am saying. If system uses leds as any kind of on/off info feed (wich leds are on and so-on) it is not as simple but should still be most work in qa (this is just my opinion)
Edit. There could be built in check systems, but purpouse of leds leads me to believe those would be unnecessary. I still think qa or something similar demands for teh LIGHT to be on.
Sorry, it's an LED. A game that doesn't use it with the camera will not be affected because there is no logical reason for it to other than poor engineering.
I refuse to believe they'd be that stupid.
BruiserBear
Banned
At least give people the option to dim it. Let me make it just bright enough to know the controller is on, and that's it.
tokyo slim
Banned
Several games use it without the camera though. That's the issue. The camera tracking is only one of several ways the lightbar is used.
None of them have a technical dependency on it. I could break the LEDs and the game would know no different.
I personally have no issues with the lightbar other than some curiosity about how much battery it's eating. However, I think Sony is being really stupid about this. It should really be an option in the settings that can be overridden by a game. There's really no use for it without a camera. I don't notice it during games, so any ambient effects are a complete loss for me. So it's really just there for bling effect. I don't need it. If they give me an option, I'll turn it off until I get a camera. PEACE.
tokyo slim
Banned
We aren't talking about a hardware solution (removing/breaking the lights), we are talking about writing SOFTWARE code to disable the lights. Writing a code to disable something that many other pieces of software are trying to use is not that easy.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Allow software to override the system option. It's easier to do this now than when a lot of games are released and need to be patched.
They managed to do it on the PC rather easily
On the game side I do not see how hard it could be to check if the option is turned off when the game is launched and then just not run the code that uses it.
I'm not even sure what games use it outside of KillZone which was so useful as the light is in front of the controller. Thankfully the reflection off of my plasma ensures I do not have to look down at the controller itself
It's easy if you've not done something monumentally stupid in the design. Something I'd have thought Sony had learned from after 7 years of awful software engineering.
CyclopsRock
Member
Well yeah, but can't you just rotate it 90 degrees, too?
tokyo slim
Banned
I'm pretty sure that's not a solution for most people unless I'm misreading many of the complaints in this thread. Many people don't want the light on while gaming - but games that use the light bar would override their preference and use it anyways?
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
if ( LED_LIGHT == "off" )
{
LED_DEPENDENT_GAMES = "Re-enabling LED, please wait."
LED_LIGHT = "on"
}
{
LED_DEPENDENT_GAMES = "Re-enabling LED, please wait."
LED_LIGHT = "on"
}
tokyo slim
Banned
I agree to an extent. My original point was that it's not just an easy "turn it off" software switch. It's too far past that point already.
Whether this is "monumentally stupid" or not is a matter of perspective.
NTIETS13A_Superiority
Banned
Convert every request regarding leds as null(except battery low indcation). (Or just ignore older games and make this part of qa for games in future)
I think yosp said devs had full controll over leds. Could be system can not override those as easily people would think. Still it should not be hard.
Why not use boolean?
Also where would you put that code exactly?
if (LIGHTOFF == true )
{
if (bATTERYLOW == true)
{
BATTERYLOW();
}
Edit: else
{
IGNORELIGHT(); //forgot to put this else here.
}
}
else if (GAMEREQUESTSLIGHT == true)
{
LIGHTON();
}
else
{
Do shit normally.
}
Lets write code for them.
tokyo slim
Banned
As I've already pointed out, nothing on the PC is designed to use the lightbar.
Someone should buy these... then put it over the DS4 lightbar.Get yourself these and change your life. I'm serious. And get this specific brand; it has a concave space that lets you open your eyes. Thank me later.
Yes, allow the user to turn it off in the system options, but allow software to override it and turn it on if the game requires it.
QuicheFontaine
Member
90 degrees in which direction?
Edit: I really don't understand what you're suggesting
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
I have the option to turn the light on my DS4 off but I like it. I keep it rather dim but I tried having it off for a while and I could never tell if the controller was connected or not. I do see it reflecting on the shiny bezel around my display but recently I've started standing while I play games because its better for me and its a non-issue.
tokyo slim
Banned
So that would fix the Netflix people's problems, but nobody else's.
TheOctodad
Member
It's not worth me caring IMO. However, I have a LED with a glossy screen and it does reflect on it sometimes. Again, I don't care that much, but it does seem stupid that we can't at least have the option to dim it.
tokyo slim
Banned
Yes, the light is used in several games for status notification and other things. A lot of the new/upcoming games like Transistor and Thief are going to be using it a lot. The controller itself uses the light for power notifications.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
Because not everybody on NeoGAF would understand the code's joke if I used a boolean.
Probably in the startup sequence for LED Dependent Games. A simple hook into the OS would not be hard to implement for enabling or disabling the LED Light, unless Sony's OS architecture is really messy.
But how paramount is the light in those games? For one, the light is not visible when holding the controller--if it's not reflecting off your screen or you're in a well lit room (where the light isn't illuminating half of it), you won't notice it. I just cannot see the light being fundamental in any game to the point where disabling it hurts the experience, let alone break the game.
Would you mind sharing specific examples that go against this train of thought?
Nymphae
Banned
Outstanding post. Maybe read the thread a bit, some people have legitimate issues.
If one perspective is of good system design and software engineering and the other is "bad design is ok!" Then yeah, I suppose
It's an amateur mistake you'd penalise a student for. I wouldn't expect it from someone designing software and APIs for a console that could sell into 100m+ worldwide, especially when Sony were burned badly last gen for this sort of shit.
But I refuse to believe they've been that stupid. I'm betting this is more a matter of principle than anything. Giving users an option admits a design failure.
People cannot expect a perfect solution that will satisfy everybody, that much is always the case when it comes to designing software. If it solves it for the Netflix people and it does not add much pain for everybody else, then it's good.
NTIETS13A_Superiority
Banned
If they can dimm it they surely can turn it off.
Yeah one step in os and extra step in future games qa (is game LIGHT dependant: Yeas/No)
tokyo slim
Banned
You are using words like paramount and necessary. I'm not saying that the light is anything like that. Just that the games USE it. If it's daylight, and you have a glossy screen tv, you likely are seeing your entire living room reflected in the television. I don't think anyone is complaining about seeing the reflected light in a fully lit room. As you said, nobody notices it.
In the dark the light will ambiently light up your hands, or your lap if you hold the controller the way I do while I'm gaming. (not that everyone does, I'm just explaining) In Killzone that was kind of cool, because when I take damage, my legs turn red. I thought it was neat. And a lot of game designers seem to think so too, because they keep announcing games that do similar things.
It's not a critical function or anything, but the game designers are coding it in because Sony told them they could.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
I did, and yes my tweet sounds stupid but whatever
I meant more about asking him about why we don't have the Red and Blue DS4s in NA.
tokyo slim
Banned
You must be a Netflix person and not a battery life person or a plasma television gamer.
My television has a white, illuminated brand name logo that is right below the screen and is not able to turn off. It's annoying, but I tend to just ignore it. My screen, however, is matte. I will not buy a glossy television if I can help it. My living room has poor light control, thus effectively negating any image benefits of a plasma television.
So my solution for you guys is to get brighter living rooms. That way you will stop buying glossy televisions, and the DS4 light will not be a problem.
I hope the smile means that this is sarcasm. Instead of having a light switch for an LED that most don't use, people should get new living rooms and new televisions. Makes perfect sense.
Also, having a light on a device in front of you is not the same as having the reflection of a light directly on the screen of a television. Some people chose to buy Plasma TVs for their picture quality, so they have their living rooms arranged in a way to view them perfectly (ie, no open windows behind you, etc).
If you can turn the light off, how does it not solve the issue for those cases for software that does not require the use of the light bar?
I use those words because that is the only reason why disabling the light bar would be a problem. If disabling the light bar doesn't break the game or severely hurt its playability -- AKA necessary -- then why would it matter if the user has it disabled?
Making your legs turn red is not in any way a necessary feature in the game. To say you shouldn't be able to disable the light bar because of that is ridiculous.
And I realize the light can be visible; my point was that during regular play there are times when the light isn't visible and yet those games function just as well. I was simply pointing out that games can work under those conditions, so being able to disable the light bar wouldn't be much different.
Nymphae
Banned
tokyo slim
Banned
If one perspective is of good system design and software engineering and the other is "bad design is ok!" Then yeah, I suppose
"Good system design" is not objective in that way though. You just believe it to be in this case because you don't like it. Not having user control over a light that is there for developers to use isn't necessarily a bad design. It's a design decision that makes sense in some ways. Could it have been implemented BETTER? Yes. Does that mean it's automatically shit? No.
This exactly. Imagine you could never turn the volume off on your television. Having no audio may not be how the games are intended to be played, but there is an option to remove audio because it is a easy, common courtesy that should be applied to annoyingly bright lights.
tokyo slim
Banned
No, actually I've already discussed why it would be a "problem". It's a problem because as the sole area of notification on the controller, and the fact that it was opened up to the developers to use, there is already existing code in place, and a lot of future code coming that uses the lightbar. Disabling it with software would require that you feed the system conflicting code that attempts to override all the current code that utilizes it. Having a basic knowledge of software coding, superseding old code is not ever as simple as you'd like it to be. I'm not saying it's not entirely doable. I'm just saying that it's not like some five minute coding job that some people think it is.
Also, I never said that you shouldn't be able to disable the lightbar. Just that doing so at this point might pose an issue. Please don't put words in my mouth. Thanks.
tokyo slim
Banned
Now imagine that up until now, the volume for your television was controlled by the people who made the television show. Now imaging trying to code your television to override that and give you control over the volume. Now you have an analogy.
I never tried to argue that it was simple, only that there is nothing preventing it functionality wise. To me this is like discussing the viability of disabling rumble: games use it, but is never important to the user experience.
If it's a problem for a lot of users, Sony should seriously consider investing the resources required to patch in an option to disable or dim the light on the controller.