What is Rapid Trigger?
If you’ve been reading marketing materials for gaming keyboards, you’ll probably have encountered the words ‘Rapid Trigger’. This is technology that’s used in gaming keyboards with analog switches (see: analog switches in keyboards explained) that’s meant to make inputs a lot more precise. In this article, we’ll give you an overview on what the technology does, who popularized it, and what it can mean for your gameplay.
Rapid Trigger – Why Is It Needed?
First things first: Rapid Trigger is only possible on analog keyboards with analog switches. By design, a traditional mechanical keyboard (which has mechanical switches) cannot be a Rapid Trigger keyboard.
In order to properly understand what Rapid Trigger is, it’s important to know that every traditional mechanical switch has a set actuation point. This is the point at which a switch ‘activates’ and sends the signal that it’s active to the PC. On a Cherry MX Red switch, for example, the actuation point lies at 2 millimeters. This means that you need to press your key down past that 2mm point if you want the switch to activate.
Switches don’t stop there, however. Pretty much all keyboard switches have more space underneath that actuation point because otherwise the switch wouldn’t feel pleasant to use. On that Red switch we talked about, the total travel time is 4mm.
If you push your key all the way down and you want your switch to reset, you have to let it go until it has passed the reset point. Everything before and after the actuation point and the reset point does not get registered.
If you -for example- release your switch at 3.1mm and then press it again, nothing will happen since it hasn’t crossed the reset point yet. You need to let the switch travel back up, and then press it again.
This is fine for typing, but it isn’t ideal for precision-based movement, or for games where spamming certain keys is important. In competitive games where precision is of the essence, it can make a great difference to have your key presses get registered in an instant instead of having to wait for your key to travel past a reset point. That’s where Rapid Trigger comes in.
Rapid Trigger – The Way Forward
The name Rapid Trigger was originally coined by Wooting. It’s a technology that resets the actuation point of a switch at the exact moment you let it go. This means that, if you release your switch at 3.1mm (like in the example above) and then immediately press it again, the switch will respond immediately.
In short: Rapid Trigger is a dynamic actuation point. You do not have to let your switch travel all the way past a certain (always the same) actuation point; the switch sets a new (temporary) actuation point every time you let go of a key. This is possible only with analog keyboard switches, as traditional mechanical switches have a set actuation point by definition.
The advantages of this technology are obvious: they make key presses a lot more responsive and natural-feeling. In games like CS2, where precise counter-strafing and carefully timed key presses can mean the difference between a missed shot and a hit shot, the technology is particularly powerful. The technology is also extremely popular in other gaming scenes though. Dedicated osu! players, for example, will no doubt know about the many advantages of Rapid Trigger.
Rapid Trigger was so popular on its release that it promptly made Wooting (a brand that was unknown to the general public at that time) a household brand in the gaming keyboard scene. Consequentially, other manufacturers also implemented the technology in their own keyboards, and Rapid Trigger is now a term that’s used across the industry to indicate a keyboard with a dynamic actuation point.
In the example below, you can clearly see the difference between a regular mechanical switch and an analog switch with Rapid Trigger in action.
Conclusion
The world of gaming peripherals is rife with gimmicks and technologies that sound great on paper but don’t really make a difference in practice. With new tech coming out every week, it can be difficult to determine what will stick around and what will fade away.
Rapid Trigger is here to stay, though. The advantages of a Rapid Trigger keyboard versus a regular keyboard are clear. At the time of writing this article, over 33% of analyzed professionals are already using a keyboard that has some form of Rapid Trigger on it. This number will only grow now that pretty much every brand is putting Rapid Trigger technology inside their gaming keyboards.
Of course, the advantages of Rapid Trigger aren’t as obvious in every game. If you mainly play turn-based strategy games, for example, there’s no real need for this kind of technology, as precise and lightning quick inputs don’t matter as much in games like that. If you’re mostly a casual gamer and you want to stay in the (very big) realm of mechanical switches in order to have a bunch of options, there’s also no pressing need to invest in a Rapid Trigger keyboard.
But there’s absolutely no doubt that Rapid Trigger keyboards are more responsive, more consistent, and will enhance your gameplay if you’re a competitive gamer.
