Right, that’s it, stick a fork in us: we’re done.  We’re coming to the end of another year; one that flew by pretty quickly for us whilst we worked on various new delights for you (more on that soon).  Gaming-wise we were spoilt silly by the sheer level of humour displayed by Portal 2 in April (still the funniest thing in gaming, cinema and T.V. this year) and then basically waited, breathless with anticipation, for Battlefield 3 and Skyrim.  Yes, we dabbled with various games in the meantime but they meant nothing to us (except for our unhealthy addiction to Left 4 Dead 2 at lunchtimes).

So we’ve created profiles for those last two (not for Portal 2 though – seriously, you only need WASD, E, Space and your R.A.T.!) and also added a bunch of M.M.O. profiles in anticipation of the M.M.O.7.  Whilst we were at it we thought we’d reorganise how we deal with our profile packs and add support for the M.M.O.7 back into all the previously released profiles, so here you go (click the name ofd the pack you want to start the download):

FPS Profile Pack
ARMA 2, Aliens Vs. Predator, Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, Bioshock, Bloody Good Time, Borderlands, Brink, Bulletstorm, Call of Duty (all of them – they haven’t changed the controls yet!), Crysis, Crysis 2, Counterstrike: Source, Duke Nukem Forever, Day of Defeat: Source, Front Mission Evolved, Half Life 2, Homefront, Left 4 Dead 2, Metro 2033, Medal of Honour, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Section 8 Prejudice, Shattered Horizon, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Team Fortress 2

Action Profile Pack
Assassin’s Creed, Batman Arkham Asylum, Dead Rising 2, Dead Space 2, Just Cause 2 Lost Planet 2, Mafia II, Red Faction Armageddon, Space Marine, Transformers: War For Cybertron

M.M.O. Profile Pack
Age Of Conan, Aion, D&D Online, DC Universe Online, Entropia Universe, EVE Online, Everquest 2, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, Runescape, Star Trek Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Tera, Warhammer Online, World Of Tanks, World Of Warcraft, World of Warcraft profile for M.M.O.7 Plug-in

RPG Profile pack
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, Minecraft, Mount & Blade, Witcher 2

Strategy Profile Pack
Civilisation V, Command & Conquer, Company of Heroes, Dawn Of War, Empire: Total War, Homeworld 2, League of Legends, Napoleon: Total War, Shogun 2: Total War, Sins of a Solar Empire, Starcraft 2, Supreme Commander,  Supreme Commander 2

Non-Gaming Profile Pack
CS5 After Effects, CS5 Dreamweaver, CS5 Flash, CS5 Illustrator, CS5 InDesign, CS5 Photoshop, CS5 Premiere, Firefox, Google Chrome, Google Earth, Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, Solidworks, Visual Studio, Windows 7.

You'll need to open the zip file and then copy the folder within to your C:\Users\Public\Documents\Saitek SD6 Profiles directory (or <user's home directory>Library/Application Support/Smart Technology/RAT for Mac).  The profiles will then appear in the pop-up list you get when you right click the R.A.T. icon next to your clock.

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

The more eagle-eyed amongst you (or at least those of you with access to a Mac as well as a PC) will have noticed that Mac users are able to program their precision aim buttons. “We’ve been asking for that for a while,” we can hear some of our longer-term Windows users say, “When can we have a piece of that action?”

Well, our dear readers, today is the day. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore.

We will be united in our common interests.

Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but to capture that control point!

We're fighting for our right to program; to nail that headshot and clinch the match

And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:

"We will not go quietly into the night!

We will not vanish without a fight!

We're going to live on!

We're going to survive!"

Today, we celebrate our Precision Aim Day!

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. *ahem* So, erm, yes. Just go and download the latest drivers and software from our website (which now includes version numbers in the names) and you can now program that extra button!

Oh, and Happy Independence Day to our American cousins!

It has always been a difficult call to make – should we support Mac?  Previously it was difficult to justify, especially because we produce gaming products: despite Apple’s assurances to the contrary many times over the years, the Mac platform just wasn’t particularly well supported with games.  A lot of people ended up using Bootcamp to install Windows and use that to play the games that otherwise wouldn’t have been supported, which just added another nail to the coffin of Mac support.  But then last year a couple of things happened; firstly Valve announced Mac support for their Steam platform.  It’s still early days at the moment in terms of the number of titles available (compared to the Windows version, anyway), but that alone has given access to a number of top rate games.  Secondly, Apple themselves released their own App Store and whilst gaming isn’t its prime focus, given its similarity to the iOS App Store, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be another avenue for people to get access to and get into games.

But something else occurred last year.  As you know, we released the R.A.T. and it’s designed primarily as a gaming product, but we got a lot of feedback that went something like this: “Can I use the R.A.T. just to do work with?  I love the design of it but I never play games so I just wondered if I’d be able to use it for normal stuff?”  I’m paraphrasing there, obviously, but it highlighted the fact that the design of the R.A.T. was touching more than just hardcore gamers.  Then of course we started getting inundated with requests for Mac support – by the boatload – and if you then work it through to the fact that a lot of Mac users do just use their computers for productivity it then became a no-brainer.  

So, without further ado, we’re proud to announce the availability of the drivers for the R.A.T.3, 5, 7 and 9 for the Mac.  You’ll need a minimum of OS10.6.6 and at launch we’ve got language support for English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

Or, more pertinently, when do I need to charge? We are of course talking about the R.A.T.9’s battery and whilst we do indicate that the battery is running low by flashing your DPI LEDs, a fair few of you have asked for another form of indication. So for your delectation and delight, please click the link below to download the R.A.T.9 battery charge indicator.

Download Here

Installation

Open the zip file, extract the two files within, then run the setup.exe file and follow the onscreen instruction to install it. Once installed you’ll need to run the R.A.T.9 Charge Indicator icon that you’ll find on your desktop – this will open the indicator which you should find hovering in the top left corner of your screen. This can be dragged anywhere you like on your desktop and you can even right click on it and set its opacity. If instead you’d prefer that it runs in your system tray (the icons next to your clock) then just click the minimise button and it will relocate there instead.

The installation adds the indicator to your Startup menu under Start>Programs>Startup so if you ever want to stop it automatically starting just delete the entry from there.

Unless you’ve been trapped in a cave for the last few years, with only Quake 2 to sate your gaming hunger, you might have noticed that keyboard commands for most modern FPS (not to mention MMO) games are increasing. As a result our hand movements have to get faster and more complex. Furthermore, most modern gamesmiths expect us to now press G for grenade, which is a full two keys away from WASD, but I digress.

Why not take the strain off your keyboard hand and keep it fixed firmly to the main movement controls, to maximize those bullet dodging skills?

The number and positioning of programmable buttons on the R.A.T allows you to do this, leaving your trusty rodent sidekick to take care of other functions. In my opinion, games like Bad Company 2 get approximately 5 times more satisfying when the pistol, grenade, rifle and noob tube commands are set to the R.A.T controls. I am so used to it; my hand rejects all other alternatives.

If I am preaching to the converted, rejoice in those high scores! If you aren’t using your R.A.T to its full potential then I hope these profiles give you that extra edge.

P.S. Everyone is different, so if you don’t like my key mappings, I have included a short readme file for swapping them round.

Enjoy!

Download the Profiles Here

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