Cyborg MCB43521N002/04/1 amBX Gaming Lights US

Pros: Easy to install and set up. Has the ability to add more channels of lighting if you are willing to spend the money. Even works with non AMBX games.

Cons: Can't get it to work with netflix or my meida player. Not all software is compatible.

Pros: Worked exactly as expected and totally enhanced gameplay!

Cons: One of them stopped working after 4 months!

Other Thoughts: I wrote the review on 9/24/12 and absolutely loved these things for the last 4 months. Until, one of them died on me! It will start flickering random colors during gameplay, get dimmer and then drop out all together. Unplugging its USB and replugging it worked for a month or so. But now it doesn't work for more than a few minutes. The other still works just fine, but for $100 and a supposedly promised 20,000 hours of use these things should still be going strong. Soo lame...if the company could provide me with a replacement I would probably even buy a second set because they really do enhance the experience! But this is unacceptable, buy at your own risk!

Pros: Good quality
Very bright

Cons: Expensive
Difficult to get working initially

Pros: Installation: Quite an easy setup in my opinion just make sure you've got 2 open USB ports for the 2 lights, also the drivers + software took all of 10 mins, install then restart.

Music: Automatically installed a Media Player Plugin so music worked nice with the visualizer right off the bad, but still haven't figured out aurora synesthesia i keep hearing about.

Movies: I was very relieved as to how easy this was, i simply opened one of my blu-ray movies saved onto my computer with VLC and it just worked with absolutely no effort on my part. You do have to enable it in the Programs list with the ambx software though I believe like everything else.

Games: First thing I tried was skyrim.... ran it, ambx recognized, exited game and enabled in software, ran it again and it worked fine. And let me tell you its simply gorgeous, going through a dark cave, something as simple as passing a lit torch or fire just lights the the wall in a dark red/orange and its just so much more immersive i love it. Have also used it with far cry to the same effect.

I also enjoy the windows effects, for example when I unplug or plug in a usb device the lights (which are usually a soft white) blibk or strobe. Its a nice touch.

Overall I personally find these to be well worth the money because of how well they work with movies and games, makes movies sooo much better and games way more immersive.

If your into taking your gaming and movie experience and overall entertainment to the next level. These bad boys will do just that.

GET THEM.

Cons: ummmmm i cant really think of any, the only thing would be a few games didnt work, such as guild wars, and minecraft. but then again you can still keep the default white on, which does reduce eyestrain so its not all that bad.

Other Thoughts: On a side note I had a buddy come over and play my modded skyrim ( looks amazing by itself) plus my surround sound headset, plus these lights....he had the time of his life, afterwards i asked him how he liked the lights, he said he didn't even notice they were on the whole time. Goes to show you how complementing to the game they actually are and if you were worried about them being distracting, well...there ya go.

Pros: - Bright
- Responsive
- Customizable
- Quality construction
- Looks awesome!

Cons: - Does not work with Guild Wars 2
- Lack of documentation and support
- Customization is tedious and complicated
- Poor software
- Overly expensive
- Lots of wires and each light takes a USB port

Other Thoughts: I picked up one set of these lights. This product is an awesome concept and definitely adds a premium feel to my desktop setup, when it works...

Sadly, very few developers have taken the time to code their software to take advantage of the AMDX hardware. The software included with the lights will provide generic illumination feedback based on an average of the colors on the screen for most games. But for plenty others, it simply doesn't recognize the program and the lights will go dark upon loading it.

The ability to set up a whopping 24 lights for full surround atmosphere is sweet, but at $100 a pair, also a bit ridiculous for something that seems to be experimental at best. If the price were cut in half I would probably buy another set despite my issues, because again, when they work...they look sweeet! =)

Pros: awesome visually. the videos provided certainly give a feel for what these lights can do. truly an amazing experience

Cons: they are a bit expensive. they main problem i had was that my computer recognized that i had plugged in the lights but the software provided needed to recognize them plugged in to continue with the instillation. the problem was that the software would not recognize that they were plugged in at all. after a long trial and error i figured out what was wrong and fixed it. madcatz wanted me to ship them in, RMA, but that would not have fixed it.

Pros: These really add a whole new dimension to music, movies and games. I only have a 30" HDTV, but these lights fill up the whole wall with color from the movie and make the experience feel much much bigger. I've used these with almost 100 games such as Skyrim, WoW, Fallout and they make everything more beautiful and intense. Looking at a pretty lake fills your wall with soothing blue and in battle, your wall will flash with explosions of orange and red. You really have to see them first hand to understand the beauty of these things.

In Skyrim, I'd walk along the forest and my walls would be filled with timber green and as I walked into a dark cave, my walls would be black except for the occasional torch or light source I passed. It's really just a whole new level of immersion.

Cons: The software that comes with this is not very good. You have to manually map every single game you want to use with them. That means booting the game up once so the software detects the game and then you have to go into the amBX control panel, click configure for software, find your game, then check "enable" next to it.

Also, I've had many problems with instability with these. Fallout was crashing every 5 minutes until I finally figured out that these lights were the problem. When I disabled the lights for Fallout, they ran perfectly with no more crashes.

I've played with these on about 100 games and I've had instability problems with maybe 10 of those, so the majority of games seem to work just fine.

Other Thoughts: I've owned a pair of these lights for about 1.5 years now and I consider them money well spent. It may seem like a lot of money for lights, but without seeing them in person, words can't really express just how much they add to an entertainment experience. Your entire peripheral vision is filled with the color of your screen and it does an amazing job of immersing you further into whatever you're doing.

The main thing is you really need to be right next to a large white wall to get the full effect of them. If you're willing to deal with some technical headache now and then, I'd highly recommend this to anyone who plays games or watches movies from their computer.

Pros: -Fantastic effect that adds a definite "wow" to your gaming experience
-Definitely adds to the immersion of your gameplay
-Solid design
-Active community of AmbX users, forum moderators, squaking about what games work well, what the work arounds are, and what games are just total failures. If you have trouble, you're not alone in dealing with it!
-Decent developer interaction with the forums, periodic updates to the AmbX software.
-You can easily hook up multiple lights and position them spatially wherever you want! I'm toying with getting another pair for behind me. Surround lighting.... mmmmm.

Cons: -Very few games are actually instrumented by the game's developers to use the lights. You're mostly stuck using AmbX's automagical ability to light up any 3D game. This doesn't always work for some games and you'll be outta luck.
-The turn-around time for AmbX developers getting AmbX working with new games can be very poor.
-There are a lot of cables.
-Setting up a new game is annoying. You have to run the game with AmbX running, then exit the game, then enable it in AmbX, then start it back up.
-Price could be lower

Other Thoughts: If you have the cash, it will blow your mind and you will love it.

I never noticed a latency issue - it feels instant to me.

Games that work gloriously:
-Eve Online (amazing amazing amazing effects for this very atmospheric game)
-MW2
-Anno 1440

I've heard that SLI and AmbX can be iffy together, but I haven't tried it. I would guess that Nvidia 3D might also be iffy with it.

Pros: When I first saw these, they looked great. I did a lot of research to see if this was something I wanted to buy. In researching I had learned that 1 set wasn't going to give you the best effect and that most user uploaded videos could not reproduce the experience. Eager to see it for myself and hoping to get the best experience I bought 3 sets. Overall I like the idea behind these lights. Cyborg did a great job in producing a such discrete unit. If I would go for an amBX light unit it would be this.

Cons: I could not be more disappointed with this purchase. Understandable, not all applications or games will work perfectly with this product as they were not designed to take advantage of it. To remedy this product relies on amBX software to create the amBX effects. As a result the amBX experience is not perfect, which is understandable. What I don't understand I how come this software has to be so terrible. There is a delay in the light response that really takes away from the ambient experience. The fact that you need multiple units to get more diverse results is unavoidable and becomes problematic when you have pay so much to get so little. It is a shame that these lights rely on amBX software to work, to review one is to review both. I would not recommend these for anything beyond watching movies and at that, prepare to have wires everywhere. 1 USB and 1 Power per light. Which means that the more sets you have the cables you'll have. One last thing, you need 1 USB port per light

Other Thoughts: 3 Eggs.
It is a great design.
But does not operate in a way to justify the cost.

I used this with:
BF3
Skyrim
Metro 2033

Windows Media Player.

I really wanted to like these and to be honest I would if they were far cheaper. I wouldn't buy these unless they were selling for around $50 a set. I would also refrain form buying these until then.

I was able to set the lights to match the color of my PC's lights, I really liked that.

On a side note, these lights add to your CPU load. Be cautious if you already having issue with that. (This was ran on a i7-2600)

This product requires white walls and needs to be placed close to these walls. The product does not come with wall mounts either.

Consider purchasing a USB hub for multiple sets.

I am considering returning these.

Sorry Cyborg, I really like your products. The support for these should offend you.