As someone surrounded by gaming keyboards, I can confidently say that most Windows apps created by manufacturers for programming RGB lights are subpar—especially Asus’s Armoury Crate.
That’s why it’s great news that Dynamic Lighting is making such apps unnecessary for Asus motherboards, at least for some functions.
Dynamic Lighting is Microsoft’s attempt to unify these bling management apps with an all-in-one solution on Windows 11. This means that if you use a Corsair keyboard, a Razer mouse, a HyperX headset, and a Gigabyte motherboard, you don’t need four different apps in your notification tray to make your desktop setup look like a miniature rave.
At least, that’s the idea. In reality, support for Dynamic Lighting is rolling out slowly, even though several major players—including Logitech, Razer, Acer, HP (HyperX), SteelSeries, and Acer—have signed up to be part of the program.
Asus is also on that list, but until recently, only the ROG Scope II Wireless 96 keyboard was in the official documentation. The Verge’s Tom Warren spotted a beta UEFI/BIOS update for the latest AMD and Intel motherboards that included a Windows Dynamic Lighting support toggle.
You’ll need to track down the beta BIOS and enable the toggle to see the addressable RGB lighting in the Windows program. But if you’re aiming for that all-in-one lighting setup and want to reduce the number of background apps you run, it might be worth it.
Unfortunately, locating the beta BIOS updates for Asus motherboards can be a hassle. The only reliable place to find them appears to be on the Asus ROG forums (via The Verge) where moderators occasionally post Dropbox links to the relevant files.
Final builds are posted to the Asus support site every month or so, but there’s no guarantee that the Dynamic Lighting feature will make it to the next update for any particular board.
