Keyboard  are good for shortcuts, but sometimes we prefer to use a knob for more intuitive and smoother operation. The Surface Dial  ($100) was designed for such a purpose. However, the Surface Dial doesn't lend itself to muscle memory - the only operations are rotate and press so you need to rely on mode change in order to invoke more than 3 actions. That's why people like compact controllers with more buttons like the TourBox  ($158 at Amazon)  or the Clip studio TabMate    ($57) so that they can control more parameters   swiftly  without worrying about which mode they're in.

Controllers like TourBox are great to use but a bit expensive. Any alternatives that are less expensive but still give us a dial? 

We found  numerous USB volume controllers on the market. Among them, devices from iwit caught our attention  since their inexpensive knobs can actually be programmed to send custom keystrokes. They can even simulate a Surface Dial! This is a Chinese company in Beijing and they sell in Taobao (from $10)  for the Chinese market but various resellers are reselling them at Amazon or EBay (big version available at e.g. as this item at  Amazon for $31, small version at EBay for $20, big or small at Aliexpress for $20-$30).  The two we got are small ones.

The weight is just right and together with the non-skid pad it doesn't move around.  The knob on the silver one was not level when it arrived, but we managed to pull the knob out and after plugging it back it stayed leveled.   The design is simple and the knob clicks and rotates well making   It almost a fidget toy.   ​∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ The iWit dials are notched so they don't rotate as smoothly as the Surface Dial.  They are also smaller and don't have a indention like the Shuttle Express   ($60)  does making them less suited for one-finger operation.

Programmability is not advertised but it is there.   I chatted with the seller at Taobao, who said they don't want to advertise it to avoid the trouble of providing customer support.   Why?  They said their way to program the device  can be confusing so they would rather just sell it as a simple, single-purpose USB volume controller.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How to Program. The way  you program them is special. You use the app Notepad as the  display and let the device print a menu that you can choose from.  To enter setup mode, press the iwit dial while you plug it to a computer via USB.  You should have Notepad already open and in focus when you do this so that Notepad receives all the key output from the iwit.   The rest is simply to navigate the menu with the dial itself. Each can be programmed to give different keystrokes independent of each other and thus you can connect multiple iwit knobs and have them control different things  (a bit like Palette ($330 for a Travel Console)). This is what the Surface Dial can't do, as multiple devices would only map to the same Dial API.   The same goes for ordinary USB volume controllers, since all of them would map to the same volume +/- mute keys.

If you want to control different apps without having to reprogram, you can do so  with Autohotkey, which can remap the input keys  according to the foreground app.  This requires you to do some coding with Autohotkey though.

Granted, this setup UI is not the most user-friendly, but it gets the job done. If you prefer a more user-friendly setup procedure, you probably would prefer a TourBox   ($158) ​ or a designer keyboard ($90). Taobao users would have more options like this keyboard   (RMB 399 = $56) or this dial (RMB 138 = $20) that allow custom key assignments.   Iwit also offers a  larger video editing controller    (RMB 799 = $113) at Taobao featuring a knob, a shutter ring and a dial (see photo right), but again you have to deal with their special setup UI.

Personally I'm quite happy with using a keyboard with my non-dominate hand  for hotkeys.   In Expresii, we have made common tasks like undo and redo easier:  we have Z and X as hotkeys for them so that you only need to press one key, as opposed to Ctrl-Z or Ctrl-Y which requires some finger twisting.  We still support standard multi-key  commands like Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y for undo and redo so that, if you're new to Expresii, those familiar key commands you got used to are still there.

That said, the only missing piece from my standard keyboard is a dial. Or, a few dials. So, I put the two iwit dials besides my keyboard. Because they are wired and the connectors stick out, I can only put them side-by-side. One knob controls Brush Wetness (hotkeys Q W)  and the other Pigment Adjuster (hotkeys , .).   And I still have more assignments available for operations of knob short press, long press, and knob rotation while pressed. So, a total of 6 assignments    per controller.

In the future, we may add the support for using multiple mice on the same computer, so that you can use your spare mice's buttons and wheels for controlling different settings in Expresii. Leave us a comment to let us  know how you like this plan.

Microsoft added the ability to add custom tools for different apps for Surface Dial.  Here is a little walk-through of such a process.  To get to the right setting page, type 'Wheel' in the search bar and choose 'Wheel Settings'.  Then see the following screenshots for guidance:

This is also  useful if you have a device that mimics a Surface Dial , such as the   iwit knob we review here and the   Huion Q620M .   Hers is an example usage of the custom tool with Expresii:

The iwit USB volume controller is a great choice if you want to add a couple of dials to complement your keyboard. They are inexpensive but reasonably well made. We thought of using multiple mice for their  wheels, but this is not the same as a dial: you cannot keep rotating a mouse wheel like you can with circular motion for a dial.   When do you need such a motion? Rotating the paper like this.   ​(^.~)☆

Today many digital artists don't have a discrete graphics card in their computers , as they only  use traditional paint programs that don't use GPU. Did you know that you can upgrade your PC with a sub $90 graphics card to use Expresii smoothly? 

We recommend a GT 1030, currently the fastest low-profile single-slot card,  because it fits most PC chassis that provide at least one half-height card slot and that it doesn't require much extra power  (most cases you don't need to upgrade your power supply). There are many brands that make graphics cards with GT 1030 and they usually come with 2GB of video  RAM. You  can get one from Gigabyte for US$85 that  is also   Amazon's Choice . ​ Those who can use Taobao can buy this GT 1030 card from Maxsun at   only   RMB439 = US$62 . We bought one when there's a discount at US60. 

We use a PC enclosed by a REALAN    e-mini   E-I7  mini-ITX chassis to show you how the installation of the graphics card is like.   The CPU in this PC is a modest Intel i3-6100. Yes, Expresii doesn't require a very fast CPU for smooth painting as most of the work is done on the GPU.

Here's a video showing the graphics card installation process:

The GT 1030 gives very good performance: 200+ FPS on Full-HD screen resolution.   For  comparison,  an older GT 730 only gives ~120 FPS.  120 FPS is already rather good for casual painting.   If you're on a really low budget, you can buy a used GT 730 for much less (~US$30).  

The resolution of your monitor does affect the speed at which Expresii runs. At 4K screen resolution, the GT 1030 still runs at a usable ~70 FPS, while the GT 730 can only do 30 FPS,  which is too slow. Notice, here the FPS is our simulation frame-rate instead of display frame-rate.

For comparison, another older low-profile single-slot card AMD Radeon 7730 (with 2GB video RAM) only gives 60 and 20 FPS for FHD and 4K respectively.  We highly recommend  you get the 1030 so that it is still fine if you use a 4K monitor to paint.

If you don't want to be limited to 8k x 8k output size as in many of the iPad paint apps, you should consider painting on a 'real' computer.  Expresii is capably of outputting to 32k x  32k (in the production version)  if you use a good graphics card and 12k x 12k in the current public version.   

The rendering in Expresii​ is unique - you won't see pixelated results like in most other painting apps (like shown on the right).  Together with our organic paint simulation, this is truly amazing!  Don't be fooled by Adobe calling their Live Brushes (oil & watercolor) in their new Adobe Fresco app ground-breaking  . The fact is, we achieved much better results in Expresii years ahead (for oil, see this video for what our Dr. Nelson Chu did previously for Microsoft).

Let us know if you have more question about hardware requirement.

The slim Desktop Dell ​  Inspiron 660s is from 2012. The   Intel integrated GPU HD Graphics 2500 that came with the  Inspiron 660s  is not suitable for Expresii.   We tried to upgrade another PC with GT 1030 too and see what performance we get. 

The Passmark CPU scores for   i3-6100  and  i5-3330S    are   5483    &   5678 respectively, so looks like they would gives similar performance if paired with the same GT 1030.  Experiment shows the newer 6th-gen    i3 GPU gives much better performance than the now 7-year-old 3rd-gen i5 GPU. Specifically its 200+ vs 110+ FPS.

Current Expresii is single-threaded. So, we should really be looking at the single-thread performance. The passmark site says   2105 and 1652 for 6100 and 3330S respectively - this probably the main factor why we get lower performance in Expresii on the 3330S.   

There are tons of cheap Surface Pen alternatives out there available for purchase online. The cheapest usually marked as 1024 pressure-levels are around US$20. Newer models supporting tilt sensing are a bit pricier.

We acquired two Surface Pen alternatives from Taobao,  namely the IQS Surface Pen 4096  and the  WiWU   P503 'Picasso' Active Stylus for testing.  Both claim to support 4096 levels of pressure and tilt sensing. Tilt sensing seriously?! Normally a 2017 Surface Pen, which supports tilt, costs US$99, but these alternatives are only a fraction of this at around US$40. We bought them when there's discount so the final prices were around US$30 each.

If you can't use Taobao, there're online stores like Amazon that sell e.g. this VORCSBINE    (looks exactly like the WiWU reviewed),   this from Lengh (looks exactly like the IQS reviewed)   , this     Penoval,   or this NewPower,  which all at around US$40 and claim to support tilt. Those pens look very similar to those two we tested so we won't be surprised if they were actually the same pens just with different labels. We didn't found any review of these pens with tilt support so we will review a few for you.

The rubbery tip feels very good, just like using the original Surface Pen -  not making any scratchy sound or friction being too large impeding your flow nor too small that it feels like skating on ice. I actually like such a rubbery tip, typically found in the Surface Pen or its alternatives, over the tips provided by Wacom.   Recent default Wacom tips are quite easily worn out when stroking against their own drawing tablets like the Intuos Pro, while their felt tips are also easy to catch dirt (and get worn out too).

These Surface Pen alternatives don't have any Bluetooth module in them, so they can't perform top button shortcut clicks like the original Surface Pen. They also don't have magnets in them so you can't adhere them on the sides of the Surface devices,  at least not securely when it's only the battery  (enclosure made of metal) inside that provides a weak adhesion.

Testing shows these cheap pens perform quite well. The IQS seems to have a smaller activation force - I can press very lightly to get a very thin line with ease. The WiWU pen on the other hand needs more force to get registered and I do get some strokes not recognized or broken due to very light pressure being used. 

The 2017 'new' Surface Pen doesn't sense tilt when we use its Eraser end to stroke. These alternative pens don't have an eraser end - instead they have two barrel buttons, one being used as the Eraser button.  From our test, the WiWU doesn't sense tilt when the eraser button is pressed, while the IQS does sense tilt but with jitters when the eraser button is pressed. 

Like the 2017 Surface Pen, these pen sense tilt only when it touches the screen. BTW,  the pleasant surprise of Surface Go giving tilt reading even when hovering is gone after some Windows Update. :(

To our surprise, our Line Tests show the IQS pen is even more sensitive than  the original 2017 Surface Pen! See the following video for comparison:

Guys, I want to stress that it's not the pressure level,  but  the activation force  and the pressure response curve that matter here  - that which make you feel how sensitive the pens are. 1024 levels are actually very enough.   Due to the API used, the pressure reading is actually converted to 1024 internally if you use the 'Windows Ink' option in Expresii. If you are using Wacom,  by default Wacom's driver also converts the reading to 1024, no matter you're using a 4k or 8k-level pen (you can disable the 1024-level cap in Wacom's driver and see if you can tell the difference :-).  Truth be told, those 4k or 8k  numbers are purely for marketing purposes. However, you may ask, then why does the 2017 Surface Pen with 4k levels feel more responsive than its previous model with just 1024 levels.   The answer is that they also improved the   activation force  and maybe also the   pressure response curve .  With smaller   activation force ,  you don't have to push so hard for the stroke be get registered.  

Center of gravity also affects how the pens feel in your hand. Both the IQS and WiWU have full-metal bodies,  while the Surface Pen is metal except its top part being plastic.   The Surface Pen has its center of gravity right at it's middle along its length (shifting balance is probably one reason why its not all metal).  The IQS has its center of gravity  quite shifted towards its top part, making it feel a little unbalanced ​ when held in hand. The WiWU is only slightly shifted towards its top so it still feels fine. Our digital scale shows all  three pens weight roughly the same at 18-19g.

These cheap pens are really great alternatives to the original Surface Pen with excellent price-performance ratio.  In particular,  the IQS pen is great for artists because it can sense small pressure well, beating even the original 2017 Surface Pen. I'd say the IQS pen's pressure sensitivity is on  par with Wacom's.   The only thing missing is the ability to sense tilt even during hover like an EMR Wacom pen does.
​
For those wanting to buy Surface Pen now, note that the  next version of Surface Pen probably will have wireless charging. You might want to wait till Microsoft’s fall event on October 2nd.

We, of course, would still like to see digital writing hardware technology further advances - currently they are only mimicking pens with hard nibs. It'd be great if hardware makers can provide tools that  simulate brushes well.   Leave your comment on what else you would like to see in future digital writing instruments.

Following our last blog entry, we continue to test Expresii on the Deskmini A300, this time with external graphics cards.   We only bought two   new items: 1. M.2 to PCI-E x4 Adapter Card (US$2; US$6 at Amazon),  2.  PCI-E x1 to x16 ribbon cable (US$4; similar item $17 at Amazon) from taobao.  This setup needs an external power supply and we simply use one from our other PC's.   

We tried an nvidia GTX 1060 and two lower-end cards GT 640 and GTX 750 Ti.   The M.2 adapter slot is not open-ended so in order to insert the graphics cards directly onto it, we need to first cut it open (reference).

We get 180+ FPS on 4k with the 1060 connected at 4x PCI-E speed.  When at 1x (via ribbon cable), we get only 80+ FPS.  At Full-HD, we get 180+ FP with 4x;   150+ FPS, 1x. With lower-end cards, we basically only get around 30 FPS, which is even much lower then what we get with the integrated Radeon Vega 11 in the Ryzen 2400G (95+ FPS).

With adapter and cable totaling a mere US$6, we are able to test out the external GPU setup with either 1x and 4x PCI-E speed. You  probably want to use a US$89 riser    (similar item US$43 at taobao) instead for easier setup with 4x speed for for proper performance. Or, at least this adapter+cable (US$17 at taobao) to minimize physical interfaces.

​We're satisfied by the performance increase from Ryzen APU 2400G's Vega 11 GPU running at 95+ FPS on  Full-HD to GTX 1060 running at 180+ FPS on 4k  monitor.

See this   youtube video  for adapter & cable options.

We're often asked what PC would be good to run Expresii. ​ ​In this blog entry we show you a few mini PC options. Note that if you don't need a PC such small, there're cheaper solutions if you build regular ITX PC's, which are a bit bigger.  

​For your reference, we tested a mini PC using the Asrock Deskmini A300. Specifically, we built a system with a AMD Ryzen 5 2400G CPU, 16 GB of DDR4 2666MHz RAM, and a 2.5" 256GB SSD hard drive.  The Ryzen  2400G has an integrated GPU Radeon RX Vega 11, which performs much better than those integrated GPU's from Intel, is fast enough for running Expresii smoothly. Note that you can still go by with 8GB of RAM and just 128GB of storage space if you have a tighter budget.

The DeskMini PC box is only 15 x 15 x 8 cm, with the power brick  1/6 of the box size. Total hardware cost the main unit  (i.e. excluding monitor, mouse and keyboard) is USD380.  ​ Depending on how you get a license for   Windows OS, the final cost could be sub-$400. There are also ready-to-use pre-built units available at e.g. Amazon at around $620 (OS included) ​ for those of you who don't want to build a PC yourselves.

I once had a   Mac Mini    but it died in just a few years - since the CPU is soldered onto the main board, I can not simply replace the faulty component like I can with a regular PC. ​ What is great about this Deskmini is that you can still upgrade the various components like CPU, RAM, storage like you do with a regular PC.   So I think the  a mini PC  with Ryzen 2400G & Asrock Deskmini A300 is a   sweet spot  on price, compactness & ability to change components.

On such a system with Ryzen 2400G, we get 95 FPS  when using a FHD (1920 x 1080) monitor.   The mainboard allows a little overclocking of the RAM, and we get 100+ FPS if we overclock the RAM from 2666 to 3000 MHz. 

The Deskmini also has an Intel version, but the supported Intel GPU's (e.g. HD 630) are much slower so we don't recommend the Intel variant.

The m2 eGPU kit with power supply mentioned in the 2nd video costs $116 from Ali Express (get the same thing + power supply for $50 from taobao if you can read Chinese and get them ship to your region). A used GTX 1060 with 6GB RAM could be as low as $135 on eBay. So, with a few hundreds of dollars you can add a powerful graphics card with when you need it.   For even cheaper solution, look at this guide and buy the NGFF version (i.e. for M.2)  dock. More reference here.

If you   have some more money to spare, and don't want to mess around with PC building, we recommend the Intel   Hades Canyon NUC:

The   Intel   Hades Canyon NUC  (Vega M GH, 16Gb RAM, 256 GB SSD at $1300)  is even  smaller than the Asrock DeskMini A300 yet much more powerful.   Its   Radeon RX Vega M GH GPU, which is much faster than the Vega 11 in the Deskmini,  allows you to run Expresii on a 4k monitor smoothly. If the 1k+ price tag is a litte too high, thre's also a version with a slower GPU  Vega M GL.   Also, look at eBay and sometimes there're offers in the $500-600 range as a barebone (i.e. you add your own RAM and storage).

Other ready-to-use mini PC's with   Radeon RX Vega M GH GPU (but not as tiny as the Intel NUC) include   this    Beelink Kaby G7   (with 16GB RAM + 256 GB SSD at $1150)  and   the   HiGame from Chuwi  at $1300.    

Conclusion?   You don't need a huge PC to run Expresii fast! ​╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑    

We were excited ever since the first Surface Book came out in 2015, since it gave the option for a discrete GPU.​ Now we have a chance to test with a Surface Book 2, thanks to Microsoft for providing the hardware for testing.

We are provided with the 13.5" model. Coming from the 12" Surface Pro, I like the bigger screen size.   The hardware feels really solid and clean. And of course, with an nvidia GTX 1050, we get very good performance, although it gets a bit hot and the fan would kick on. 

See the calligraphy process video in Youtube:

 Hong Kong-based artist Shuen Leung   tries out Microsoft Surface Studio and Surface Book 2:

Shuen does artwork in both traditional and digital media.  She specially likes Expresii for its ability to undo.   "Expresii 是可以undo 的 水墨!"     (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Check out her website and Facebook page for  works, art tips and more.

We recently acquired a Teclast X16 Power, which  uses the same Intel  Atom  CPU   z8700  as the MS  Surface 3  does.  It  can be paired with an 'active'  stylus  (it's not clear exactly what Teclast meant, but it looks like its AES - Active EletroStatic), which supports pressure but not tilt.  The biggest difference from an traditional EMR stylus is that  this Active pen doesn't support hovering meaning that you do not know exactly where you're hitting the surface until you actually hit it.  

We  tried doing calligraphy on it.  The pen tip is so firm - we actually  need to update Expresii's Pressure Adjustment range so that we can stroke without pressing too hard on the screen  (the tip would scratch the protective film that came with the machine).   We  also encountered the broken paper texture bug that some  of  our users    reported earlier   on this new machine on Win  10.  With this machine on our hands, we are able to do something  to avoid this bug, at least on our X16 Power.  In case you still get such a bug even with  the latest update of Expresii,  please let us know. 

This X16 Power  is priced similarly  as the Cube i7 Stylus we  tried  earlier.  It  has a bigger screen but a slower processor  (4o-sth   FPS  vs  60-sth      FPS  in Expresii Full mode).  It consumes less power  and thus has much better   thermal  (stays cool, fanless)  than the Cube i7 .     The speed is not ideal  for Expresii  Full, but it's a rather low-cost machine  that  you can also use with Android  5, in addition  to Windows 10.  You  can also  get  a  keyboard cover  free (depending on the seller).  It has 8GB    of RAM  - as if it's a top model  of  the MS Surface Pro  line ^_^.   Overall, it's a not-bad tablet if you don't feel like spending a whole bunch  (for  comparison  the cheapest  2GB-RAM  Surface 3  is  ~$400    right now). 

We think stylus tilt is really important in using paint programs like Expresii.  Unfortunately,  today most Windows tablet, including Microsoft's latest Surface Book and Surface Pro 4,  do not support stylus tilt (Apple's iPad   Pro  does!). To remedy this, we explore    using a smart device as a stylus tilt controller .

In doing so, we acquired   the  world's smallest android  smart  phone Melrose S9   (US$58  here), and an android  4.4  smartwatch HOPU  EC720    (US$105)  and here is the result:

So   far  among all Windows tablet PC's, only the  Wacom Cintiq Companion   offers pen tilt sensing.  In the following video that features a Cintiq companion hybrid, you'll see why   tilt sensing is so important in controlling your brush:

As Linda Dong  pointed out, the Cintiq has a number of drawbacks.  The following video was done with a  good   old  Intuos 3. The drawing is not 'on-screen',  but your hand and the stylus won't block your view:

Again, you see how important it is to have both pressure and tilt support in getting expressive marks - at least with our Expresii, that is!   And, yes, we think that Expresii's brush is currently the best in creation organic strokes without the use of pre-scanned images of some real brush marks.  It's much closer to what you would do with real brush and paper.  It's  not only the look that matters,  but also the interaction.  Spontaneity is the soul of Eastern inkwork.

Like other artists have mentioned, it's now the software that either makes and breaks the deal.  Many of the painting apps on the iPad (and Android, for that matter) has limitations (like memory/resolution/quality) that keeps them from being used for serious work (except Procreate I'd say, which does a great job with GPU-powered painting). Frankly, the MS Windows camp probably would want to use us to fight back against Apple (since now Expresii is Windows-only) - what you can do with Expresii's advanced brush and ink engine can't be done on an iPad - even the Pro!  For comparison, let's take a look at Adobe's attempt to do watercolor on the ipad.  It sounded good on the spec  - you can zoom in a lot as it's vector-based, but what you get are some polygons which doesn't look nice when enlarged.  (Update: Adobe's new Adobe Sketch  has a  better watercolor simulator  now)

Maybe Adobe also realized that it's not that great afterall so they withdrew the app (Adobe Eazel)  from the  app store ending the app's short life. Another ipad app that does watercolor is  Auryn Ink.  However, as reviewer Tara Donocan said, the biggest problem is the low resolution - you can never print it out. 

All these apps' watercolor effects are local  in  that the ink only moves in your strokes'  vicinity. You will miss the global effects (and fun!) you get when using real watercolor which can flow pretty much all over the whole paper. 

Now, take a look at the two videos of Expresii below. The first one was done on an 8" Atom-Z3735-based  windows tablet (a 2014 model), which is too slow for a nice painting experience. The  second one was on  a 10.6" CORE-M based windows tablet released in the first half of 2015, which  I'd already consider faster enough. (Update 2016:  now with the latest version of CORE-M processor Expresii runs really fast enough on  a mobile device)

In conclusion, brush/ink/watercolor sim is not easy. With good hardware, we still need good software to run on them to unleash the full potential.