DMA Card, Fuser & KMbox, Makcu Setup — Two-PC Rig Guide

Universal two-PC hardware setup — install the DMA card, wire a Fuser for single-monitor video merging, connect a KMBox for keyboard and mouse emulation.

How a DMA Rig Works

A DMA rig is the hardware behind a DMA cheat — two computers working together. The game PC runs the game with a DMA card seated in one of its PCIe slots. The DMA card reads memory directly off the PCIe bus and pipes it over USB 3.0 to a second PC, which runs your software. The game PC has no idea the second PC exists — which is how the whole rig slips past kernel-level anti-cheat that only scans the machine it runs on.

Three pieces of hardware sit between “DMA card in a slot” and “working two-PC rig.” This guide covers all three:

• DMA card — Artix-7 FPGA board (35T / 75T / 100T) in the game PC’s PCIe slot, wired to the second PC over USB 3.0.
• Fuser (optional) — FPGA video processor that merges the game PC’s HDMI or DisplayPort output with the second PC’s output into a single monitor feed. Required if you want one screen instead of two.
• KMBox (optional) — USB or virtual-network keyboard and mouse controller. Required if you want to script inputs from the second PC, share peripherals, or emulate a specific mouse’s USB identity.

The minimum working rig is just the DMA card and a second PC. Fuser and KMBox extend the rig but neither is mandatory for memory reads. Pick the path you actually need before buying. For firmware flashing and the post-install FT601 speed test, see our DMA firmware flashing guide — this page is purely the physical setup.

What You Need

Full universal checklist — everything that connects to anything in the rig:

Roughly 99% of desktop motherboards from the last decade support a DMA card — you just need one free PCIe slot. For best compatibility, Intel-platform MSI is the most reliable, with ASUS as a strong second choice (skip Z-series boards). Brand prebuilts like Lenovo and Alienware, and motherboards outside the MSI/ASUS ecosystem, have inconsistent DMA compatibility — some configurations refuse to enumerate the card at all.

Before You Start

• Verify the second PC first. Boot it, log into Windows, confirm network and USB ports work. Pre-install the current Visual C++ Redistributable and DirectX runtime — missing runtimes are a common cause of mystery crashes during the first speed test.
• Hands-on tools. Phillips screwdriver, 30–45 minutes the first time. Remote support can’t install a PCIe card or wire a Fuser for you.

How to Install Your DMA Card

Know the DMA Card’s Ports

Heat sinks, LED counts, and optional switches vary by manufacturer, but four features are identical on every DMA card:

• PCIe gold fingers — edge connector at the bottom. Slides into the motherboard PCIe slot.
• Flash port (also JTAG, CFG, or Update) — USB-C closest to the gold fingers. Used only for flashing firmware and extracting the FPGA DNA.
• Data port (also DATA, Speed) — USB-C farther from the gold fingers, near the top of the bracket. Talks to your second PC during gameplay.
• Metal bracket — anchors the card to the case slot cover and protects the USB ports from cable strain. Optional, but skip it and you must never tug the USB cable during use.

Choose the Right PCIe Slot

Any PCIe slot works electrically — x1, x4, or x16. The DMA card uses a single lane, so x1 is plenty. Three practical factors decide which slot to pick:

• GPU airflow. Don’t put the DMA card right next to your graphics card — its heat sink will sit inside the GPU fan’s intake path.
• Hand access. Slots farther from the GPU are easier to reach. Working around a thick three-slot GPU is the most common reason people fail to seat the card fully.
• Shared PCIe lanes. Many motherboards multiplex lanes — the slot you pick may be electrically disabled when a specific M.2 SSD slot is populated. If a slot looks correct but the DMA card stays dark, check the motherboard manual’s lane-sharing tables and move the SSD to a different slot.

On a typical mATX or ATX board: the top x16 is usually the GPU (skip it), the middle x1 is often the easiest fit, the bottom x16 is usually wired as x4 and gives the most clearance.

Power Down — And Pull the Plug

Shutting down Windows is not enough. Modern ATX power supplies deliver a 5V standby rail to the motherboard even when the PC is off, so PCIe slots stay partially live. Inserting a card into a live slot can blow the card’s FPGA, damage the slot, or both.

1. Shut down the game PC fully (Start → Shut Down, not Restart).
2. Unplug the PSU cable or flip the PSU rocker switch to OFF.
3. Press the front-panel power button once — this discharges residual voltage from the motherboard capacitors.
4. Open the case side panel.

Install the Card

Hold the card by its edges — don’t touch the FPGA chip, the gold fingers, or any PCB components.

1. Remove the slot cover aligned with your chosen PCIe slot.
2. Align the gold fingers with the slot opening. The bracket points toward the rear of the case so the USB ports are accessible from outside.
3. Press straight down until the card clicks in. Firm pressure, not violent. Both ends of the gold fingers must be flush with the top of the slot — if one side angles up, the card is not seated.
4. Screw down the bracket using the slot-cover screw.

Don’t close the case yet. Verify the install works first — if you have to reseat the card, you don’t want to redo the panel each time.

Verify the Install with the LED

If your card has a physical power switch on the top edge (pressed in = ON), press it ON now. Cards without a switch draw power automatically from the PCIe slot. Reconnect the PSU, press the front-panel power button, and watch the DMA card’s indicator LED.

The LED should light up. Colors and counts vary (green/blue/red, one LED, a row of three, or a 7-segment display), but every working DMA card lights up when PCIe power reaches it. No LED = card not seated. Shut down, unplug the PSU, hold the power button 15 seconds, reopen the case, and press the card straight down again. About 80% of failed installs are an un-seated card. If reseating doesn’t fix it, you’re likely hitting a shared PCIe lane (see slot selection above).

Connect to Your Second PC

1. Plug the USB-C end into the DMA card’s data port (the USB-C farther from the gold fingers). Not the flash port.
2. Route the cable out of the case. Looking at the back, the data port usually sits on the side farther from the motherboard.
3. Plug the USB-A end into a USB 3.0 port on the second PC. USB 3.0 ports are blue, red, or teal — never use a black USB 2.0 port. Rear motherboard ports are more reliable than front-panel ones.

Game PC BIOS Settings

The DMA card is physically installed, but the game PC’s BIOS needs four flags adjusted before memory reads work reliably. Skip this section and the typical symptom is a blue screen the moment you run the first DMA speed test.

How to Enter BIOS

During boot, rapidly tap F2 or DEL. The exact key depends on the motherboard:

• ASUS — F2 or DEL, then F7 for Advanced Mode
• MSI — DEL, then F7 for Advanced; switch BIOS to English if available
• Gigabyte — F2 or DEL, then F7 for Advanced Mode
• ASRock — F2 or DEL; menus are already in Advanced layout

The Four BIOS Flags to Adjust

Exact settings depend on which DMA firmware you’re running. Most basic and bridge-type firmware needs these four adjustments; advanced emulated firmware may want some of them at default (your firmware provider’s docs override this list).

Memory Integrity is the one most-often missed. It lives outside BIOS — open Windows Settings → Privacy & Security → Windows Security → Device Security → Core Isolation Details, turn off Memory Integrity, and reboot if prompted.

Where to find the BIOS flags by brand: ASUS → Advanced → PCI Subsystem Settings or System Agent Configuration; MSI → Settings → Advanced → PCI Subsystem Settings; Gigabyte → Settings → Miscellaneous or IO Ports; ASRock → Advanced → Chipset Configuration. PCIe slot generation and CSM live in the same areas.

How to Set Up Your Fuser

A Fuser lets you run a DMA rig on a single monitor. Without one you need two displays — one for the game PC, one for the second PC. With a Fuser, both feeds combine into one screen with the second PC’s overlay floating on top of the game.

How Fusers Work

A Fuser is an active FPGA device that takes two HDMI or DisplayPort inputs and produces one output. The game PC’s feed is the base layer. The second PC’s feed sits on top — but its pure black pixels become transparent via real-time RGB-black color keying. Anything you want to see from the second PC (ESP, radar, ammo counters) must be drawn on a fully black background; everything else cuts through to the game.

Cutout intensity is adjustable across 21 levels (0–20) via physical buttons. Higher values cut more aggressively (less ghosting); lower values are forgiving for game scenes with near-black pixels. Current-generation Fusers add under 3 ms of processing latency.

What’s in the Fuser Kit

• 1 Fuser unit (the box itself)
• 3 video cables — usually 3 HDMI, or 2 HDMI + 1 DP, depending on model
• 1 12 V DC power adapter
• Sometimes: USB-C data cable and serial cable (only used for EDID injection on older models)

Fuser Models & Resolution Compatibility

Four model families dominate. Pick by the resolution and refresh rate your monitor and GPUs actually push:

Match the Fuser to the weakest link. A DC500 can’t push 540 Hz if your monitor is 240 Hz; an older HDMI cable will bottleneck a 360 Hz monitor down to 240. Both PCs must output the same resolution and refresh rate.

Cable Requirements

• All HDMI cables must be HDMI 2.0 or higher. One older cable in the chain caps the whole system at 60 or 90 Hz.
• For DP-output Fusers, the output cable must be DisplayPort 1.4.
• For DC500 at high refresh rates, certified HDMI 2.1 (48 Gbps) is required.
• Three cables total: GPU 1 → Fuser Input 1, GPU 2 → Fuser Input 2, Fuser Output → Monitor.

Wiring Sequence

Power down both PCs and unplug the Fuser before wiring. Connect in this exact order — out-of-order connection causes inconsistent EDID negotiation on some Fuser revisions. Boot-up order is covered separately under Power-On Sequence below.

1. Game PC GPU → Fuser Input 1 (labeled HDMI1 or “Host”). The base video layer.
2. Second PC GPU → Fuser Input 2 (labeled HDMI2 or “Sub”). Becomes the overlay.
3. Fuser Output → Monitor. HDMI or DisplayPort, depending on Fuser model. If the monitor was already wired directly to the game PC, switch the monitor’s input source to the Fuser’s output.
4. Plug in the 12 V DC power adapter — don’t press the power button yet.

Verify Fuser Wiring with the LEDs

After powering on, the Fuser shows four indicator LEDs. A successfully wired rig lights three of them:

D1 + H1 + H2 lit = wiring complete. Don’t worry about D2 yet — you toggle it with K4 during normal use.

If H1 is dark, the HDMI 1 cable is loose or bad — check the connection to the game PC’s GPU. If H2 is dark, either the HDMI 2 cable is bad or the second PC / GPU / port itself is failing. Connect the second PC directly to a monitor to isolate: no image = second PC problem; image OK = cable or Fuser input.

Configure Both PCs for the Fuser

This is where most Fuser problems start. Both PCs must output exactly matching video settings:

• Same resolution on both PCs (e.g., 2560×1440).
• Same refresh rate on both PCs (e.g., 240 Hz).
• Color depth: 8-bit RGB on both. 10-bit or 12-bit will produce artifacts.
• Second PC desktop wallpaper: solid black (RGB 0,0,0). This is what makes the RGB-black keying work.

Set these in Windows Display Settings, then confirm in your GPU control panel (NVIDIA or AMD Adrenalin). If the monitor supports a resolution the GPU doesn’t expose by default, create a custom resolution and apply it to both PCs.

No separate monitor for the second PC during setup? Press K4 to switch the Fuser’s output to the second PC’s feed (D2 lights), tune the second PC’s resolution there, then press K4 again to return to fused view.

Fuser Button Controls

• K1 — cycle through supported resolutions. Use if the screen is black or flickering on first boot.
• K2 — increase RGB cutout intensity (sharper overlay edges, less ghosting).
• K3 — decrease cutout intensity. Hold to reset to default.
• K4 — toggle fusion on/off. The D2 LED reflects current state. Long-press on some models switches to second-PC view only.

Older Fusers (DICHEN V4/V5) require manual EDID injection via Monitor Asset Manager and a separate EDID tool. Current-generation models (V6, DC60, DC500, CaptainDMA 4K) handle EDID automatically.

How to Set Up Your KMBox

A KMBox is a small USB device that sits between your keyboard, your mouse, and your two PCs. It does two things at once: it lets the second PC send keyboard/mouse inputs to the game PC programmatically (for aimbot input, ESP-driven aim assists, macros), and it lets one physical keyboard and mouse drive both PCs without a KVM switch.

What’s in the KMBox Package

• 1 KMBox unit — a small transparent box with an OLED screen on top
• 2 USB data cables (usually blue) — for connecting to both PCs

KMBox B+ / B Pro Port Layout

The B+ and B Pro share the same wiring — the B Pro adds an OLED status display. Wiring is non-negotiable; each port has a fixed role:

When the USB connections are correct, the KMBox’s OLED screen lights up. Dark screen = cables loose or in the wrong ports.

Install the KMBox B+ Driver on the Second PC

1. Download the KMBox B+ serial driver
2. Extract, then run the installer as Administrator. No reboot usually required.

To find the COM port, press Win + X on the second PC, open Device Manager, expand Ports (COM & LPT), and note the COM number (e.g., COM3). You’ll need it for activation and scripting. If clicking “test” in your script software produces no response, swap the USB-to-USB cable first — that’s the most common cause.

KMBox Net (USB-Bridged Virtual Network Setup)

Despite the “Net” name, the KMBox Net is not wireless or external-Ethernet. Physically, it still uses two USB cables. The difference is that the second-PC USB connection enumerates as a USB-bridged virtual network adapter with its own IP address — your software talks to it over TCP/IP instead of a COM port. Easier to integrate with multi-process software and lets multiple programs share the same KMBox cleanly.

1. Wire two USB cables the same way as the B+: one to the game PC, one to the second PC. The OLED lights up and displays the KMBox’s IP (e.g., 192.168.2.188). Write this IP down.
2. Install the KMBox Net driver on the second PC. Windows usually surfaces a “new network adapter” prompt — accept it.
3. Configure the second PC’s NIC IP. Settings → Network & Internet → Advanced network settings → locate the new “Unidentified network” adapter and set a static IPv4:
   • First three octets match the KMBox (e.g., 192.168.2.x if KMBox is 192.168.2.188)
   • Last octet different from the KMBox, range 1–254
   • Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
   Example: KMBox at 192.168.2.188, NIC at 192.168.2.187.
4. Test connectivity. Win + R → cmd → ping 192.168.2.188 (your KMBox’s IP). Replies = setup complete. Timeouts = wrong subnet or driver bound to the wrong adapter.
5. Launch the KMBox Net controller software, point it at the KMBox’s IP, and start sending scripted inputs.

How to Set Up MAKCU — The Open-Source KMBox Alternative

MAKCU (full product name MAKCM) is a low-cost, open-source keyboard/mouse emulator that does the same core job as a KMBox — it lets the second PC send scripted keyboard and mouse inputs to the game PC. It is built on dual ESP32-S3 microcontrollers and usually costs a fraction of a KMBox B Pro. The trade-offs: configuration is more DIY, and MAKCU must always have a physical mouse attached for passthrough — it cannot run standalone.

What’s in the MAKCU Package

• 1 MAKCU / MAKCM board (dual ESP32-S3, usually pre-flashed with passthrough firmware)
• USB cables (you need three connections total)

MAKCU Port Layout (3 USB Ports)

Unlike the KMBox’s four ports, MAKCU has three USB ports across two chips. Each has a fixed job, and the wiring is non-negotiable:

In normal mode, both USB 1 and USB 2 must be connected for MAKCU to power on, and USB 3 must have a device attached — MAKCU cannot operate standalone. Port positions (left / middle / right) vary by PCB revision; always confirm against the silkscreen labels printed on your board.

Install the CH343 Driver on the Second PC

MAKCU uses a CH343 USB-to-serial chip. The second PC needs the CH343 driver before it can talk to the board:

1. Download the CH343 driver.
2. Run the installer, then plug USB 2 into the second PC.
3. Press Win + X → Device Manager → Ports (COM & LPT) and note the COM number MAKCU is assigned.

Keep the COM port number below 10. MAKCU has a known issue connecting on COM10 or higher. If Windows assigns a high number, change it in Device Manager → right-click the port → Properties → Port Settings → Advanced → pick a free single-digit COM number.

Set the Baud Rate

MAKCU ships at 115200 baud by default, but supports up to 4 Mbps for zero-latency input over the CH343 UART:

• To switch to 4 Mbps: press the left button on MAKCU four times quickly. The LED flashes to confirm the new rate is saved.
• On every startup, the left indicator LED flashes to show the current rate: 1 flash = 115200, 4 flashes = 4 Mbps.
• Your control software’s baud rate must match the rate set on the board — a mismatch is the most common reason commands silently fail.

MAKCU vs KMBox — Which to Pick

• Choose MAKCU if budget is the priority — it runs roughly a third the price of a KMBox B Pro and the firmware is open-source. Accept the DIY config, the mandatory physical mouse passthrough, and the COM-port-under-10 quirk.
• Choose KMBox B Pro / Net if you want the OLED status screen, the official activation system, and (on the Net) clean IP-based control that multiple programs can share. You pay more for the polish.

Power-On Sequence

Once everything is wired, the boot order matters. Out of order, the Fuser’s EDID negotiation can fail or the KMBox can register before its USB targets exist. Use this sequence on first boot and after any cable change:

1. Plug in the Fuser’s 12 V adapter but don’t press the power button yet. D1 may light from standby.
2. Monitor on. It will show no signal until later steps.
3. Game PC on. Let it fully boot into Windows.
4. Second PC on. Let it fully boot into Windows.
5. Wait roughly 20 seconds for both PCs to finish initialization — HDMI handshakes don’t settle instantly.
6. Press the Fuser’s power button. H1, H2, and D1 should light. Toggle K4 to confirm D2 reacts.
7. Confirm the KMBox screen is lit. If not, reconnect Port 1’s USB cable to the second PC.
8. Switch monitor input to the Fuser’s output port if not already selected.

Skip the Fuser and KMBox steps if you don’t have those components — the bare-minimum DMA rig is just game PC + DMA card + second PC + USB cable.

What’s Next

Hardware is wired and the BIOS is correct. The remaining steps are software:

• Flash custom firmware to the DMA card — CH347 or RS232 path depending on your card. Full walkthrough in our DMA firmware flashing guide: driver install, DNA extraction, the .bin rename convention, the cold-boot procedure, and the FT601 speed test.
• Install runtime libraries on the second PC if skipped earlier: current Visual C++ Redistributable + DirectX runtime.
• Configure your script software — point it at the COM port or IP address the KMBox uses.

Troubleshooting

DMA Hardware Setup FAQ

Does my motherboard support a DMA card?

Roughly 99% of desktop motherboards from the last decade do. Intel-platform MSI is the most consistent; ASUS is a strong second (avoid Z-series). Prebuilt brands like Lenovo and Alienware have spotty compatibility. The card needs one free PCIe slot — x1, x4, or x16 all work.

Can I run a DMA rig without a Fuser or KMBox?

Yes. The minimum setup is the game PC, a DMA card, a second PC, and a USB 3.0 cable. A Fuser is only needed for single-monitor display; a KMBox is only needed for scripted inputs or shared peripherals.

What’s the difference between KMBox B+ and Net?

The B+ is a four-USB-port keyboard/mouse controller talked to over a COM port. The Net is physically the same two-USB-cable setup, but presents to the second PC as a virtual network adapter with its own IP; your software talks to it over a TCP/IP socket. Pick the Net when multi-process software needs to share access cleanly.

What’s the difference between the DMA card’s flash port and data port?

The flash port (closest to gold fingers) is used only for flashing firmware and extracting the FPGA DNA. The data port (farther from gold fingers) is used for normal operation and the speed test. Wire the data port to your second PC; ignore the flash port until you flash firmware.