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This blog contains information about gaming mice - general, specific, and miscellaneous. If you:
1. Have questions about the legitimacy of gaming mice
2. Bought a gaming mouse and want to know what it is you actually got
3. Are considering buying a gaming mouse but aren't sure what to look for
4. Want to know more about gaming mice in general
then this post is for you. The world of gaming mice is filled with misinformation, misunderstanding, zealotry, and regret. I made this in order to give practical, helpful information to try to do away with some of that pain.
+ Show Spoiler [Part 1: What?] +
What is a gaming mouse? Unfortunately, it's a worthless phrase that has been transformed into mega-dollars by people more clever and devious than you. Well, that about wraps up part 1.
Thankfully, I'm only mostly joking.
A long time ago there was an awesome set of games that go by the name Quake. Specifically, my poison was Quake III Arena. I played this game feverishly and built up a very high skill in it over time. I remember that I was using this old IBM mouse at the time (it's old now, anyway). I don't admit to knowing much about general gaming history or progaming history, but Quake III Arena was my first experience in the world of progaming. It was where I first learned the term and where I first realized the long-term consequences of such an idea existing.
For anyone that has played the Quake games, you will probably know of a concept called bunny hopping. This is a bug in the acceleration mechanics in the game. In FPS games, when you jump around you experience acceleration. Acceleration is a very well-established concept in physics that is completely separate from velocity. Velocity is a rate of 'gaining' motion. It's like the miles per hour or kilometers per hour meter in a vehicle. If you are going 60 miles per hour, that means after 30 minutes, you will have gone 30 miles. But acceleration is a rate of 'gaining' (or losing) velocity. When the needle moves up the track or down the track, it is because of acceleration (positive or negative depending on direction).
When jumping in modern FPS games, you gain an acceleration in whatever direction you jumped, but your speed is then RESET once you touch the ground. There is a bug in the Quake engine which allows you to STOP this reset using a certain set of motions while jumping. In this way, your avatar can reach an incredibly high velocity by maintaining this acceleration. The faster speed makes you slightly harder to hit and, more importantly, gives you incredible mobility when compared to someone that does not use the bug. Also jumping around, makes it hard for people to predict your motion - the human brain is less used to acceleration and more used to velocity.
Many, many people considered bunny hopping cheating. It was a glitch in the game engine. It was completely unintentional on the developers' part. Why wasn't it patched? Why are people that use this exploit not banned? The fact is that bunny hopping became the glitch that defined the entire game. To play at a high skill level, you had to be an EXPERT at bunny hopping. The analogy is similar to muta stacking.
So at this point in my life, I learned a few valuable lessons. The main one being that the score at the end of the game determines the winner. In-between things like exploits and whatnot don't matter. If you can do it in the game, it's a valid strategy. If using an exploit makes you win, and your goal is to win, it would be completely illogical to not use the exploit. I learned this attitude from players that were better than me. The attitude of 'fair fighting' was holding me back. I didn't even understand at the time what 'winning' meant. But now it's so simple - it's being the victor at the end of the game. Using some ruleset that is not in the game is not trying to win - it is like playing another game altogether.
It really is that starkly different. It's like if two chess champions had a match and one brought his tennis racket and demanded to serve first. It's completely RIDICULOUS.
Winning is not a moralistic concept. It's so much simpler than that. The team with the highest score at the end wins the game. So simple, but I ignored that for so long.
This is the point where I learned about gaining advantages. It's easier to win if you have an advantage over your opponents. There's no medal for the team that wins while playing with handicaps(!!!) so gain as many advantages as you can and make it as easy for yourself as you can.
This is where gaming mice come in! Yeah that's right, the topic of this post is gaming mice, remember? Back in that day, I don't really remember the concept of gaming mice. People bought mice that were comfortable and used them. They used mice they were familiar with.
But this guy I played with all the time taught me a really cool secret. He broke open his mouse and noticed there was lots of free space inside. What he did was put little fishing weights inside the mouse to make it more stable. This has the effect of giving the mouse more momentum and a better weight distribution (if you put the right weights in the right place). It required more force to move and less force to stop (because of the added friction) - in other words, it took less effort overall to make a correction. At the time, this was a pretty huge advantage in a game like Q3A. So I did a similar thing to my mouse, and, by god, it was EASIER to win. I had gained an advantage.
Fast forward a couple of years and we have the concept of gaming mice becoming pretty popular (from my memory). I read about them on websites I visited, I saw them at tech stores, people talked about them. I thought the idea was SILLY. I thought, cynically, it was just another move to get more cash out of a bunch of stupid cows with too much money.
Fast forward another couple of years, and I won't use anything but what I consider to be 'gaming mice'. Looking back at my previous cynical feelings is pretty humorous considering that I MODDED my non-gaming mouse to give me an advantage. I guess I thought no one else was clever enough to do such a thing, especially not big companies.
This first part is really aimed at those who are skeptical of the idea of gaming mice (I know lots of people still are). Unfortunately, my cynicism turned out to be partially right, and there are lots of bullshitters out there who will take your money and give you a sub-par product. But if you are playing competitive games or even just browsing TL, you are much better off with a gaming mouse.
Not having a gaming mouse is like using a weapon in an FPS that's innacurate, does less damage, and reloads slower. Gaming mice are just better in every way. The better a mouse is, the more natural it feels, the less you have to think about it.
The mouse is the single most important piece of equipment you have in games (a good keyboard is right up there behind it - but what constitutes a good keyboard is less objective, so I'll stay away from that mostly). It's more important than the video card or processor? Yup. For me, I realize that the mouse IS THE GAME. It is the interface. Playing with a bad mouse is like typing with mittens on. A good mouse is good because it lowers the bar of difficulty in the interface - it puts you more directly in contact with the game. The perfect mouse is telepathy, but we are not there yet.
In summary: gaming mice are the real deal. If you are good at a game, they will make you better! A good gaming mouse is not an instant skill-hike. It will simply enable you to bring out your best game.
+ Show Spoiler [Part 2: What makes a gaming mouse?] +A good advertising campaign and really bright LEDs. Just kidding. There is a lot of confusion about technical specifications of mice. This confusion takes many forms. Some are simply confused about what the technical specifications actually mean. Others are not but are confused about their effect. Still others are confused about the entire concept. I have, in the past, shared every one of these confusions about pretty much every aspect of a mouse. If you are looking into buying a good mouse, what do you look for? Some people will tell you to get the most expensive mice because they are simply better, have more advanced engines and technology in general etc. Others will tell you to buy the cheapest mouse you can and just adjust the speed slider in the control panel until it feels right. Others will swear by a particular mouse or a particular brand of mouse. Others will tell you to buy whatever suits you. This last one is the most correct and unfortunately least helpful out of all the advice that is given. I have put together a set of criteria that anyone should look for in a good gaming mouse. This will be more helpful to those who have previously owned a high-quality mouse and are familiar in an intimate sense with what I am speaking of, but I will also do my absolute best to demistify some of the terms you often hear with mice. My main goal in this guide is getting results. I am currently a student of physics, and I understand the value of hard numbers. However, things that are theoretically superior are often practically inferior because of complex circumstances. This is occasionally the case with mice as well - so all of my advice is geared towards results and not necessarily technical superiority, though the two are often indistinguishable. I will not take two mice, make a table with their technical specifications and declare a victor. I've listed the criteria below somewhat in order of importance, though many are directly related. My ordering of these criteria is almost purely subjective, but my evaluation of each one is as objective as possible. + Show Spoiler [Comfort] +
The first and most important requirement is comfort. The mouse has to be comfortable. It must conform to your hand. If you experience pain, tension, or discomfort of any kind, it will distract you from playing the game properly (and it could also lead to long-term injury!). The proper way to hold 99% of mice is to have your forearm parallel with the ground and your wrist as straight as possible. In this position, the mouse must be comfortable or it will lead to muscle aches and other things which will make your play much worse over time.
These days, gaming mice win in comfort by having ergonomic shaping. This is basically chopping away bits of volume of a 'solid' mouse so that the fingers and thumb (and possibly palm) fit more comfortably and more exactly in a certain place. The placement of these finger and thumb niches also determines the distribution of your fingers' muscle power. For example, most right handed gaming mice have it set up so that your right hand is tilted very slightly to the right and the mouse is easily maneuverable by using only your Ring finger and your Thumb. The weight of the mouse is distributed such that the center of mass is very close to the line between your Thumb and Ring finger (an imaginary line connecting the two tips). This makes it so that you use less energy and use that energy more efficiently when moving the mouse around.
Comfort is not a concept of the stationary when it comes to mice. You can make a mouse that's basically a hand pillow, but when you have to move it around the pad, it will be VERY uncomfortable. A mouse must be comfortable when moving or still. This is where grip comes into play. If the mouse is well-designed it will give you a powerful grip so that it's easy to control the weight and motion of the mouse.
The next most important concept is tracking. Mouse tracking is actually an extremely complicated and heavily mathematical subject when it comes down to it. Calculus and numerical analysis are key to understanding what makes a mouse track. But for gaming purposes, all we need to know is whether the mouse tracks well. Keep in mind that tracking well is equivalent to the mouse doing what you think it should do when you tell it to do something. Most mice do pretty well these days. The software that analyzes tracking data is well-understood and is sometimes taught at the undergraduate level depending on the style of classes you are taking. However, as with any process involving algorithms, the more time spent studying a problem, the better the results are. Also, the more single-purpose your problem is, the more refined your algorithm can be. Mouse tracking can probably be improved 'infinitely' given enough time and money. This means a designer can throw as much money as he has at just mouse tracking. So when do you stop? Do you stop when you get less improvement for more work? Do you stop at a budget line? This is a tough question to answer. What a good designer will do is have goals in mind for mouse tracking and will meet those goals barring impossible/improbable barriers. This is why gaming mice have an edge in mouse tracking. Designers for these mice place the bars as high as they can without getting fired or sent to a mental hospital. Designers for a 10 dollar mouse probably won't put as much effort into it. + Show Spoiler [DPI and Polling Rate] +Two important parts of mouse tracking are DPI (or more properly CPI) and polling rate. DPI is enough of an issue to gain its own special place in the history of internet flame wars. Just search TL for DPI and see how much sarcasm, rage, and misinformation you can find. And then imagine some place with a lower concentration of civility. + Show Spoiler [DPI] +
Flame on. The things I say here will be controversial - but not because they are wrong. DPI is a hot topic with gaming mice and many people believe that companies that push high-DPI products (Razer and Logitech) are just trying to swindle honest gamers. For those of you that don't like to read or can't resist a good ol' tldr, higher DPI is generally better - yes, I said it.
DPI is such a terrible term in the mouse world that I will instead opt to call it CPI from now on in order not to burst quite so many blood vessels. I used to hate on DPI hype just as much as anyone else, and I too produced buckets of foam over the subject - so I understand.
So just what is CPI? A lot of people commit semantic seppuku and call it 'sensitivity' - hell, even some companies often call it sensitivity or say that it's for 'high-sensitivity' gamers. Well, this is a meaningless phrase to me. What does sensitivity mean? If I look that up in a dictionary, I just get confused by talking about mice using the term. I'm going to establish a working set of definitions so that I can speak practically about what it does with no room for confusion.
Velocity is the physical speed at which your mouse or mouse cursor is moving (I am making my own definitions here in order to be as clear as possible). If your mouse cursor moves 1 foot in 1 second, it's velocity is 1 foot per second.
Speed is in reference to the 'speed' sliders in the OS and in the mouse driver options. So if I say a speed of 0, I mean the speed slider is set to its lowest (usually leftmost) value.
Consider a mouse set up so that the cursor moves at a velocity of 'x' (assuming the hand can move the mouse at this constant speed). If the CPI in this setup is doubled, the mouse cursor will now move at '2x', so twice the velocity. Double the CPI, double the velocity. Most people understand this much.
But the question is: what do you lose or gain by doubling the CPI? When you double the CPI, you double the number of points taken to make up the mouse path. What does that mean? Any mouse path is not a continuous line, it is a number of points. Mouse motion appears to be continuous because the individual points taken are very close together. So if the mouse plots out 100 points to move one millimeter on the screen, the screen will have drawn the mouse 100 times during that motion (this isn't entirely accurate, but I'm trying to get the idea across). It is unlikely that most people will notice it anything other than as a smooth motion (sort of like how animations are made of discrete frames but can appear smooth).
Since it doubles the number of points, why does it double the velocity of the cursor? Remember, that your hand moves at a constant speed (this it to make it simpler). If your hand moves to the right some distance, let's say the mouse cursor moves a distance 'x'. If you double the CPI and try it again, your hand still moves at the same speed but the mouse cursor moves a distance of '2x'. In the first instance, let's say your mouse took 100 points to make the motion. So in the second instance, it took 200 points to make the motion. The points were not spaced closer together, they were spaced the same distance as before - CPI does not affect the point spacing. So what happened was, you have the same point spacing and twice as many points - your cursor will have to move double distance, and to do that in the same time period, you will have to move twice the speed.
So CPI does not affect the smoothness of the mouse motion. If you cut the point distance in half, I would simply define the new mouse path to be twice as smooth. Good mouse tracking is all about smoothness. The smoother the tracking is, the more natural it feels. If the CPI does not affect this, who cares? I'll get back to this point after I talk about
Speed sliders. The speed sliders in your OS and driver software are what affect the point spacing. So if you want maximum smoothness, you should cut these sliders all the way down - that way the points will be very tightly spaced. But wait, there's a problem. This makes the mouse cursor extremely slow. So what do we do to solve this problem? Raise the CPI.
It is the combination of lowering the point spacing and raising the number of points that allows for the maximum smoothness at a comfortable cursor speed. The higher your maximum CPI, the lower you can set the speed sliders. So my suggestion is to set your CPI to the absolute maximum and then lower the speed sliders in your OS and mouse drivers to find a comfortable speed.
People that get high DPI mice and crank the DPI to the max and set the speed sliders to full will quickly discover that it's impossible to maneuver their mice. This could be the reason many people frown on high-DPI, thinking it's all about increasing the speed at which your cursor can move. This is not it at all. High DPI just allows you to lower the 'speed' cursors in your OS and drivers so that you have a smoother tracking at the same cursor speed - this means higher DPI is strictly superior.
I have read in many places that there is a 'default' position for speed sliders which is optimal. It is said that positions in front of or behind this default position add interpolation to the mouse. Now, whether or not you are on default positions, interpolation is going on - this is just how mouse tracking works. What matters is whether having minimal interpolation is best for smooth mouse tracking. As an extra small note, it can be demonstrated that the highest speed settings in Windows XP cause the mouse to skip pixels. This is bad. Avoid the highest settings. I did a few experiments to test out the difference between this default setting and other settings. Throughout every experiment, I tried to keep the mouse cursor at a speed that I was most familiar with. This is the fixed variable in the experiment. Unfortunately, the other variables have to be tweaked around this variable so I can't do tests on every extrema. In the GIMP 2.6, I used a custom 3x3 'cross' pattern (like a D-pad on a SNES controller, basically) to draw an unfinished 'infinity' character. I used the paint brush tool instead of the pencil tool. The character drawn is unfinished in order that the start and end points can be clearly seen (started at top right, ended at bottom left). The mouse used is the Logitech G5 with all weights removed and the weight chamber removed. The results are as follows: + Show Spoiler [LOW CPI] +--- 1. W 10, SP 5, CPI 400 (Windows Speed 10, Setpoint Speed 5) --- --- 2. W 8, SP 5, CPI 400 --- --- 3. W 5, SP 10, CPI 400 --- In this case, the clear winner is (2). These results seem to suggest staying away from maximum speed values. Neither the Setpoint nor the Windows speed slider seems to be better when maxed. Pixel skipping is clearly present in both max settings while the same cannot be said of the 'middle' setting. --- 4. W 10, SP 0, CPI 1300 --- --- 5. W 5, SP 5, CPI 1450 (defaults) --- (4) is actually worse than some of the low-CPI results. This seems to indicate that it's better to have the Setpoint speed high than the Windows speed high. The 5/5 setting is the testing of the 'default' settings that supposedly minimize bad interpolation. It is actually one of the best results by far. I would rate it second best overall. --- 6. W 2, SP 8, CPI 2000 --- --- 7. W 8, SP 1, CPI 2000 --- Yet further indication that the Windows speed bar is inferior to the Setpoint speed bar. I would rate (6) as the best result so far, but it is very close to (5).
Generally speaking: higher CPI is better, Windows' speed slider is worse than the Setpoint speed slider (in terms of smoothness), using maximum speed slider settings is bad in either case.
In terms of the 'default' phenomenon, there seems to be some merit to it. I took the default setting and the setting that I rated the best and played a game of Starcraft with both. The setting I rated best won because it felt better than the other setting. Going by the comparison of the drawings only, it could go either way. I don't plan on doing any further experiments with the default setting, but I have hopefully provided a pretty good method for someone else to do their own testing.
For the setting that I rated best, you can see that there is obviously spots that lack smoothness. There are two explanations for these spots. First, I was intentionally not trying my best to make it as good as possible. I drew the top left figure first, a little bit slowly. Then the right figure, a little bit quickly. Then the bottom figure at the most comfortable pace. Obviously, in my mouse setup I am sacrificing a bit of control for more speed. This is a subjective thing. All gamers have to sacrifice one to get more of the other to find their optimal settings. This will become less and less true in the future as DPI becomes higher and mouse engines become better.
There was a bit of discussion in the thread about the relationship between DPI and speed sliders. After a great deal of reading and more research into the problem, things start to become more clear. I have left the rest of my post unedited for content (only edited for grammar fixes etc.) just to keep things in perspective. My earlier findings came down to this: Higher CPI is always better, turn down the Windows speed slider to adjust for speed. There are a few problems with this finding that are more apparent after a lot of thought and further reading. 1. Driver-specific interference: The mouse used was a Logitech G5 using Setpoint drivers. In my 'best' settings, I had maximum DPI on the mouse and Windows Speed slider on 2/10, but I also had Setpoint Speed slider on 8/10. The reason I arrived at this setup in the first place was that I noticed how terrible the Windows slider reacted at very high settings - my conclusion was that having Setpoint Speed high was better than having Windows speed high. 2. I did the experiment without actual specific knowledge of how the Windows speed slider worked and how DPI worked with it. The ideas I presented about point spacing and so on were correct but incomplete in an important way - this idea was merely from my experience of using mice with different DPI and meddling with Speed sliders. 3. Mouse-specific: The G5 is only one mouse. In order for something to be more demonstrative, it has to apply to any mouse in every situation at every setting. I only did the experiment based on the cursor speed - whichever cursor speed felt right was tested. More thorough results at different cursor speeds could be more exact. 4. External factors: This includes my habits with the G5, the way I maneuver it, my grip positions, my choice of mousepad etc. Before I address all these points more fully, I'd like to say this: for the G5, I still prefer the W2/SP8/2000 setting over any other setting. It just feels better in Starcraft. I can select groups of units or individual units more easily. There may be some psychology at work, but I do consistently better with that setting. I have some ideas about why it could be that way, but I first need to explain some of the background information. + Show Spoiler [Windows Speed Slider] +Windows Speed Slider TestsWindows at 5/10 (6/11) is a 1:1 transformation from counts generated on your mouse to points generated on the monitor. This means that if you have a monitor 1200 pixels wide and 1200 CPI and W5, then you can move from one extreme of the monitor to the other in one inch of sensor motion. Note that for this to happen, no pixels can be skipped - motion is not added to or subtracted from. Windows at 3/10 is a 2:1 counts to points transformation. This means that if you have a monitor 1200 pixels wide with 1200 and W3, it will take 2 inches of sensor motion to move across the screen. Notice what happens to the 'extra' counts, though. They are basically dropped. The point spacing idea I presented earlier is still happening, it is just incomplete. At W3, if you generate two points 'moving across' the same pixel, one of them is dropped by the OS. This is basically a rounding thing. If the one point wasn't enough to get 'across' to the next pixel, then it is simply registered a movement in a subpixel and no cursor motion happens until you get enough counts to successfully cross the pixel.So using these ideas, a setting of W5 at 'X' CPI should be equivalent to a setting of W3 at '2X' CPI. There are similar multipliers for the other settings (see the above link). The final conclusion then is this: having a CPI higher than what is comfortable at W5 is pointless. If you use higher CPI and lower the Windows speed slider, it is equivalent to lowering the DPI in your mouse. If all we take into account are CPI and Windows speed sliders, this is a correct view. However, there are other factors which could affect the interaction of these two. I could not find any solid information on the Setpoint speed slider. If anyone has a technical 'manual' explaining its functions, please post them in the thread - I could not find any on their website. I also could not find any results of people experimenting with different Setpoint Speed slider settings. It is easy enough to test the behavior of Setpoint at W5, but at other settings their interaction could be very complicated (I don't have any way of really testing this - if you are cleverer than me, please post your idea). The author in the link posted under the Windows Speed Slider section claims "With Logitech Setpoint, the mouse shows acceleration even if you increase pointer speed one notch and even have acceleration turned off, including within the driver. I tested this myself." but provides no results (also, the Setpoint version he is using is fairly old). This could be true, but if acceleration exists it is either 1) very slight or 2) somehow minimized by the other settings. I don't have any IRL apparatus to accurately move the mouse an inch at different speeds to test this, and trying to find acceleration by using fast motions yields no obvious results. It could be that the 'acceleration' he's detecting is just an added form of interpolation - the mouse is 'predicting' the path based on previous counts. Another phenomenon that I can find no solid technical information about is prediction. It could be that W5@X CPI isn't equal to W3@2X CPI because of prediction. Does prediction take into account the subpixel counts? If so, then these 2 settings cannot be equal. If it's taking into account more points, then it will almost certainly behave differently. In summary: I have no technical explanation for my preference of the W2/SP8 setting. It could be that the interaction of added interpolation, multiplicative scaling, and count-based prediction come together to make a setting that just behaves more like I think it should. I would appreciate further discussion of this issue in the thread. tldr Experiment with your mouse settings to find what's best for you.
Two real strengths of today's DPI usage are on-the-fly DPI switching and DPI customization. OTF switching just means changing the DPI using a button press (and also it should change quickly or you'll die in the meantime). I haven't personally found this terribly useful, but in e.g. modern FPSs you can switch the DPI down to work with a precision weapon like a sniper rifle or you can switch the DPI up to work with a 'heavy' weapon like a minigun which the designers decided it would be fun to make you turn slowly (this is bad design, it is not a balancing mechanic). For RTS this is basically useless.
DPI customization is all about finding your mouse's sweet spot. Every person is different. Everyone uses their hands differently. You might have two twin brothers where one likes 1200 DPI and the other likes 1250. This kind of customization is incredible because you can really make the mouse work for you. You can find a setting that feels exactly correct.
Most mice these days have a polling rate in the neighborhood of 125 Hz - an update every 8 ms. However, many gaming mice now have 1000 Hz capability, which is an update every 1 ms. Not only does the mouse respond more quickly to your movement, but you are also improving any interpolation going on (there is always some interpolation going on). If you're aiming at something in an FPS and then decide to suddenly aim at something else, there is a lag between the time that your mouse moves and your cursor moves. If you have a 125 Hz mouse, that lag time is 8 ms (plus whatever other input lag exists). If you have 1000 Hz mouse, that lag time is only 1 ms (plus whatever other input lag exists). Removing 7 ms of lag is a huge deal in such a situation - not to mention the better tracking that comes as a result.
The average male untrained response time is about 200 ms. So a heavily trained response time (e.g. your brain saying "move the cursor over the enemy" in an FPS) could be as low as 50-60 ms, but let's use 100 ms to get a nice even number. The difference between 108 ms and 101 ms is of course 7 ms. There is about a 7% difference between these two numbers. That means that for all the fast actions you take, you become 7% faster. It's like becoming 7% better at the game you are playing. It is basically legalized cheating. Note there are more sources of input lag than just your mouse, though. But decreasing input lag is never bad.
The next most important facet of your mouse is friction, though this ties in a lot with comfort. When you roll a ball across a smooth floor, the reason it doesn't roll forever (if it doesn't hit a wall, that is) is friction. Molecular-scale collisions at the contact surface cause the ball to lose its rotational energy. This leakage of energy is the important part of friction. Friction is generally seen as making things less efficient than they would otherwise be in its absence.
When you move your mouse across the mouse pad, there is a certain resistance. If this resistance is really high, it takes a lot of work to get the mouse moving and very little to make it stop. Now quick stopping is good, but slow moving is horrendous. Most gaming mice these days use teflon feet on important contact points along the mouse in order to make it as slick as possible. There is such a thing as too slick, but you have to try pretty hard to find it. Some people get an extremely slick setup (teflon feet on the mouse + very slick mousepad) and just use a heavier mouse or use a mouse with a weight system. When in doubt, go for quick mouse movement. Stopping is very important, but moving is usually much more important. I personally use a 'medium' setup with an unextraordinary cloth mousepad.
Non-gaming mice unfortunately often have some kind of slippy plastic or other non-teflon friction system. The problem with these is twofold. There is no replacement for teflon that I am aware of. Teflon has almost all the good qualities and almost none of the bad qualities that you are looking for in a friction solution for mousefeet. The second problem is that slippy plastic becomes much worse over time. Teflon wears down and slowly loses its edge, but slippy plastic often depends highly on a sort of coating on the outer surface of the plastic. After that's gone, it's done.
Having a good friction solution on your mouse gives you two advantages. One is that you can move the mouse more accurately because you can respond more quickly. The second is that you use less energy and less effort.
The other part where friction is very important is in the grip of the mouse. Now a lot of people ignore this aspect of mice at first. They look for an ergonomic handhold, but that just won't do by itself. You have got to have a surface on the top and/or sides of the mouse that allows you a strong hold on the mouse. The specific kind of surface (solid plastic vs. rubberized plastic etc.) is completely subjective. They both work just fine. Some people prefer one, some prefer the other. What matters is that it gives you the strongest hold on the mouse. I'm not talking about furiously clutching the mouse here, I'm saying let the friction do the work for you. If you move your mouse, the friction should hold it tight against your fingers so that it's not slipping around.
One thing to look out for with surfaces is their reaction to water. Some surfaces do not change when they become wet. Some surfaces (hydrophilic) have even better friction when they get wet. Some surfaces become slippery when they are wet. If you are reading this, there's a good chance you are human. Your hands sweat, even if to varying degrees. Your mouse needs to respond well to this. If you go into Best Buy and indiscriminately buy a mouse, it is very likely that you will come home with a mouse that becomes very slippery when your hands sweat. This can be game-breaking. You need to be at 110% when things get hectic and you are under a lot of stress. If instead, your mouse starts becoming slippery, you'll spend your precious time and attention on shifting your fingers around trying to 'find' your grip.
If you find one of those mice out there with a bad click action, you will pay terribly for it. This part really applies to the RTS gamers out there. How fast can you make individual clicks on your mouse? It ought to be as fast as you can possibly get your finger to action the click. Now do all these clicks register properly? The answer ought to be yes.
Some mice, believe it or not, are extremely limited in their click action. Sometimes, but very rarely, you will find a mouse that takes a long time to click (pushing the mouse button down). This may be because of the design of the mouse or it may be because of something caught in the 'chamber'. It could also be a faulty grip that doesn't give you enough power when your finger is pushing down on the button.
More commonly, mice have a slow release. This is the time that it takes the mouse button to pop back up into position, ready for another click. This is almost as bad as a slow click because it means that your click-to-click speed is slower than it should be.
Another problem that rears its ugly head in many mice is unregistered clicks. On a good gaming mouse, you can wail on button 1 or 2 all day long, and every click will be registered. However, some mice have bad limits on the amount of data they can send to your OS. For example, you could have a mouse with a really high polling rate, but to make room for that, some clicks could be lost in the process.
These problems actually have mostly disappeared, but watch out for long release times.
If your mouse is a cheap piece of crap, the laws of physics and principles of engineering suggest that it will wear down quickly. This can be very deceiving. Some cheap mice feel pretty good in the hand, have a good weight distribution, and have a pretty good surface and are overall not bad. However, after a couple of months, the plastic on the surface has been eroded by the corrosive saltwater and the surface now no longer provides the friction it once did.
More commonly, mouse buttons fail. They start to wiggle around on their own and perhaps slowly migrate into a different position. The mouse feet wear down as well. This is probably the most noticeable difference because it happens so quickly.
It's my belief that, excepting horrible luck, if you buy a mouse from a company like Logitech or Razer, it will be built to last - especially the weakest points which tend to be the mouse feet, the surface, and the buttons. Feel free to disagree if you have a story about this one time you bought a mouse from some company and it died the next day. Because, you know, every single mouse that comes out of the factory is like that - otherwise how would they make so much money if people didn't buy the same mouse every day?
Liftoff is a term that deals with what distance the mouse tracks at beyond its sensor. Usually, a short liftoff is best. The idea is that if you lift the mouse up to move it over, the mouse should stop tracking, the instant it loses contact with the surface. However, we're not quite there yet. Most mice have a fairly small liftoff, but if you are a pro FPS player, you want the minimum possible liftoff since you will likely be picking up the mouse and moving it over a few dozen times in a match.
+ Show Spoiler [Part 3: Mouse Performance] +
Performance is everything you want out of a mouse - that's my definition. If there's something about your mouse you dislike, it is not performing for you. Performance can be thought of as the combination of useful characteristics from Part 2 working together to be greater than their individual offerings.
If a mouse has ridiculously awesome tracking but a very bad grip (slippery when wet), the tracking will effectively suffer too. It'd be like putting the best tracking engine ever on a 900 kilogram weight - it defeats the purpose. On the flipside, if a mouse has excellent tracking and excellent grip, it makes the tracking and the grip more worthwile. If it has a good grip and a good weight distribution, the weight distribution makes the good grip that much better. This synergy between the different elements of a mouse is what is really important to find in a good mouse - not just a checklist.
When you go to buy a mouse, you need to buy for performance. A nice big checklist isn't a bad thing, it usually just means you're covered. But you can't rely on it. You have to find a mouse whose elements complement each other. You can throw features at a mouse, but if they're not intelligently implemented, it's conceivable they could just get in the way of each other. One example I can think of is with ergonomics. You can have ergonomics that gives a good grip but has a poor weight distribution. This is present in so many mice, it is unbelievable. What's the point of this ergonomic grip if you're going make your wrist suffer because all the weight is in the back of the palm?
I'd appreciate feedback, especially on things to add to part 3.
Update2: I plan on adding some stuff about progamers and their equipment later. I also intend to talk about laser/optical trackers and a phenomenon called prediction.
  
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wow a really good read! i cant really give you feedback though since im not too imformed on gaming mice
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havent read it but i used mice for starcraft for a couple of months, its practically the same for me o.o
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I read a few paragraphs... looks like an impressive compilation. Good work! Will read more later.
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Very good guide. I finished the first and second part of it, and I have to say that many horrible mice that I have used don't fit your guidelines 
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Very nice, informative guide, thanks a lot.
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Can't progamers be very good with low DPI mice though? Can somebody tell me what mouse Nal-ra and boxer used in their prime and if the newer mice allow progamers to be faster.
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I dont know about older players but most progamers use the logitech mini optical which only has around 400dpi i think. Boxer used a ballmouse i guess hehe.
Mousepad is quite important too.
Good guide!
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I have heard both 400 and 800 DPI for the LMO.
@Athos: Progamers are obviously extremely good with low DPI mice. I mean, they stomp most non-progamers completely. That's not really what my post is about, though. Buying a new mouse, whether it's an LMO or a Mamba or a G9 is not going to make you an awesome player.
Have a look here for some info on progamer mice: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=65550
I've actually used a Logitech G1 before, and I think it's a great mouse that could suit just about anyone.
In my guide, I rated Comfort above Tracking because it has a bigger effect, in my opinion. An extremely small mouse like the LMO or a Salmosa can score really high in Comfort by allowing very rapid movement with little fatigue - this is especially important for progamers because of long practice hours. So DPI is certainly not everything. However, if I had a choice between an LMO with its current DPI and one with much more, I'd choose the one with more DPI because of the reasoning in Part 2.
I hope that makes some things clearer until I can update the post a bit more.
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Thanks for this post! It was quite well written and very informative. It's nice to know the details of my gaming mouse.
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My mx518's right click is now dying, when i get into games of sc it starts to not respond  Using trusty old logitech soccerball miniob in the meantime since i cant buy a new mouse because i'm a broke ass mofo. But birthday is coming up so i need to figure out what to get. loved my m518 but thinking about trying a razer this time, maybe diamondback 3g.
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On August 27 2009 10:15 Ideas wrote:
do you work for razor?
If I worked for Razer, I wouldn't have posted that I used a Logitech G5 in my Speed slider experiments. 
/edit By the way, guys, I really appreciate your feedback, though I am also looking for criticism!
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Nitpick time:
How bhop works actually varies from engine to engine. In GoldSrc (Q2 derivative), you gain speed from strafing and turning your mouse the same direction at the same time, jumping is just there to keep you from losing that speed you build up.
I'm not convinced that more weight is better. How exactly does it add stability? How does weight distribution factor in when the only rotation the mouse does is in the XY plane (and barely any at that)? Friction applies regardless of whether you're accelerating or decelerating. As far as I'm aware, all it does is apply a "tax" on any force you apply on the mouse, resulting in a lower range of accelerations you can achieve and increasing fatigue because you have to push harder to get the same acceleration.
The reason people say to keep Windows sensitivity at 6/11 is because anything else results in rounding errors. At 6/11, the Windows multiplier is set to 1, meaning a one-to-one mapping between what your mouse reports to the OS, and what the OS passes onto the program. Like you said, I'd definitely avoid putting it above 6/11. Setting it lower probably doesn't have much effect - with a reasonable sensitivity, even at really high resolutions you're like one or two pixels off at most, which I would say is much less than human error.
I don't know a single good FPS player who actually switches DPI on the fly, they just have keys bound to different sensitivities. It's much easier to fine-tune your sensitivity by changing your config.
Btw it's now understood that chemical bonding plays a larger role in friction than previously thought, but that's irrelevant to the main point
It would be nice to see something on the maximum perfect tracking speed of a mouse. SC kids with their high sensitivities probably won't come anywhere near the velocities required to make a mouse spaz out, but low sensitivity FPS players often need to take it into consideration. I think you got most of the important points right. It's nice to see somebody else recognize that first and foremost, ergonomics are your main concern.
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Great post. I found it really informative. I was a big believer that gaming mice were indeed a gimic.
You've opened my eyes 
I will now consider all options for my next mouse (sadly, my super duper uber amazing mouse is dying after 3 years
+ Show Spoiler +
Anyone know of what electronic stores have gaming mice? I'm definitely not buying it there, but I do need to feel it...
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I am currently more informed than I was 5 minutes ago, Thanks!! very simple and easy on the eyes
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United States4796 Posts
DeathAdder ftw.
Honestly though, very nice post. Forgive me if I missed it in the blog, but what does the C in CPI stand for?
Sorry if it's there. I'm pretty sure I read everything.
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On August 27 2009 10:51 Underwhelmed wrote:Nitpick time: How bhop works actually varies from engine to engine. In GoldSrc (Q2 derivative), you gain speed from strafing and turning your mouse the same direction at the same time, jumping is just there to keep you from losing that speed you build up. [1] I'm not convinced that more weight is better. How exactly does it add stability? How does weight distribution factor in when the only rotation the mouse does is in the XY plane (and barely any at that)? Friction applies regardless of whether you're accelerating or decelerating. As far as I'm aware, all it does is apply a "tax" on any force you apply on the mouse, resulting in a lower range of accelerations you can achieve and increasing fatigue because you have to push harder to get the same acceleration. [2] The reason people say to keep Windows sensitivity at 6/11 is because anything else results in rounding errors. At 6/11, the Windows multiplier is set to 1, meaning a one-to-one mapping between what your mouse reports to the OS, and what the OS passes onto the program. Like you said, I'd definitely avoid putting it above 6/11. Setting it lower probably doesn't have much effect - with a reasonable sensitivity, even at really high resolutions you're like one or two pixels off at most, which I would say is much less than human error. [3] I don't know a single good FPS player who actually switches DPI on the fly, they just have keys bound to different sensitivities. It's much easier to fine-tune your sensitivity by changing your config. [4] Btw it's now understood that chemical bonding plays a larger role in friction than previously thought, but that's irrelevant to the main point [5] It would be nice to see something on the maximum perfect tracking speed of a mouse. SC kids with their high sensitivities probably won't come anywhere near the velocities required to make a mouse spaz out, but low sensitivity FPS players often need to take it into consideration. I think you got most of the important points right. It's nice to see somebody else recognize that first and foremost, ergonomics are your main concern. [6]
First off, thanks very much for your input.
[1] That's a good explanation of the mechanic. I've actually forgotten how to do it (I couldn't teach someone else how to do it), I just do from muscle memory or just plain habit or some combination of both.
[2] Three points. The first, that was a long time ago when common knowledge (which is often incorrect) dictated that the slickest mousepad was the best mousepad - if you can't play on a superslick mousepad, just learn and get better. Increasing the weight has the same effect on friction as using a mousepad that is less slick or mouse feet that are less slick (this is because of friction's direct dependence on the normal force). So I didn't discover some hidden secret of making my mouse heavier, I was trying more for the idea that I changed my mouse to make it more effective for me.
The second point is that the weight distribution is what is actually more important. The mouse I used at the time (as well as other 'era' mouses that I can remember) were heavily weighted in the back of the mouse (the side near the palm) or the center of the mouse. Moving the weight distribution towards the front of the mouse (front-center) brings the center of mass closer to the thumb+ringfinger that control the motion of the mouse. This makes it just plain easier to move.
The third point is that stopping speed is often very important. When I play FPSs, I need a really fast stopping speed. It just makes me play better. Many people are different, but I definitely need that stopping speed. I can see someone having a preference such that stopping speed is more important than starting speed, so having a heavier mouse is completely legitimate in that respect.
[3] A small clarification before any confusion is caused: what you call 6/11, I call 5/10 since I start counting at 0. The rounding errors caused by the interpolation are definitely pretty bad on the higher scale of the Windows speed slider. There is a similar effect when going below 5/10, but I found that the best setting for my speed was in using a non-default setup altogether. There is some rounding going on below the default point, but it ends up overall being better mouse tracking - that's the main point I was trying to get across.
Trying to eliminate rounding is good technical sense, but if you can find better tracking (for yourself, your setup), then use that instead. It's just a practical concern. I did find the default/default setting very good, but the 2/8 setting just gave me better tracking.
Basically, I don't want anyone to be doubtful or scared of doing what they think gives them the best tracking.
[4] I personally agree completely and have never used OTF switching on a mouse. I was just mentioning it as a feature that many mice have.
[5] Yes, I actually referenced hydrophilic surfaces in the post too. I'm a physicist, not much of a chemist, but that stuff is pretty cool.
[6] This kind of highly technical work isn't really what I had in mind here, but it would be cool to see a wide set of data and results. I might look around in this problem (there might be some compsci papers on it) and post some links to other places later on.
Comfort is definitely the main event when it comes to the worthiness of a mouse. That includes ergonomics, weight distribtution, and a bunch of other factors (like what you're actually going to DO with the mouse and whether its form/shape/weight/tracking will allow it). If I had to decide between two awesome mice and one had ridiculous tracking and the other was ridiculously comfortable, I'd take the comfortable one 10 times out of 10.
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On August 27 2009 11:50 pLaTypu5 wrote:
DeathAdder ftw.
Honestly though, very nice post. Forgive me if I missed it in the blog, but what does the C in CPI stand for?
Sorry if it's there. I'm pretty sure I read everything.
Instead of using DPI, I used a term which is more semantically approprate - CPI. It's another name for the same thing. I just decided to use CPI for psychological reasons.
/edit CPI is counts per inch, by the way.
Double post >_>
@gumbum8: Best Buy usually has at least a few good gaming mice (depends on store/current selection). If one you want to try isn't out on the floor, just ask someone in the area if they have one open in the back or something. Sometimes they will just open the box for you right there and let you get a feel for the mouse. They may even let you plug it into a nearby machine, but I doubt they will let you get drivers etc. for it.
Also, you may not be aware, but there are local computer stores everywhere - hiding from you! I lived for a time in Mississippi in the middle of nowhere, and there were still several computer hardware stores - guys that sold mobos, graphics cards, and so on. They often have a surprising collection of good mice.
As far as buying it, I'd suggest Newegg if you can find the mouse that you want. Newegg is just pure awesome, especially in the States (not so much in Canada ).
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Well, I'm not entirely sure how the Q3 bhop/strafejump works in terms of mechanics, I just know it varies depending on the engine. Just pointing out what's true for one engine may not necessarily apply to another, even if the end effect is similar. I know HL2DM had some weird movement method that bears little resemblance to GoldSrc.
I guess this would be a personal preference thing. For me, weight distribution doesn't really matter at all because I'm a fairly low sensitivity palmer, so my movements nearly all involve zero rotation and a large contact area with the mouse.
Still not convinced on the friction issue - let's say that my mouse is moving and needs to stop as quickly as possible. It has a momentum of m*v, bringing it to rest means we need to apply enough impulse to cancel that out (mu*m*g*t from friction and f*t from the hand). With a bit of algebraic manipulation we can see that the time needed to come to rest asymptotically increases to the ratio between the velocity and kinetic friction coefficient times the normal force as mass goes towards infinity.
Personally I advocate a lower sensitivity - human movements are limited in precision, but by decreasing your sensitivity, your half centimeter overshoot has less of an effect in-game. If you sample the top FPS population, I'd bet their sensitivities are considerably lower than the general population. In fact, I'd attribute your smoother drawing not to the rounding effects, but the lower sensitivity. Obviously there are limits on how low you want your sensitivity to go, but I know my aim has gotten a lot better since I made the switch.
Distorting your physical movements' translation to the program generally strikes me as a bad thing. There's no reason to lower your Windows sensitivity when you can simply adjust it in-game.
When I was talking about perfect tracking, I meant in terms of hardware only. Although I'm sure you could calculate the maximum speed at which it could track properly if you knew the mouse's sensor resolution, algorithm, snapshots per second, etc, it's much easier to just measure it empirically (This is the difference between physics and engineering majors ). The theoretical limit probably isn't that accurate anyways; many mice have been observed to have differing performance, depending on the surface they're used on.
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Anything the SC pros use = gaming mouse.
And they don't use "gaming mice", sorry Razer.
Unless you're playing SC at a professional level I don't think your type of mouse matters that much.
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If you like to swing your arm while playing SC like a FPS game, just change mouse sensitivity in Control Panel to Medium/between Middle - Max.
If you have a limited mouse movement area or your too lazy to swing your arm every game, put it to full. (More useful for Starcraft)
ALSO! For Vista (idk if other computers have this option), underneath the Mouse Motion is an option to "Enhance Mouse Presicions"
If you dont know what it does, it slows down the mouse (if your mouse speed is fast) for more accurate click/movement or it increases the speed lightly (if your mouse speed is slow) for quicker movement, but no one wants a mouse that goes .2 mph
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United States22883 Posts
On August 27 2009 21:07 Kenpachi wrote:
If you like to swing your arm while playing SC like a FPS game, just change mouse sensitivity in Control Panel to Medium/between Middle - Max.
If you have a limited mouse movement area or your too lazy to swing your arm every game, put it to full. (More useful for Starcraft)
ALSO! For Vista (idk if other computers have this option), underneath the Mouse Motion is an option to "Enhance Mouse Presicions"
If you dont know what it does, it slows down the mouse (if your mouse speed is fast) for more accurate click/movement or it increases the speed lightly (if your mouse speed is slow) for quicker movement, but no one wants a mouse that goes .2 mph
It's Enhance Pointer Precision and it's mouse acceleration.
OP didn't talk about laser vs optical, negative acceleration, mouse prediction, polling rate or any of that. CPI increases are pretty irrelevant, but 500/1000hz polling rate makes a noticeable difference in mouse movement (reduction in lag by 6-7ms.)
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+ Show Spoiler +Underwhelmed wrote:
I guess this would be a personal preference thing. For me, weight distribution doesn't really matter at all because I'm a fairly low sensitivity palmer, so my movements nearly all involve zero rotation and a large contact area with the mouse. [1]
Still not convinced on the friction issue - let's say that my mouse is moving and needs to stop as quickly as possible. It has a momentum of m*v, bringing it to rest means we need to apply enough impulse to cancel that out (mu*m*g*t from friction and f*t from the hand). With a bit of algebraic manipulation we can see that the time needed to come to rest asymptotically increases to the ratio between the velocity and kinetic friction coefficient times the normal force as mass goes towards infinity. [2]
Personally I advocate a lower sensitivity - human movements are limited in precision, but by decreasing your sensitivity, your half centimeter overshoot has less of an effect in-game. If you sample the top FPS population, I'd bet their sensitivities are considerably lower than the general population. In fact, I'd attribute your smoother drawing not to the rounding effects, but the lower sensitivity. Obviously there are limits on how low you want your sensitivity to go, but I know my aim has gotten a lot better since I made the switch. [3]
Distorting your physical movements' translation to the program generally strikes me as a bad thing. There's no reason to lower your Windows sensitivity when you can simply adjust it in-game. [4]
[1] Weight distribution matters a lot more if you do not use palm grip. It's a huge deal because only your fingers are controlling the motion of the mouse (and your wrist rotation).
[2] Your physical reasoning is proper, but this problem has more to do with the external details. If you are using a setup where you plant your wristbone down and just use fingers + wrist rotation, the mouse is much easier to stop the closer the weight is to the weight of your hand. When you try to stop the mouse, you are basically just matching your hand momentum against the mouse momentum. This is easy to do quickly if the mouse is closer to the weight of your hand. Keep in mind that the problem is actually more complicated because you are also using your hand to increase the normal force.
This is not useful in RTS, in my opinion. I only use this concept when playing FPS.
[3] I agree with pretty much everything you have said here. FPS is easier at low cursor speed. The examples that I used in the writeup were for Starcraft, though (I used this because this is a Starcraft website). The speed at which my cursor had to move at the different settings was my Starcraft cursor speed. I'm not really sure of your meaning of sensitivity here (it's kind of a vague term that has many different meanings in different contexts), but the smoothness in the drawings had to with the spacing of cursor points. If you cut every setting all the way down to its minimum, you will have maximum smoothness despite any interpolation going on. In all of those drawings my cursor moved at the same speed - that is, it moved at a pace that I was familiar with for playing Starcraft.
[4] It is a bad idea in general, but it gave me better results. Also, you can't change the sensitivity in Starcraft. I know you're talking about FPSs, I just want to make it clear to anyone else.
+ Show Spoiler +Loanshark wrote:
Anything the SC pros use = gaming mouse.
And they don't use "gaming mice", sorry Razer. [1]
Unless you're playing SC at a professional level I don't think your type of mouse matters that much. [2]
[1] I want to make a few things clear here. My post is not about Razer. It has pretty much nothing to do directly with Razer. There seems to be a lot of Razer hate here, which surprises me since FakeSteve works for Razer. For some reason, someone even asked if I worked for Razer, even though the only mouse that I have used in this writeup is a Logitech G5.
My post is also not about emulating progamers in order to become them. My post is simply a writeup with information about what it means to be a gaming mouse and why some mice can make your gameplay better. Yes, progamers are incredibly skilled and can whip anyone with any mouse - my post is not about being able to beat progamers by using certain mice.
I realize that Boxer used a ball mouse at his prime. Ball mouse for 2009 Bonjwa? Some mice are just plain better than others. A lot of progamers use a G1 and an LMO. I've never used an LMO so I can't comment, but a G1 is a fantastic mouse that I would rate very highly.
[2] Your mouse always matters. Whether you're a progamer or you're a proud grandma, a mouse that suits you better is a mouse that suits you better. Even if you do nothing but check email and write word documents, having a more comfortable mouse with better tracking and a better grip will just make your life easier.
+ Show Spoiler +Jibba wrote:
OP didn't talk about laser vs optical, negative acceleration, mouse prediction, polling rate or any of that. CPI increases are pretty irrelevant, but 500/1000hz polling rate makes a noticeable difference in mouse movement (reduction in lag by 6-7ms.)
I don't have too much to say on laser vs. optical or mouse prediction, but I plan to add something about them later on, just not sure where exactly. Are you talking about negative acceleration in terms of software/hardware limits on tracking? There is a section under Tracking called Polling Rate.
I disagree with CPI increases being irrelevant. That was actually almost the entire point of the Tracking section - to show how more CPI can be used to make your mouse motion smoother and still have the same cursor speed.
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Thanks to everyone for your input, I will update the OP with some of these points addressed.
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United States22883 Posts
Well, to date optical sensors beat laser in performance. Negative acceleration is a tracking error when you're moving the mouse too quickly. Your G5 definitely has it, some have gotten rid of it through drivers.
CPI translates into cursor speed/sensitivity. Assuming everyone sits at 6/11, I can't imagine that most people would be better off with the 1800 CPI setting instead of 900, because the range of sensitivities that games input is just not big enough to handle that. The biggest increase in accuracy will be from overclocking the USB port (which doesn't have to be natively found on the mouse.) Incidentally, smooth movement is actually less accurate. Every mouse comes with mouse prediction enabled by default and it makes your movement much smoother than what humans are actually capable of doing. Whether it's good or not is up to debate, and probably a matter of preference.
People have issues with Razer (and Steel can be thrown into the same category) because they're generally more expensive, more flashy and overhyped and historically they've had worse reliability than MS or Logitech. The majority of CS/Q3 players still use IME3.0/WMO1.1a/MX518 which are all much cheaper than most performance mice that come out today. That said, I've owned all those mice and I just got a Deathadder and it's the best mouse I've ever used. Still, I wouldn't have gotten it if it didn't come with a 2yr warranty (doubled by CC, so 4.)
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On August 28 2009 05:42 Jibba wrote:
Well, to date optical sensors beat laser in performance. [1] Negative acceleration is a tracking error when you're moving the mouse too quickly. Your G5 definitely has it, some have gotten rid of it through drivers.
CPI translates into cursor speed/sensitivity. [2] Assuming everyone sits at 6/11 [3], I can't imagine that most people would be better off with the 1800 CPI setting instead of 900, because the range of sensitivities that games input is just not big enough to handle that. [4] The biggest increase in accuracy will be from overclocking the USB port (which doesn't have to be natively found on the mouse.) [5] Incidentally, smooth movement is actually less accurate. Every mouse comes with mouse prediction enabled by default and it makes your movement much smoother than what humans are actually capable of doing. Whether it's good or not is up to debate, and probably a matter of preference. [6]
People have issues with Razer (and Steel can be thrown into the same category) because they're generally more expensive, more flashy and overhyped and historically they've had worse reliability than MS or Logitech. The majority of CS/Q3 players still use IME3.0/WMO1.1a/MX518 which are all much cheaper than most performance mice that come out today. That said, I've owned all those mice and I just got a Deathadder and it's the best mouse I've ever used. Still, I wouldn't have gotten it if it didn't come with a 2yr warranty (doubled by CC, so 4.) [7]
[1] In what way? From what I've seen, lasers track better on more varied surfaces (mostly useless) and tend to have longer liftoff (bad), but are easier to raise CPI. Is there something else?
[2] It does, but only indirectly. It increases the number of points that make up the path, but does not affect their spacing.
[3] This is an assumption I did not make when doing my experiment and actually got better results (most certainly better when actually in use) from a non-default position setup. The default position at a lower DPI was my 2nd favorite, though. I encourage people to experiment heavily with their settings to find the one that feels just right.
[4] I'm not sure I understand your wording. I'm confused as to what you are trying to say here.
[5] Are you saying you can effectively increase the polling rate without having a better polling rate on the mouse?
[6] This is a semantical disconnect between smooth/smooth/smooth. I gave a working definition of smooth having to do with the point density. This meaning of smooth here just means "the mouse tends to track along the horizontal and vertical orthogonals". That's actually completely different from my definition. You could have a perfectly straight line and my definition wouldn't necessarily call it smooth because mine depends on the point density. I feel that the point density definition of smooth is more useful because whether a line is smooth or not using that definition determines how natural it feels/how easy it is to use the mouse properly.
[7] Interesting input on the mice there. I personally think that a WMO is a terrible mouse because the surface becomes slimy with any amount of sweat. A lot of people use the 518s in my experience. I've actually just ordered a Deathadder too and will hopefully get it tomorrow. I might repeat my experiment and be a little more thorough to see if I can find more exact results.
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Anything over 1600 DPI is overkill for any game that isn't running with at least 2000+ pixel width resolution, no matter your in-game/windows/driver settings. Attempting to scale down pixel response through drivers/in-game/windows will leave you with missed mouse movements, which is the same as using low DPI with high sensitivity. The only way to get accurate results with high DPI is with a 1:1 movement to pixel ratio.
If you are running a game in an absurdly high resolution, sure, you'll benefit with the registry that high DPI brings - but you only need that kind of resolution for the kinds of games you wouldn't play seriously in any sort of competitive situation. That being the case, why buy the mouse at all?
In older games like CS, Starcraft, Quake, UT, etc, or even newer games that you intend to play at high refresh/framerate so you can play at a competitive level, you are going to want a more reasonable resolution, and should not need more than 800 DPI for ANY reason.
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United States22883 Posts
1. Lasers have a higher malfunction rate at fast mouse speeds. None of the newer lasers have been tested, but given that the DA and oced MX300 track perfectly at almost all speeds, there's not really a need to upgrade beyond them, besides shape/weight/etc.
3. What set up are you using? You said 6/11 is the 1:1 position for units:pixels.
4. Increasing polling rate has a bigger impact on mouse performance than raising CPI (and having to cut sensitivity.) It's probably the single best upgrade you can make to a mouse and [5] yes, you can do it manually without specific mouse hardware. Some might not be able to hand constant 1000hz, but 500hz gives you only a 2ms lag so it's still very good.
7. You were a Q3 player, so how familiar are you with ESReality? o.o You'll get raked over coals if you talk about WMO that way over there.
http://www.esreality.com/?a=longpost&id=1300293&page=4
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On August 28 2009 12:02 Vedic wrote:
Anything over 1600 DPI is overkill for any game that isn't running with at least 2000+ pixel width resolution, no matter your in-game/windows/driver settings. Attempting to scale down pixel response through drivers/in-game/windows will leave you with missed mouse movements, which is the same as using low DPI with high sensitivity. The only way to get accurate results with high DPI is with a 1:1 movement to pixel ratio.
If you are running a game in an absurdly high resolution, sure, you'll benefit with the registry that high DPI brings - but you only need that kind of resolution for the kinds of games you wouldn't play seriously in any sort of competitive situation. That being the case, why buy the mouse at all?
In older games like CS, Starcraft, Quake, UT, etc, or even newer games that you intend to play at high refresh/framerate so you can play at a competitive level, you are going to want a more reasonable resolution, and should not need more than 800 DPI for ANY reason.
Very many people would agree with everything you said exactly - a few weeks ago, I would have as well. I plan on doing more and different kinds of experiments with different kinds of data so people can give more critical feedback to me.
Maybe I will prove you right in that keeping the cursor point location free from rounding is the best. But for now, I am using a setting that disagrees with the fundamental premise of your argument - that rounding (below the default position) is necessarily worse than not rounding.
I have rationalized my improved results (after the fact) by figuring that closer point spacing (even if rounded) is better than farther point spacing in pretty much every situation. So my viewpoint (before I do any more experiments) predicts that if I could cut every speed slider down to 0 and find the correct velocity by raising the DPI ever higher that I would have the best possible mouse tracking. So my theory is that closer point spacing = smoother = better - I then use DPI to make up for the slow speed by adding more points. A practical drawback of my theory is that extremely-high DPI engines require much more processing power.
Your theory (and the theory shared by very many others and, until recently, me) is that any changes to the mouse point placement outside of the mouse engine itself will inherently make the point placement less accurate (this is true by definition, since rounding will occur). My objection to this (after seeing the results of my own experiment) is that rounding done above the default is terrible, yes, - but rounding done below the default has a smaller and smaller effect the closer you get to 0. Additionally, since I get not only equal but better results, I would guess that the default position is not always exactly a 1:1 mapping or has some other characteristic which makes the tracking less smooth.
There are a lot of other variables in play as well. It could be that the prediction on my mouse becomes more useful when the point spacing is smaller - or some combination of other things. Hopefully, I can think of some clever experiments to figure out exactly what is going on.
If anyone has a really good way to test these kinds of things, I would like to hear your ideas.
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i got a question, im not very accurate with my mouse. (logitech mx400 i think) I still have problems splitting because i keep misclicking my scv. Is it because the lazer mouse is inaccurate or its just me?
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United States22883 Posts
First, see if mouse acceleration is on. Slide your mouse slowly a set distance across your mouse pad, and then do the same thing very quickly. Does the cursor move the same amount?
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On August 28 2009 12:33 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
Your theory (and the theory shared by very many others and, until recently, me) is that any changes to the mouse point placement outside of the mouse engine itself will inherently make the point placement less accurate (this is true by definition, since rounding will occur). My objection to this (after seeing the results of my own experiment) is that rounding done above the default is terrible, yes, - but rounding done below the default has a smaller and smaller effect the closer you get to 0. Additionally, since I get not only equal but better results, I would guess that the default position is not always exactly a 1:1 mapping or has some other characteristic which makes the tracking less smooth.
It's not a theory, but I think you misunderstand the basic problem with high DPI. DPI is just a translation of distance to pixels. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "better results" (personal opinion?), but it sounds more like a personal experience rather than looking at the math behind it.
If you have low DPI on a much higher resolution, you require a higher scaling of pixels moved to distance the mouse has moved. As such, you lose out on accuracy because the computer has to skip pixels in order to get more out of the same hand movement.
If you have high DPI on a resolution lower than the DPI, the only thing that can scale is the software. The software can only scale down input by either choosing to ignore a small movement, or by calculating all movement into subpixels (which is still ignoring the movement, but at least queuing it). Either way, this means you end up with almost the exact same issue as the first example with a too low DPI. You CAN'T escape this issue without using a 1:1 ratio.
ESReality is probably the best place for discussion about this, as there have been dozens of blogs digging to the very core of how each mouse works, and their viability for gaming.
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On August 28 2009 14:26 Jibba wrote:
First, see if mouse acceleration is on. Slide your mouse slowly a set distance across your mouse pad, and then do the same thing very quickly. Does the cursor move the same amount?
ahhh thank you!!! I turned off mouse acceleration so and i will try it out now!
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United States17042 Posts
very good read, although it's not very applicable over starcraft. Much more useful for fps games, as it allows you to adjust your sensitivity of the mouse for different points in the game/match.
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On August 29 2009 02:14 GHOSTCLAW wrote:
very good read, although it's not very applicable over starcraft. Much more useful for fps games, as it allows you to adjust your sensitivity of the mouse for different points in the game/match.
Yeah... I thought SC was such a low res game a good mouse and a cheap mouse aren't going to have a noticeable difference.
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On August 29 2009 03:07 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2009 02:14 GHOSTCLAW wrote:
very good read, although it's not very applicable over starcraft. Much more useful for fps games, as it allows you to adjust your sensitivity of the mouse for different points in the game/match. Yeah... I thought SC was such a low res game a good mouse and a cheap mouse aren't going to have a noticeable difference.
A good mouse is not necessarily expensive. I'd say the advantage of a good mouse in a low-res game like SC is comfort. A mouse with a good grip that clings to your fingers manuevers more easily.
@Jibba: Thanks very much for the ESR link. It seems I have missed a lot of development of mouse hardware ideas in the past few years. I've been reading on ESR in my spare time trying to gather ideas to update my post. They seem to be 100% mouse sensor, though, and don't seem to care about comfort at all.
@Vedic: I noticed you are a regular on ESR. Could you explain to me the good qualities of a WMO? I feel like if I posted asking that over there I would just get flamed or ignored as a troll. Every time I think of that mouse, I literally cringe because of how bad its surface is. I can see the IME being comfortable, though I've never owned one so I can't really comment.
I appreciate your input, and I intend to learn everything there is to know on ESR before updating my post here thoroughly. Hopefully I can get your input afterwards as well.
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United States22883 Posts
It depends how you hold the mouse. With claw grip, sweat is not really a problem because you're just holding it with your thumb/ring/pinkie anyways. The WMO is uncomfortable for my hands (I'll get carpal tunnel with the high arch), but I've never had any sweat problems with it because I don't palm it. Interestingly, I've palmed every Logitech mouse I've owned, but not the Microsoft/Razer mice (DA is basically an IME.)
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On August 29 2009 07:21 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
@Vedic: I noticed you are a regular on ESR. Could you explain to me the good qualities of a WMO? I feel like if I posted asking that over there I would just get flamed or ignored as a troll. Every time I think of that mouse, I literally cringe because of how bad its surface is. I can see the IME being comfortable, though I've never owned one so I can't really comment.
I appreciate your input, and I intend to learn everything there is to know on ESR before updating my post here thoroughly. Hopefully I can get your input afterwards as well.
First, you should read this thread, which was done by Sujoy. It's a bit old, and people have been dying for an update to it, but it gives you a good range of info. Many older mice merely have a very stable sensor, which only adds to the fact that most people seem to like the shape. I personally do not, but the sensor does provide everything you need in a competitive level mouse. I previously used a Razer Krait, and currently use the Razer Salmosa - both using low DPI.
I wouldn't hesitate to make a post with questions/concerns/ideas on ESR, as you're going to get trolled there no matter what you do. You'll just have to pick through and look for the constructive feedback. They're very elitist, but it's the go-to place for in-depth mouse information. Attempting to use the search function is an effort in futility, so just make a new post and see where it goes.
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United States22883 Posts
ESReality is like the TL of Quake, but with worse (no) moderation.
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On August 29 2009 08:27 Vedic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2009 07:21 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
@Vedic: I noticed you are a regular on ESR. Could you explain to me the good qualities of a WMO? I feel like if I posted asking that over there I would just get flamed or ignored as a troll. Every time I think of that mouse, I literally cringe because of how bad its surface is. I can see the IME being comfortable, though I've never owned one so I can't really comment.
I appreciate your input, and I intend to learn everything there is to know on ESR before updating my post here thoroughly. Hopefully I can get your input afterwards as well.
First, you should read this thread, which was done by Sujoy. It's a bit old, and people have been dying for an update to it, but it gives you a good range of info. Many older mice merely have a very stable sensor, which only adds to the fact that most people seem to like the shape. I personally do not, but the sensor does provide everything you need in a competitive level mouse. I previously used a Razer Krait, and currently use the Razer Salmosa - both using low DPI. I wouldn't hesitate to make a post with questions/concerns/ideas on ESR, as you're going to get trolled there no matter what you do. You'll just have to pick through and look for the constructive feedback. They're very elitist, but it's the go-to place for in-depth mouse information. Attempting to use the search function is an effort in futility, so just make a new post and see where it goes.
I have read that thread to its completion already. As a physics student, I can appreciate good solid data like that. I think Sujoy's experiment is only useful for determining which mice are good for very low-cursor-speed gamers, however (and also finding defects in DPI reporting). The maximum physical speed that the mouse can be moved at is only a concern if you have a very low cursor speed and are using a very wide range of motion on a large pad. This is a very useful experiment for gamers who like that, but I'm more of a high-speed (in RTS, of course) and medium-speed (in FPS and most other games).
I noticed that about 1/5th of posters on average are very knowledgeable, even about extremely specific setups and mice differences. The rest are... well. Frightening. I have found a few good threads using the search function, but it is a huge PITA. I have seen a guide written for CS:S referenced about a dozen times which has information that is relevant to DPI + Speed sliders in Windows.
How do you like the Salmosa? That was an option I had considered when getting a new mouse, but I figured it was just too extreme a change for me.
@Jibba: The reason the WMO bothers me so much is because I try to use it with fingertips as opposed to palming. When you're just moving it around with your fingers, there is less surface in contact and it just makes the sliminess of the surface that much worse imo. To each their own, honestly - I'll be the last person to fault someone for their personal preference in a mouse, but I have to try extra hard to imagine functioning with a WMO.
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On August 29 2009 09:27 DefMatrixUltra wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2009 08:27 Vedic wrote:On August 29 2009 07:21 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
@Vedic: I noticed you are a regular on ESR. Could you explain to me the good qualities of a WMO? I feel like if I posted asking that over there I would just get flamed or ignored as a troll. Every time I think of that mouse, I literally cringe because of how bad its surface is. I can see the IME being comfortable, though I've never owned one so I can't really comment.
I appreciate your input, and I intend to learn everything there is to know on ESR before updating my post here thoroughly. Hopefully I can get your input afterwards as well.
First, you should read this thread, which was done by Sujoy. It's a bit old, and people have been dying for an update to it, but it gives you a good range of info. Many older mice merely have a very stable sensor, which only adds to the fact that most people seem to like the shape. I personally do not, but the sensor does provide everything you need in a competitive level mouse. I previously used a Razer Krait, and currently use the Razer Salmosa - both using low DPI. I wouldn't hesitate to make a post with questions/concerns/ideas on ESR, as you're going to get trolled there no matter what you do. You'll just have to pick through and look for the constructive feedback. They're very elitist, but it's the go-to place for in-depth mouse information. Attempting to use the search function is an effort in futility, so just make a new post and see where it goes. I have read that thread to its completion already. As a physics student, I can appreciate good solid data like that. I think Sujoy's experiment is only useful for determining which mice are good for very low-cursor-speed gamers, however (and also finding defects in DPI reporting). The maximum physical speed that the mouse can be moved at is only a concern if you have a very low cursor speed and are using a very wide range of motion on a large pad. This is a very useful experiment for gamers who like that, but I'm more of a high-speed (in RTS, of course) and medium-speed (in FPS and most other games). I noticed that about 1/5th of posters on average are very knowledgeable, even about extremely specific setups and mice differences. The rest are... well. Frightening. I have found a few good threads using the search function, but it is a huge PITA. I have seen a guide written for CS:S referenced about a dozen times which has information that is relevant to DPI + Speed sliders in Windows. How do you like the Salmosa? That was an option I had considered when getting a new mouse, but I figured it was just too extreme a change for me.
The Mousescore thread was more of a response as to the qualities of the WMO. Most DPI discussion has been between topics, without a general real post for it. The majority of Quake players are high to medium sens players, with some favoring low sens and accel - straight low sens is very rare.
I only switched to the Salmosa because my Krait was dying, so it wasn't a choice I made because I was unhappy. It turned out that it was everything that I loved about the Krait, but without the annoying rubbery sides, and a slightly better shape overall. Left click started squeaking about a week in, but I hear that it goes away after a while. The sensor and shape are perfect, though.
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Great read. Coming from playing Quake 3 on a pretty high level as well I can appreciate it even more. My mouse made me smack the desk more than once at the time, flipping view to the roof when I moved it too fast, god it made me wanna throatpunch someone. Was an Intellimouse Explorer.
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On August 29 2009 08:27 Vedic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2009 07:21 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
@Vedic: I noticed you are a regular on ESR. Could you explain to me the good qualities of a WMO? I feel like if I posted asking that over there I would just get flamed or ignored as a troll. Every time I think of that mouse, I literally cringe because of how bad its surface is. I can see the IME being comfortable, though I've never owned one so I can't really comment.
I appreciate your input, and I intend to learn everything there is to know on ESR before updating my post here thoroughly. Hopefully I can get your input afterwards as well.
First, you should read this thread, which was done by Sujoy. It's a bit old, and people have been dying for an update to it, but it gives you a good range of info. Many older mice merely have a very stable sensor, which only adds to the fact that most people seem to like the shape. I personally do not, but the sensor does provide everything you need in a competitive level mouse. I previously used a Razer Krait, and currently use the Razer Salmosa - both using low DPI. I wouldn't hesitate to make a post with questions/concerns/ideas on ESR, as you're going to get trolled there no matter what you do. You'll just have to pick through and look for the constructive feedback. They're very elitist, but it's the go-to place for in-depth mouse information. Attempting to use the search function is an effort in futility, so just make a new post and see where it goes.
What are your settings for your Salmosa? 800 DPI? How about the windows mouse speed and the sensitivity in the razer driver? I use mine in 1800 DPI even in SC, im not sure if it's good, but I'm getting used to the speed.
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On August 29 2009 19:28 pH)ggbOy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2009 08:27 Vedic wrote:On August 29 2009 07:21 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
@Vedic: I noticed you are a regular on ESR. Could you explain to me the good qualities of a WMO? I feel like if I posted asking that over there I would just get flamed or ignored as a troll. Every time I think of that mouse, I literally cringe because of how bad its surface is. I can see the IME being comfortable, though I've never owned one so I can't really comment.
I appreciate your input, and I intend to learn everything there is to know on ESR before updating my post here thoroughly. Hopefully I can get your input afterwards as well.
First, you should read this thread, which was done by Sujoy. It's a bit old, and people have been dying for an update to it, but it gives you a good range of info. Many older mice merely have a very stable sensor, which only adds to the fact that most people seem to like the shape. I personally do not, but the sensor does provide everything you need in a competitive level mouse. I previously used a Razer Krait, and currently use the Razer Salmosa - both using low DPI. I wouldn't hesitate to make a post with questions/concerns/ideas on ESR, as you're going to get trolled there no matter what you do. You'll just have to pick through and look for the constructive feedback. They're very elitist, but it's the go-to place for in-depth mouse information. Attempting to use the search function is an effort in futility, so just make a new post and see where it goes. What are your settings for your Salmosa? 800 DPI? How about the windows mouse speed and the sensitivity in the razer driver? I use mine in 1800 DPI even in SC, im not sure if it's good, but I'm getting used to the speed.
Default windows, default drivers, mouse accel fix, 800 DPI, 1000hz. I don't actually play SC with it, though, as even 800 DPI is a bit much.
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I updated the post a little bit to put some more thoughts about CPI and to pose some questions that I couldn't find the answers to elsewhere.
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The only thing I don't like about the salmosa is the grip on the sides, it's like a slippery shiny plastic side.My perfect mouse would basically be shape size and weight of the salmosa with the side grips of the logitech g5.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/mettra/w_10_sp_5_dpi_400.png)
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![[image loading]](http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/mettra/w_5_sp_10_dpi_400.png)
![[image loading]](http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/mettra/w_10_sp_0_dpi_1300.png)
![[image loading]](http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/mettra/w_5_sp_5_dpi_1450.png)
![[image loading]](http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/mettra/w_2_sp_8_dpi_2000.png)
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