The Ultimate Mouse Thread - Page 20

So hey everyone, I've been doing an excessive amount of reading up on the technical side of things, and I figured that finding definitions for all of the potential issues, and terms would be of benefit, especially to those who are somewhat unfamiliar with them. Below I've compiled a list of definitions from around forums and the like, and I wanted to see if we could get them added to the OP here, and also if those who are vastly more proficient than I, to make sure that I have these definitions right. they are as below:

http://www.funender.com/quake/mouse/index.html (also a good resource, this link allows you to calculate certain values, and also have many links/programs to help change usb poling rates, mousefix, etc...)

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Prediction/angle snapping: Mouse prediction (angle snapping, drift control) is a type of path correction in mouse sensors that assists you in drawing horizontal or vertical lines. If your mouse has prediction, the sensor will predict when you attempt to draw a straight line and correct any movement that drifts away from that line. This is not an accurate representation of your movement, so most people prefer to play without prediction.

FPS or RPS (frames/reports per second): The number of frames captured by the sensor per second in order to detect and calculate movement. Also read, http://www.overclock.net/t/1188509/fps-in-mouse/10#post_16018047.

Interpolation/frame skipping: Interpolation occurs when the MCU/MPU (processor) is forced to guess at the x,y coordinates of a mouse instead of having the actual 'real' reported x,y coordinates. Interpolation also relates to dpi, usually referring to higher dpi resolutions that are not native to the mouse.

Jitter: A hardware error that causes single unit move messages to "jitter" from time to time (note: the size of a unit is less than that of a pixel, so these jitters aren't usually visible).

Perfect control: The top speed up to which the mouse performs exactly as it should.

Malfunction rate: The fastest speed you can move, where the mouse loses control and effectively stops working. When you flick your mouse beyond the Malfunction Speed, anything can happen. You may either end up looking in any random direction or just find you haven't turned around at all. All optical and laser mice must have a Malfunction Speed, so we want it to be as high as possible so you don't notice it.

Negative/positive acceleration: A type of error where certain x,y coordinates are either dropped or skipped.

Tracking precision: The measured accuracy in movements with the mouse.

LOD or Lift-Off Distance: The height at which the mouse still tracks, or stops tracking on a surface.

Z-axis tracking: The axis on which a mouse tracks vertical movements. Good tracking would be defined as the x,y coordinates staying in the same (or relatively same) spot when lifted and placed on the surface again. LOD affects this considerably.

Polling rate: Your mouse's polling rate determines how often it sends data to your operating system. All mouse movements (counts) and button presses must wait in the mouse until windows polls for them. By default, windows will poll a usb mouse every 8 milliseconds, or at a rate of 125hz.