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What does Reduce Mouse Lag do?

Forum Index > Tech Support
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1 2 Next All
spirates
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden148 Posts
March 21 2012 12:30 GMT
#1
I've found 2 threads about this subject here but I dont feel that it's been any good answers in them, some ppl says it's good, other says it's bad..

I just made a custom game to see if I could see any difference but I couldn't. The only difference was that my fps dropped from 160 to 140 when I turned it on.
TheToast
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States4808 Posts
March 21 2012 15:20 GMT
#2
I haven't the slightest idea what your talking about. Is this an option in your driver software? In that case it could be raising the USB polling rate of the mouse which could (depending on the DPI/CPI and FPS of the mouse) increase the accuracy of the mouse pointer relative to mouse movement.

If you're talking about the "enhanced pointer precision" option in windows that enables mouse acceleration.

Either way, in the future these types of questions should really be posted in the Simple Question Simple Answer thread.
I like the way the walls go out. Gives you an open feeling. Firefly's a good design. People don't appreciate the substance of things. Objects in space. People miss out on what's solid.
DannyJ
Profile Joined March 2010
United States5110 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-21 15:31:50
March 21 2012 15:31 GMT
#3
I think he's talking about the option in SC2. I have absolutely no idea what it does, at least tangibly. I've never noticed a difference.
Kaitokid
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany1327 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-21 15:57:30
March 21 2012 15:57 GMT
#4
I definitely notice a difference but for some reason I prefer when its turned off. I did play with it activated for a while though, but I decided to turn it off after I saw a couple of good players not using it^^
MisterFred
Profile Joined October 2010
United States2033 Posts
March 21 2012 15:59 GMT
#5
On my computer, the mouse pointer is noticeably sluggish in responding to controls if I have it off. Turn it on and bam, perfectly responsive mouse. I think it just ensures that the CPU resources involved with the mouse are dedicated to the mouse alone, and not used for other purposes. That could be wrong though. As a side note, since most monitors can't displayer higher than 60 frames per second and even the better monitors don't do more than 120 frames per second, I'd just leave it on if I were you...

@The Toast its in the starcraft settings menu. I forget which panel.
"The victor? Not the highest scoring, nor the best strategist, nor the best tactitian. The victor was he that was closest to the Tao of FFA." -.Praetor
TheToast
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States4808 Posts
March 21 2012 16:04 GMT
#6
Ahh ic it's part of the client.

That explanation would seem to make sense, would explain the reduced FPS the OP is experiencing. I did a quick google and couldn't come up with any definate explanations of what exactly it does, just a lot of anecdotal evidence about it working or not doing anything at all.
I like the way the walls go out. Gives you an open feeling. Firefly's a good design. People don't appreciate the substance of things. Objects in space. People miss out on what's solid.
jaj22
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom1376 Posts
March 21 2012 16:51 GMT
#7
I believe what it does is reduce the graphics driver flip queue to zero, which means that the graphics driver won't queue up rendering operations for the next frame until the current one is complete.

SC2 has a highly irregular frame rate because the (expensive) fixed-rate game engine is in the same thread as the variable-rate renderer. At 60fps you'll get something like one long frame and three short ones, which can confuse the graphics driver frame queuing algorithm and causing problems like stuttering or high display lag. The reduce mouse lag option should fix this if that's the cause of the problem, at the cost of raw frame rate. I wouldn't recommend enabling it unless you actually have problems, although there's no harm in trying it to see which you prefer.

Note that there are other causes for stuttering problems too. Windows 7 core parking is another possibility, also related to the irregular frame rate.

hokuspokus
Profile Joined May 2010
Niger70 Posts
March 21 2012 17:04 GMT
#8
It definitely reduces the cursor lag. Most noticeably when you draw the unit selection box very rapidly you will (probably) notice huge lag if you haven't turned it on.
The post above me looks like the poster has a lot of knowledge (through vocab), but then he recommends to turn it off which I really don't understand. If he had tested it once he wouldn't recommend to turn it off.
Oh and the mysterious core parking isn't in any way related to stuttering in SC2.
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10340 Posts
March 21 2012 17:11 GMT
#9
jaj22 is correct, it turns off pre-rendering, meaning the game will always wait for your input before drawing the next frame. You should only turn it on if you actually experience mouse lag. The best way to test is to drag around in circles on the minimap and see if the white rectangle keeps up with your cursor.

If you have vsync enabled, you almost certainly need this enabled too, otherwise your mouse input will be delayed be up to 16ms (1000ms / 60fps). At higher frame rates like 150fps, the lag drops down to 6ms, at which point other factors like USB polling rate are going to come into play and enabling this option just reduces the frame rate, at which point a 3ms reduction in input lag vs a smoother frame rate is not beneficial.
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
jaj22
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom1376 Posts
March 21 2012 17:58 GMT
#10
On March 22 2012 02:04 hokuspokus wrote:
It definitely reduces the cursor lag. Most noticeably when you draw the unit selection box very rapidly you will (probably) notice huge lag if you haven't turned it on.
The post above me looks like the poster has a lot of knowledge (through vocab), but then he recommends to turn it off which I really don't understand. If he had tested it once he wouldn't recommend to turn it off.

The difference seems to be very small for most setups. Most of the time, the flip queue algorithms get it about right.

Personally I use flip queue 1 with all games. I don't have a very fast graphics card so it works out better than flip queue 0. If you hurt frame rate too much it can feel a lot worse than a small amount of mouse lag. It also depends on how well you cope with frame tearing, because flip queue 0 tends to hurt more with vsync enabled.

Oh and the mysterious core parking isn't in any way related to stuttering in SC2.

So you know what causes every instance of SC2 stuttering? Please tell.

TheToast
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States4808 Posts
March 21 2012 18:10 GMT
#11
Hmm interesting. I don't use vsync so I've never really looked into this.

I'm thinking when people post reporting they have mouse issues in SC2 this should probably be the #1 step we suggest that they try.

I like the way the walls go out. Gives you an open feeling. Firefly's a good design. People don't appreciate the substance of things. Objects in space. People miss out on what's solid.
OPL3SA2
Profile Joined April 2011
United States378 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-21 18:18:46
March 21 2012 18:16 GMT
#12
It's hardware mouse option
Hardware mouse on/off

If you don't know what hardware mouse is, google it
edit: I should say that Hardware mouse has been an option since like, quake 1 (the original). Back then, it was pretty much a staple of professional play for people who had USB mouse instead of a ps2 input device. As time evolved, no one uses it anymore

I'll say this, if you turn it on and notice a difference, then immediately replace your computer
IMMEDIATELY
Playoffs? You're talking about playoffs?
jaj22
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom1376 Posts
March 21 2012 18:38 GMT
#13
Hardware mouse cursor? SC2 uses that regardless of whether Reduce Mouse Lag is enabled.

hokuspokus
Profile Joined May 2010
Niger70 Posts
March 21 2012 18:39 GMT
#14
On March 22 2012 02:58 jaj22 wrote:
So you know what causes every instance of SC2 stuttering? Please tell.


All I said is that it's not related to in-game stuttering, the rest was your imagination. It may cause hiccups when starting programs but that's it. SC2 uses only 2 cores anyway and I haven't seen core parking disable more than 4 threads (If I have HT enabled) so it will not make any difference.
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10340 Posts
March 21 2012 20:25 GMT
#15
On March 22 2012 03:16 OPL3SA2 wrote:
It's hardware mouse option
Hardware mouse on/off

If you don't know what hardware mouse is, google it
edit: I should say that Hardware mouse has been an option since like, quake 1 (the original). Back then, it was pretty much a staple of professional play for people who had USB mouse instead of a ps2 input device. As time evolved, no one uses it anymore

I'll say this, if you turn it on and notice a difference, then immediately replace your computer
IMMEDIATELY

This is incorrect, it has nothing to do with mouse input, SC2 already uses DirectInput for mouse movement. On that note, DirectInput is no different from "raw" mouse input except in the way it's presented to the application.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee418864(v=vs.85).aspx
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
hokuspokus
Profile Joined May 2010
Niger70 Posts
March 22 2012 14:14 GMT
#16
On March 22 2012 05:25 R1CH wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 22 2012 03:16 OPL3SA2 wrote:
It's hardware mouse option
Hardware mouse on/off

If you don't know what hardware mouse is, google it
edit: I should say that Hardware mouse has been an option since like, quake 1 (the original). Back then, it was pretty much a staple of professional play for people who had USB mouse instead of a ps2 input device. As time evolved, no one uses it anymore

I'll say this, if you turn it on and notice a difference, then immediately replace your computer
IMMEDIATELY

This is incorrect, it has nothing to do with mouse input, SC2 already uses DirectInput for mouse movement. On that note, DirectInput is no different from "raw" mouse input except in the way it's presented to the application.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee418864(v=vs.85).aspx


What about the feature to disable mouse-sensitivity in sc2 which should equal activating direct input. That's why the question comes up if sc2 uses direct input in general because if it would, there shouldn't be an option to deactivate in-game sens in the first place right?
IPS.Blue
Profile Joined January 2004
Germany309 Posts
March 23 2012 12:34 GMT
#17
On March 22 2012 02:11 R1CH wrote:
jaj22 is correct, it turns off pre-rendering, meaning the game will always wait for your input before drawing the next frame. You should only turn it on if you actually experience mouse lag. The best way to test is to drag around in circles on the minimap and see if the white rectangle keeps up with your cursor.

If you have vsync enabled, you almost certainly need this enabled too, otherwise your mouse input will be delayed be up to 16ms (1000ms / 60fps). At higher frame rates like 150fps, the lag drops down to 6ms, at which point other factors like USB polling rate are going to come into play and enabling this option just reduces the frame rate, at which point a 3ms reduction in input lag vs a smoother frame rate is not beneficial.

So basically "Reduce Mouse Lag" is like vsync for your mouse?
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10340 Posts
March 24 2012 06:32 GMT
#18
No.
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
nttea
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Sweden4353 Posts
March 24 2012 07:00 GMT
#19
Is this the reason some console ports fuck up my mouse so badly? like the cursor lags behind my mouse movement heavily. Also meaning i could maybe fix it with some setting outside the game?
Genome852
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States979 Posts
March 24 2012 09:43 GMT
#20
On March 24 2012 16:00 nttea wrote:
Is this the reason some console ports fuck up my mouse so badly? like the cursor lags behind my mouse movement heavily. Also meaning i could maybe fix it with some setting outside the game?


No... those are just sloppy ports with inbuilt mouse acceleration / smoothing.
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