Are gaming mice really worth it?

The mouse I've been using is this cheap 30 dollar logitech wireless mouse which I bought with my HP laptop several months ago. And it works great. I dont play a lot of FPS's but I do plan on buying crysis soon. I play most of my PC games with the xbox controller.

The current mouse im using now is fast enough for me. I don't know much about DPI or how the speed of a mouse is measured or any of that stuff so it could be crap compared to other mice So what are gaming mice meant to be for? just for FPS's? Are they more comfortable? and why should I buy/not buy one?

 

I know a high quality (but not necessarily too expensive) laser mouse is all you really need. You'll want one, because even a tiny increase in speed and accuracy can make all the difference in trying to snipe someones head. Your cheap Logitech mouse is that small optical one I bet. Give it a try with Crysis and see how it goes, but most gamers want a nicer laser mouse.

 

By cheap I meant the price. Its a pretty decent mouse for the price. But I have considered upgrading lately and didn't know if I wanted to buy a "gaming" mouse or "regular" mouse.

 

The "gaming" mice are often just flashy and overpriced, with inflated DPI numbers that likey won't matter. I would just go with a nice laser mouse from Logitech, they make the best mice IMO. And make sure it's comfortable of course.

 

Honestly, I've found that a mouse that's comfortable for you to use is much more important than a more "accurate" mouse. Too many of them brag about 2000DPI when there's no way you can legitimately use that kind of precision. Human muscles just don't work like that. Get something comfortable with good button placement and the proper number of buttons for what you like (I tend to home in around 5-7), and you'll be better off. Laser increases how well it'll track on different surfaces, so if you have the choice between that and optical take the laser, but it's not a huge difference if you use a good mouse pad.

 

Alright the mouse im using now is the Logitech M505. I was wrong about the price

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/5870&cl=us,en

Forgot it came with 15 month battery life...ill stick to this then lol. Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

That's actually a pretty good mouse already. I totally agree with your decision.
I thought you had the little 305 mouse.

 

Get a quality mouse, but it does not have to be in that $80+ elite gaming area.

I actually prefer good optical to laser, seems to track better for me on more surfaces.

For gaming if I tried to make the most important things in order of most imporant to least important it would be.

> Comfort & Usability
> Performance
> Buttons

I like to have two side buttons for stuff like tossing a grenade or using voice chat, its easier than using a keyboard key for me since those are usually on the WSAD keys, but you can live without them. Comfort comes first because no matter how nice the mouse is, if it doesnt feel right to you, you wont be able to use it well. Performance is again a grey area. It needs to be good enough to not skip on tracking or have bad lag or something but it only needs like 1600dpi or so. It does not need to be some .001 ms response 5700 dpi monster. Even in the hands of a gaming master do I think the increase makes much of any difference its more of a placebo I think.

 

I often recommend gaming-grade mice even to non-gamers, simply because they tend to be some of the most comfortable and useful mice on the market. Take the Razer Orochi for instance...it's targeted at gamers, yeah, but in all honesty there is no other laptop-oriented mouse that really compares. It connects wirelessly via extremely low-latency Bluetooth, and can be plugged in for wired mode as well if you run out of batteries or work at a desk. DPI is adjustable on the fly, for the amount of speed and precision you need. And it's the most comfortable shape for a mouse of its size I have ever seen.

The main advantages that gaming mice have over "normal" mice, in terms of things that gamers will benefit from, are precision and response time. Your average optical desktop mouse will have an 800 DPI sensor, and 8ms response time. For the vast majority of users and casual gamers, this is plenty. However, just about any gaming mouse these days has at least 2,000 DPI and 1ms response time. This can add up in fast-paced online games, where those few milliseconds of signal input can mean the difference between you shooting your foe in the head or him doing the same to you.

Also, optical vs. laser is pretty much down to personal preference. Lasers tend to be faster, with higher DPI's (up to almost 6,000), although they are more picky about what you use them on. They tend to prefer hard mats over soft ones. Optical sensors are generally much more versatile in terms of surfaces, and can still have pretty impressive DPI (up to 3,500). Basically, any DPI over 2,000 will be more than enough for modern display resolutions.

If you're in the market for a new mouse and you play games, I highly recommend the Razer DeathAdder, at $60 MSRP. The current version uses the 3,500 DPI optical sensor, the most precise optical mouse available right now, and has a nice braided fiber cord as well. It's an excellent shape for right-handers, and has 5 buttons. The original DeathAdder is basically the same, but with an 1,800 DPI optical sensor and normal rubber cable. The Logitech MX518 is old by now, but still a pretty good budget-level gaming mouse.

 

If you're not a gamer I'd say just get the Perf MX. It's a great all-purpose mouse.

 

I'd say grab whatever you're comfort with
more comfort = more productive.

 

Only real advantage in "gaming mice" the the dpis. Some people like 'em fast, others don't. I personally need at least 2000+ dpi or it just feels too sluggish for me.

Another advantage to having a high dpi is that you can travel from one side of screen to the other very quickly, which is nice on a 1080 and above screen.

 

Your just over compensating for the higher dpi with a lower sensitivity setting. Even @ 800dpi I can move from one side of my 1080p screen to the other with just a wrist movement at the default windows sensitivity with room to spare and if I try hard to move the mouse just a tiny bit it can move still only move 1 pixel so I am not skipping any pixels or having any loss of sensitivity. @2000 it only takes about 1" of travel and I can not move just a single pixel of distance no matter what I do so I would have to lower the sensitivity down to compensate.

Your not getting more accuracy, more faster movement with the higher dpi your just dumbing down the abundance of input with a software filter to make it slower again.

If 1 pixel = 1 dot 800dpi = 800 pixels in one inch. That seems about how fast I would want to move my mouse in a 1:1 ratio. The sensitivity setting just changes that ratio.

In my example I could increase my DPI to 1600 and it would move 2x faster as it has 2x more input data going to the computer. To keep my mouse use accurate and consistent I would tell the computer to run a 2:1 ratio with the sensitivity setting. Its still effectively 800dpi though. In a gaming situation with very fast and erratic mouse movements it pays off to have a bit of extra dpi to compensate for read errors and other minor almost inconceivable things.

But ultimately I am not trying to make a debate out of it just making a point that dpi is not as big of a deal as it is made out to be. Its almost exactly like the megapixel number on a camera.

If you see a 8MP camrea and then one next to it is 10MP and the sales guy says "yeah the 10mp camera is way better, larger images = more quality" Well its a lie and one well hidden from the common consumer.

Given that the chances are both of those cameras have the same image sensor, the sensor is what determines the quality, using more pixels to fill the same sensor area just gives you a larger lower quality image because it cant handle the extra pixels, as a result you end up reducing the size of the photo to get some quality back because at full size it looks bad.

We are doing the same with DPI on mice, it gets too "big" and we make it "small" again with the sensitivity settings on windows & games.

The only true way to increase the quality of a picture is with a larger image sensor that can handle the larger number of pixels. In the case of mice the sensor would be us, humans, and until we can make mechanical movements smaller and more accurate than we do now we cant make use of a higher sensitivity/dpi mouse beyond a certain point, and we reached that point long ago well below the 2000dpi mark.

 

For me, the size of the mouse is key since I hate cramping my fingers for long periods. As it happens some of the gaming mice available are big enough for a palm grip and offer features usable outside of games.

 

i like a mouse that is comfortable to use

is accurate

has a good battery

sharp and responsive


At the moment i am using a Razer Mamba, loving it

 

I use a wired deathadder solely because of its ergonomics. I have it set at a standard DPI (800-1000) because I don't care about efficiency.

 

Based on your post, I would stick with what you have . . . you're happy with the mouse, it works well, and it is fast enough. Why spend money when you don't have to?