Let's Talk About Gaming Mice

Not asking for recommendations, not talking about specific mice. Let's dive deep into mouse functions and capabilities and see what we can dig up together.

I feel there is a ton of dark marketing going around to sell you products that are not any better than what we had 4 years ago for half the price.

Things like high DPI claims, twin sensors, polling rate, etc.

Lets find out for real what is important on the mouse, and what the real life effects of some of these marketing claims are, and then perhaps when we have a solid baseline we can start to put together a list of the "real best mice" and not just go find one with a shiny logo and expensive price and assume it is best.


I'll start off with some of my own knowledge and some articles I know of.

Firstly is mouse DPI

Spoiler

DPI is simply short dots per inch, I have never needed a mouse with more dpi than my MX518 set to between 1200-1600dpi, I have owned mice with 5700dpi and saw no benefit to it.

Why you ask? Well if you imagine 1600 dots taking up an inch of space the amount of space between those dots is so small that your not even humanly capable of making volentary phisical movements that small, you have no aditional accuracy to gain.

Also if you were to map your mouse input 1:1 to your actual input on your computer 1 "dot" would equal 1 pixel. @ 1600DPI you would scroll 1600 pixels aka your entire monitor pretty much in just a single inch of movement with your mouse. Nobody here uses a sensitivity setting that high and as a result what you do is in windows, or in your games you turn down the sensitivity of your mouse scroll. You suddenly tell your computer 1 dot (is not) 1 pixel, instead say 2 dots = 1 pixel so you cut the effective dpi of your mouse in half.

You may have that mouse set to 5700dpi but trust me, your not using it. Also in order to get that large number there is a very real chance that the mouse company forced it at the cost of accuracy, error correction, and they may even be using interpolation to falsify it and double the actual real life dpi.

So with that said I never buy a mouse based on DPI and I hope that you will not either.

Next is Polling Rate

Spoiler

This is another new stat mouse companies are proud to boast. 1000mhz polling is king of gaming. That is... 1000 times per second the mouse is polled for updates in position change, aka 1 millisecond.

I agree higher is better, however we reach a point of limited returns much past 500mhz and from that point on again forcing it so high could actually have worse effects than what you have to gain, it may be too much for your usb buss to handle without errors, and some mice even seem to get tracking issues when its too high.

So get something thats in that 400mb+ area but dont make it a requirement that it has 1000mhz polling.

Now how about Sensor Types?

Spoiler

Seems all the high end mice are now laser (or even twin sensor... but that piece of junk has plenty of articles on google for you) and I think the move to laser was due to the for mentioned DPI race. Laser can boast much higher DPI much easier, but is it actually better than optical?

In my personal experience, no its not. I have yet to come across a laser mouse that could track as good or on as many surfaces as a optical sensor could. Since we already know that DPI is not important I find myself no reason to move to laser. I have not had any laser mouse since the Razer Mamba so maybe it has gotten better since, I am not sure but I can say for sure you have nothing to fear or to avoid with a optical sensor mouse.

More mini articles to come...

For now here is a list of other material on the web with similar information. Go forth and enlighten yourself.

- The Truthful Mouse Guide

- OCN Mouse Reference Thread

- I am looking for an old article that went into a ton of detail about the MX518, talked about error correction, sensor accuracy. It brought up a lot of details that showed it to be the best mouse of its time even when other mice were boasting much higher figures.


My first debate topic:
This guys review of the CM Spawn cm spawn review - YouTube @ 0:55 he talks about tracking rates. This guy is supposed to be a mouse expert I guess and he says the mouse works better at 125hz polling rate. I want to know what his reasoning for this is and if its true. I know that 1000hz is overkill and not needed, but I cant see how he came up with the math on DPI+Polling Rate = Tracking Rate and why he says lower is better.

I sent him a message to ask where he gets his numbers from and what his reasoning is lets hope he gets back with me.

More to come for this main post, just getting it started to now. Let me know if you have any information to add, be it your own or articles on the net and of course post a reply to discuss.

 

I'll copy and paste an old post I made on the subject of mice, DPI and how it matters, and the distinction between DPI and sensitivity (spoiler alert - they're not the same).

When it comes to adjusting your mouse's sensitivity and DPI to be comfortable for you, you're actually supposed to keep the Windows sensitivity at the default 6th notch out of the 11 in the cursor speed bar, and adjust DPI and game settings accordingly.

The way Windows works with mouse sensitivity, that 6th/11 notch gives you 1:1 tracking, and using a higher or lower sensitivity basically applies a multiplier to your mouse's "natural" sensitivity. For example, at 3/11 bars, you have a 0.25x multiplier, meaning your cursor only responds once every 4 points of movement. Naturally, 6/11 notch sensitivity with high DPI yields crazy mouse speed, so you'll probably want to use a lower DPI for the Windows desktop. I'm personally comfortable at 1,800 DPI, and I prefer 800 with my large mouse pad.

Frankly, DPI in mice these days is highly overrated; you can calculate the minimum necessary DPI to be able to turn one pixel at a time at a given sensitivity. For example, with a 9-inch 360 (medium-low sensitivity), the minimum useful DPI to be able to aim to an accuracy of one pixel is about 580 DPI. Any less than this, and you'll end up skipping pixels because the mouse doesn't have enough data to send to provide pixel-precise movement at such a sensitivity.

While you may get the exact same sensitivity in inches per 360 degree turn with a high DPI/low sensitivity and low DPI/high sens configuration, the former will be more accurate, because the latter will likely have DPI lower than the minimum necessary for single-pixel precision.

This means that high-sensitivity players benefit more from higher-DPI mice than low-sensitivity players. However, the DPI of most mice these days are still way more than enough for even high-sensitivity players. Take a 3-inch 360 for example; by just about any standards that's pretty high sensitivity. The minimum useful DPI to be able to maintain single-pixel precision is around 1,800. Significantly higher than that of a low-sensitivity player, but still within the scope of just about any gaming-grade mouse these days; even the original 2007 DeathAdder had 1,800 DPI, as does the old-but-good Logitech MX518.

Now let's take it to extremes: a one-inch 360 degree turn. That's pretty insanely high sensitivity; just about uselessly high, actually. A brief flick of the wrist can rotate you around several times. The minimum DPI for such a ridiculous sensitivity is around 5,400, which exceeds the capability of all but the highest-end gaming mice like the Logitech G500 and G700 (5,700 DPI) and the Razer Mamba, Naga, Lachesis and Imperator (5,600 DPI).

So, higher DPI has its uses, although primarily for high-sensitivity gamers, and even low-mid grade gaming mice usually have more DPI than you'll ever need.

tl;dr - the ideal combination is 6/11 Windows mouse cursor speed setting, low DPI on your desktop to your own preference for cursor speed. As for your in-game DPI setting, as long as it exceeds the minimum DPI for your desired sensitivity, you're set, and you can adjust the in-game sensitivity setting to compensate. If you're a medium to low sensitivity gamer, you can use the same relatively low DPI that you use for your desktop for your gaming, as it will still exceed the minimum DPI for maximum precision.

As for polling (or report) rate, that's basically how often the mouse sends data via USB to your computer. Your average mouse does this 125 times per second (125Hz), which means 1/125th of a second, i.e. 8/1000's of a second (8ms) per poll. This means the mouse takes 8ms to respond. Gaming-grade mice are typically capable of 1,000Hz polling, meaning each poll takes only 1ms. Basically, you should always use the highest polling rate your mouse is capable of to minimize input lag. This does have a higher toll on your CPU, but the effect is negligible if you're not running your mouse through a TI-83 calculator.

This is an excellent link with some handy tools for calculating your sensitivity in inches (or centimeters) per 360-degree rotation, and your minimum useful DPI for a given sensitivity. The "in-game sensitivity" entry is based on the sensitivity scale for games based on id Tech 3 and its derivatives, including Source. So your sensitivity in Counter-Strike or TF2 or any CoD game will work.

worthless information about your worthless mouse

One last protip: Source engine games (TF2, CS:S, L4D/L4D2) have an option for "raw input" in the mouse settings, which I highly recommend enabling. This basically allows the game to read input data directly from your mouse rather than filtering it through Window's settings.

Oh, and whatever you do, make sure mouse acceleration is disabled!

Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope you all find this useful.

 

Here are a couple of tools to disable mouse acceleration, I always have it off. I turned it off on the work computers too and it drives everybody nuts

How to Disable Mouse Acceleration

http://www.hardcoreware.net/files/mouse_fix.reg

GotFrag eSports - Files - CPL Mouse Fix

GameBanana: CPL Mouse Fix (Tools > Counter-Strike: 1.6 > Client Modification > CPL Mouse Fix)

Be sure you use the right fix for the right OS, some are older and for XP, while there are newer ones for Vista/7

Here is an article all about setting up mouse sensitivity: CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide

 

My Performance MX is configured to only use SetPoint, skipping whatever the OS wants and also i disabled Mouse Accelleration.

When its at 1500dpi it behaves just like i want it to on a 1920x1080 screen.
And it tracks perfectly on my glass desktop, but i use a mousepad because glass gets so cold. brr

 

If polling occurs every 8 ms, it would actually take some amount of time between 0 - 8 ms. Technically, the transmission itself would take some time as well, but that time should be small.

on average it would take 4 ms

 

And how did you arrive at that conclusion?

 

I understand why you think that laser technology is no better than optical if the last laser mouse you used was the Mamba. No offense to the Mamba but I returned it due to tracking issues and it just not feeling right with my grip. When you say that optical can track on more surfaces that simply is not true. My last Logitech mouse (MX Performance) could track on glass. I never had a optical mouse that was capable of doing that. My current mouse (G700) has so far tracked on everything I've tried and it by far has the best sensor I've ever used.

By saying that companies just switched to laser in order to win the DPI race is pure speculation. Companies like Logitech use lasers in a lot of their high end mice, not just the gaming mice. In my experience, (owning 8 different mice over the past decade), I've found that laser mice are more precise. In my opinion, manufacturers switched to laser technology because it is better.

 

If laser were truly better, optical mice would have been eliminated years ago.

I've owned at least the same number of mice as you in less than 1/2 the time, but until just a couple weeks ago, I kept coming back to the Logitech MX518 because it does absolutely everything a mouse should do. No gimmicks, great response and tracking. I would be buried with it, but unfortunately Logitech doesn't see the value in releasing software for its gaming mice that's compatible with OS X. As much crap as I give Razer, the DeathAdder (another optical mouse ) works great, with only one tweak that need be applied to have tracking that basically mimics what I can achieve on the Windows side.

 

Notice how I said "In my opinion"? Yes, manufacturers are still making optical mice because it is the cheaper technology. You usually see Laser technology in the high end mice. Optical sensors are used in mid to low end mice. I'm sure optical mice still work great and I'm sure some people don't see a difference between the two but "IN MY OPINION", laser sensors just feel more precise and provide better tracking (as long as the sensor isn't some cheap POS). Look at all of Logitech's high end mice and not just the gaming ones. They all use laser technology. Some of them even use lasers that have no problem tracking on glass like the one I used to own. You don't see optical sensors tracking on glass.

Logitech doesn't see the value in OSX software for Gaming Mice because the market just isn't there. I don't know anyone who purchases a Mac with gaming in mind. I'm sure people do game with their Macs but the numbers are a very tiny fraction of the people who are gaming on Windows. If Logitech saw the value in developing OSX software for it's gaming mice then I'm sure they would have done it already.

 

I think some perspective is important to keep in mind. Even though some gaming mice offer greater control, comfort, and/or function...it's no magic bullet.

Don't expect, for example, +10% accuracy in (insert favorite FPS). Such increases are only found through personal skill development.

 

Trackpads ftw!

 

HAHA..I would hope nobody would actually believe a good gaming mouse will improve their kill to death ratio. Me personally, I think the biggest improvement that can come from a good gaming mouse is it's button positioning. Well positioned buttons such as the 4 thumb buttons on the G700 have made certain actions such as knife attacks and weapon switches faster.

 

The MX Performance uses a Logitech Darkfield sensor that was specifically designed to track on glass surfaces. "Normal" laser sensors cannot do that any more than optical ones can, including the G700. That's not an inherent advantage of laser over optical. And between my DeathAdder (optical), Mamba (laser), Orochi (laser), and G9 (laser), the DeathAdder definitely tracked more smoothly on surfaces that aren't uniformly hard and flat and smooth, like soft mouse pads. On hard plastic or aluminum pads it was more even.

Of course they're more precise. Higher DPI = more precision, and that is one advantage of laser over optical sensors. That said, high-end optical mice have more than enough precision for even high sensitivity gamers.

OS X gaming is more popular than it used to be, especially recently with the launch of Steam and a ton of Steam games for Mac. Logitech may not see the value in it, but by not supporting OS X, they're just giving potential sales away to companies that do provide OS X drivers, like Razer.

 

Yeah dont compare darkfield or bluetrack to other sensors those are special technologies.

 

I understand that the Darkfield technology is not like a normal laser but it is still a laser sensor nonetheless. In the end, it really doesn't matter what I like using more whether it be optical or laser. The only mice I ever find that fits my grip perfectly are ones made by Logitech and if I want to use one of their high end mice, I have to use laser.

Funny thing about this conversation is I remember back in the late 90's when optical mice started coming on the scene and all of us snob gamers would never be caught using one. It was roller ball all the way. This debate actually raged on for 5 years. It took me 2 years to finally break down and try a optical mouse. I remember using my MX500 like it was yesterday. I had many memories with it and Counter Strike 1.6. It took me a while to get used to it but once I did, I loved it. I then when onto buy a MX700 since it was really the first wireless mouse ever marketed with no input lag. To tell you the truth, I really don't remember any lag with it but what I do remember is that we had some fun together. After my batteries died in the MX700, I went on to purchase the MX518. I call this my WOW mouse since I pretty much used it for 2 years straight playing WOW. This was probably my favorite optical mouse I've ever used. After hanging this bad boy up in 2009, I went on to try a couple of laser mice made by Razer and a few others. Yea, there was definitely some tracking issues and all of them felt weird in my hand so I actually went back to the trusty old MX518. It wasn't until I used the MX Revolution that I finally found a laser mouse worthy of being used. After about two weeks of use, I came to the conclusion I could never go back to optical. Well ,really I could but I didn't want to at this point. I then moved on to the MX Performance and I was once again happy with everything about this mouse. It wasn't a so called "Gamming Mouse" but it's buttons were perfectly placed and it tracked very well so I used it to game for about 1 year. Now, I play with a G700 and it took everything I liked about the MX Performance and made it better. The sensor in this mouse is like nothing I've ever played with. Not to mention, every button is perfectly placed to the point where I don't need to change my grip to hit them.

Bottom line: Some will always prefer something else. Just don't knock something until you have thoroughly given it a try or your opinion means nothing.



When it comes to gaming on OSX, I realize it's getting popular but the hard core gaming crowd are not purchasing Macs over PC's that will be used heavily for gaming. Hell, I have a friend who is a iGeek. He owns everything Apple, however, even he just built a Gaming PC knowing that he would never be able to play the newest FPS games on 1080p with maxed out settings on his Mac Pro. In he end, Logitech knows that PC gamers out number Mac gamers by a ton to a minute amount. Maybe they just don't feel like investing money into something that won't pay them back. I'm sure they have a reason as to why they haven't yet.

Bottom Line: Hardcore Gamers do not buy Macs. People purchase macs for other primary things and gaming will be secondary.

 

First: almost all mice today are optical. The only current exceptions that I know is mice designed for drawing tablets.

Laser isn't a class of sensor, it's just a type of optical sensor with a coherent light source.
Twin-eye is a sensor using interference patterns generated when laser beams hit the surface but doesn't use a low-resolution camera like other optical mice.
The rest is mostly marketing.

Polling rate is overrated (pun not intended) as the critical latency is the human reaction time, a reaction that is triggered by screen redraw. So we get render latency+human reaction latency+mouse reaction time+mouse update rate latency+game engine latency. Given that most games use pre-rendering (rendering several frames in advance) the update latency is just a small component and most often not the critical one.

 

I think Logitech offers SetPoint functionality under OS X as Logitech Control Center.

Third party alternative could be Steermouse but it costs 20 US dollars.

 

I've also noticed the relatively large numbers of Mac users who do that, and are consequently unable to build a PC worth a damn for the heaviest duty they'll ever put any computer they own - so they blame everything that goes wrong on the gaming PC they've built on Windows or that it's a crappy PC. Interesting psychology and one that still works in favour of the virtuous cycle of the Applezombie.

On topic, laser and optical do offer different distinctive behaviours / compromises (be it by sensor uniformity or otherwise) so I think it's OK to say 'laser' and 'optical'.

I think the key to a good mouse is not the sensor tech, not the polling rate but how each manufacturer gets around the inadequacies of the sensor they're using. And I know the gaming folk might kill me but I think that 'mainstream' mice often do a better job of that than the legions of off-brand leeter-than-thou gaming mice out there. And even if we're talking gaming mice, I think the also mainstream makers often make a better go of it than the Razers downwards of the industry.

 

Dude, I couldn't agree more. I have tried a lot of mice made by these companies that strictly make gaming accessories and other than looking cool, they did not impress me one bit. If you can't back up your 6 way adjustable mouse with a high quality sensor then it does nothing for me. I've had low end Logitech/Microsoft mice that cost me $20 and worked better than most of the $100 mice I used and then returned. I told myself two years ago that I would never buy anything else other than mice made by Logitech. I've never had any problems with any mouse I've ever used made by Logitech. In the end, I mostly purchase gaming mice for the plentiful buttons and DPI switching on the fly. They also seem to be a bit heavier which I also like as well.

 

For me, the most important quality is ergonomics and comfort. I can stand slight inconsistencies in the tracking as long as it fits my hand perfectly..

I love the quality and tracking ability of all Logitech mice but the one thing which puts me off is no pinky support!

I got an ikari laser for the pinky support, its a good mouse apart from the face that the button gave up about 8 months later and now it double clicks randomly instead of single clicks (temporarily solved with AHK)

I'm looking into a cyborg rat 7 or 9 simply because its the only mouse in the market that has a complete platform (optional part) for the pinky..

Logitech has excellent ergonomics otherwise, a great and very natural groove for the thumb but i'm baffled as to how none of their models offer proper pinky support

 

Oughta have an article about frips. I love palm-grip myself.

 

Here is a sample of the mice I have used in the last 3 years: MX518, G5, G7, G9, G700, DeathAdder, Orochi, and R.A.T. 5.

You must have glossed over where I specifically mentioned (in the part you bolded nonetheless) gaming mice.

That's only a partial solution. It works well for assigning buttons, but it also makes the tracking weird, at least for my liking.

 

Back when my MX518 was alive it was using SetPoint, so i assumed all other "gaming" branded Logitech mice also fell under the same category.

It looks different but its still included in the SetPoint suite.

Logitech Control Center is the only software i found on the site that is for OS X.

 

And it doesn't work with any Logitech gaming mouse. That's the point.

Further, it's not only Razer who sees the value in Mac as a gaming platform. MadCatz provides OS X drivers for the R.A.T. series mice as well.

It's kind of ironic that two comparatively tiny companies (Razer and MadCatz) put time and energy into supporting Mac OS with their gaming peripherals, but two giants (Logitech and Microsoft) have not. It's ultimately their prerogative, and if they don't believe they will see any sort of ROI, that's fine. I'll simply vote with my wallet and not support them in return.

 

I just read over in the Logitech forums that the reason why their Gaming Mouse does not come with built in support for OSX is because OSX does not play nicely when a mouse is reporting 500 or more times a second. They said OSX causes tracking errors when you have a mouse that reports that many times per second.

Still no g5 osx support? - Logitech Forums

 

Unless there is a physical hardware limitation, Logitech is being lazy because report rate is easily changed from SetPoint in Windows. Razer's OS X drivers offer this functionality as well. If the mouse defaults to 500 reports, put something in the documentation and online knowledge base recommending Mac users install the software to adjust this setting to ensure proper tracking.

The least Logitech can do is be honest. What they're talking about there sounds like excuse making to me.

 

Yes, this would make sense, however it would probably end up costing them money due to all of the people who have no idea what report rate is nor do they have any idea how to change it. These people would return the mouse along with blowing up forums and tech support stating that the mouse is skipping all over the place. They probably just don't want the bad press. There are a lot of people out there who never read user manuals. I would assume it wouldn't be that hard for Logitech to create the software for OSX. I'm sure they have talked about it and I'm sure we don't know the whole story.

 

I arrived at that conclusion with some simple math. I can't get into it without giving a very long winded and thorough explanation, but I could be succinct by deferring to wikipedia. Here are the two thorough, math related articles which demonstrate how to handle probability for this type of situation.

Probability distribution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Expected value - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia