Why is the mouse cursor that weird in Leopard?

Hi,
I recently got a MBP and I love the notebook, just have a few more questions that people at apple store can't find/give me an answer.

First, why is the movement of the mouse so strange? I am not sure I can explain it but it surely different from Windows environment to the point of being anoying. I tried about 5 different wireless mice, all of them are having a slight delay. So, the delay is on issue - even the Apple wireless mouse has this problem. I used Logitech (2) and MS (2) and one Kensigton, all have this delay, some are over regular wireless 2.4 ghz, others are over bluetooth. No connection issues whatsoever, but are having that delay. I am sure it's not the laptop because on the same machine (but under vista) there is no delay.

So, there is a delay on the wireless mouse; but there is also something with the system (Mac OS) cause the movement (even of the wired mice) is as following: fast when you move it fast, but when you decrease the speed a little the actual movement decreases like 5 times more than my hand. Is that normal? I find it difficult to hit the button on any wired mouse(tried Logitech M5 and Apple wired mouse). But I have no problems using the touchpad - which I love. Oviously I need an external mouse, so what's wrong? My laptop, the mice I have tried until now or something else?

Any setting I can do for the system to change to different scheme and stop decreasing so fast the movement just before I hit those buttons/link? No matter how fast I set the mouse cursor to move, at the end of the move I will still encounter that huge slow down.

Another issue: any ways of making MS Office to keep all it's flying tabs on the main window? I don't like having toolbars as a separate window, I have to move two things every time I need to move my word/excel from the laptop display to the external display.

Other than this I find Leopard pretty strait forward, easy to use and fun at the same time. Hopefully I can fix the mouse issue.


Just to make it clear: I am not trying to bash at Macs/Leopard, I am just looking at ways to improve my work on my laptop.

Thanks guys !

 

Yeah this was weird for me at first. It took me about 2 weeks to become completely comfortable with using the mouse on my macbook. Its very difficult to explain the difference.

 

I use both windows and Mac OS, and I'm not too sure what you're talking about here.

 

me too....never expirienced that

 

He's talking about mouse acceleration, which can be disabled in Windows but not OSX.

 

Been using my MBP for over a year now, regularly bootcamping into WinXP and I have never noticed this... maybe I'm enjoying my Mac too much?
( I have used wired, bluetooth and wireless mouses)

Regarding MS Office I don't think there's a way of doing what you want.

 

I know what he means. In OS X, it feels like the cursor moves slower or doesn't respond as quickly as the cursor in Windows. Don't worry, you'll adjust to quickly. I don't even notice it anymore.

 

The only weird cursor behavior I've had is sometimes it will "reset" and jump back up to its starting position (by the apple menu); like on first boot.

 

I have mouse moving issue (Small lag compared to Windows) & mouse start to jump when i secure delete files

 

I thought it was just me, but apparently there is a slight difference in how the cursor 'feels' between Windows and OS X. As you said, it's hard to put into words, but to me sometimes the mouse feels a little more sluggish in Leopard whenever I'm using my dad's MBP.

 

I too experience a difference in mouse movement between OSX and Windows. In OSX, it feels a bit sluggish but in Windows it feels natural. That could be largely attributed to the fact that I am a long time Windows user though. So, I purchased a small utility application called Steer Mouse that provides similar results to what I'd get in Windows. The mouse movement in OSX annoyed me that much to warrant the purchase.

 

If you're talking about bluetooth lag, the ONLY mouse I found has NO lag is the Razer Pro|Click Mobile.

I've actually tested all bluetooth mice available in an Apple Store, including the Kensington, Logitech and Apple Mighty Mouse. They all lag. Except for the Razer.

Other than that, I can't really figure out what you're saying...

 

He mentioned wired mice as well, and I experience this with both wired and wireless mighty mouse. It's something you probabably won't notice if you started out on Apple OS's, but like others said it just feels like the cursor doesn't react to your movements very quickly.

 

it's mouse acceleration... it's meant to give you more precision or aided precision when moving over small number of pixels. i think it's enabled on windows xp by default so most will not notice if they haven't disabled the option in first place. i personally find this annoying as well and always disable this feature when i do fresh install. you may just want to increase the speed of cursor.

 

I actually have a pro click mobile, and I love it, but it does lag for me when im doing cpu intensive processes in OSX.

Wired mouses don't lag for me, and in windows I can game with the same bluetooth mouse, with pretty much no lag at all. So it seems to be a bad driver issue in OSX.

I think it was on the apple support boards, where someone recommended installing steermouse and it might be better, but I havnt had a chance to my bluetooth mouse since I installed it.

 

Hmmm, the mouse I uses works perfectly normal

 

For those of you saying your mouse movements are normal. If you have windows, boot into it and try noticing the difference of the cursor movement between OS X and Windows, then come back and tell us if there was any difference, with what options, etc. That would be very very helpful.

 

Two people have said "MOUSE ACCELERATION". It's called "pointer enhancement" or something along that lines in Control Panel in Windows. There is no option to disable this in OSX unless you buy a third party application like Steermouse.

 

can't u change like the dpi or something of the mouse ur using? and iv noticed the same thing on my dad's imac except its only if i use the wired mighty mouse. if i use a wireless logitech mouse, then all is fine. i used to think that the mouse it self was bad or something. guess im not crazy then.

 

There is definitely a difference between how the mouse feels in OS X vs Windows. Basically, the difference is in what type of acceleration curve each uses.

It's something that you'll probably get used to, but at least for me it was only to a point. Which feel you prefer will depend on your usage habits and personal taste, but I would say to try to give it a week or two to see what it feels like then.

There are a couple apps out there that aim to change the acceleration curve closer to what Windows uses, but at least in my experience, even the best out of them didn't quite get there.

 

Exactly !
I will definitely keep my MBP, but I had such a hard time finding a mouse. I never thought about having problems with the MOUSE! I expected software problems, network connectivity, etc, but .. the mouse? Anyway, for me, the OSX feels weird and I feel I am much slower in what I do on the laptop than in Windows (talking about mouse hits/clicks). That annoys me cause when I compare the integrated touch pad of the MBP with any other laptop I feel I am much faster on the Mac, so why the sluggishness of the external mouse when the integrated one moves that nice?

I will try Steer Mouse tonight, hopefully it will fix the problem. I already tried some applications designed to change the way the mouse moves that didn't do much/nothing.

Edit: the speed of the mouse is set at the highest right now, but whatever speed you use it will still decrease extremely high right before I try to click on the button. Just what I said before, Leopard does some magic I don't like (in this case) and I would like to turn that off. But there is no option in turning it off. So, yes, I am extremely precise when I click on the button, but then I also feel I am sloooow

There are basically 2 problems: one with the weird movement (the above one) and one with the lag (standard wireless mouse lag). As for the second, the hardware is fine since it works with close to zero lag in Vista (on the MBP) but it's lagging in Leopard. So I am sure the wireless lag can be fixed sometimes in the future with a simple driver update.

 

This article explains it pretty well, in that it feels like you're "mousing through mud" in OS X. It's from last year, but still applies.

http://db.tidbits.com/article/8893

 

nice article, thanks !

 

Yeah, after reading that article, this IS very weird.

But I must say, after using a mouse since Windows 3.1, I don't really feel it's awkward in OS X, or anything of that sorts...

 

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/steermouse.html

 

i no longer notice. used to freak me out.

just have to accept the fact the you are going to be cold for a bit when you switch pools. jump back in, swim around, and you will adjust.

i can now use mac and windows without noticing the mouse acceleration difference.

 

Really? It's a VERY big difference... especially for the settings I used on Windows...

 

try
smc and pram reset

then
if u want have a look at the
sys pref
mouse and keyboard
then "mouse" ...tracking speed, play around there...see if feel any better?


i use Razer Death Adder
seen to be fine,
i use logetich before seen to be pretty Poo,