The Truthful Mouse Guide
I know that there is a CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide already stickied in the forum but I decided to make my own mouse guide because I felt that there were simply a few things left unsaid/misunderstood.
Content
1.Mouse DPI/CPI
2.Windows Pointer Speed
3.Mouse Acceleration
4.How accurate is my mouse?
5.Perfect Control Speed/Malfunction Speed
6.Optical vs Laser
7.Wired vs Wireless
8.Which mouse should I get?/Which mouse is the best?
9.Where can I find more truthful review/information about gaming mice?
1.Mouse DPI/CPI
DPI/CPI refers to dots per inches or counts per inches. It refers to the sensitivity of your mouse. However a very common misunderstanding about it is that DPI/CPI is a benchmark for how accurate your mouse is.
This is wrong! DPI/CPI is just the distance your mouse cursor moves in relation to the distance your mouse moves in real life. So for example, a mouse with higher sensitivity moves 3 pixels/cm whereas a mouse with lower sensitivity moves 1 pixel/cm, BUT they both have the same accuracy. Many gaming companies take advantage of this misunderstanding and often boast about their high DPI/CPI mice when they are actually overpriced garbage. Some gaming companies even use interpolaration (using software to trick the sensor) to increase the DPI/CPI further even at the expense of the mouse's performance. DO NOT BELIEVE their marketing and fall for their traps. DPI/CPI HAS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH ACCURACY OF YOUR MOUSE. A good example is the microsoft intellimouse 3.0, a very popular choice among professional gamers, it only has 400 dpi but its a very good mouse nevertheless.
So how much DPI/CPI do you actually need?
Quoted From ESReality Mousescore 2007
Quote:
Quoted by Skylit:
Quote:
Another popular misunderstood topic.
In the CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide, it was claimed that windows pointer speed should be kept at 6/11 and mouse DPI at maximum and only change your sensitivity in game. This is not entirely true. In fact, there is actually hardly any difference that you probably wont notice it if you use 1800 dpi with 3/11 (0.25) windows pointer speed and 450 dpi with 6/11 pointer speed. In fact, many professional gamers with mice like the deathadder use settings like 1800 dpi, 3/11 pointer speed instead of 450 dpi , 6/11 pointer speed. If it really matters that much to you, you can use the MarkC Windows 7 Mouse fix to ensure you get a 1 to 1 mouse to pointer movement.
And here are the exact sensitivity values for each notch of the windows pointer speed.
1. 0.03125
2. 0.0625
3. 0.25
4. 0.5
5. 0.75
6. 1.
7. 1.5
8. 2.
9. 2.5
10. 3.
11. 3.5
3.Mouse Acceleration
Another highly controversial topic in my opinion. Some say that its impossible to get good with mouse acceleration because its inconsistent. Again this is not true, I think results speak for themselves. There have been professional players who played with mouse acceleration and won tournaments. In fact many professional quake players use mouse acceleration even till today. However with that said, most people would probably find it easier to play without mouse acceleration. I highly reccomend you trying out playing without mouse acceleration for a while (give yourself some time to get used to it), if you feel comfortable with it after a while, just carry on playing with mouse acceleration off, if not just change back.
How do I turn off mouse acceleration?
There are several mouse fixes such as the MarkC Windows 7 mouse fix (win 7 only) i mentioned earlier, Cheese mouse fix and CPL mouse fix.
Unfortuanately the mouse fix is unable to alter mouse acceleration in the mouse/sensor itself.
So how do I know if my mouse/sensor has acceleration? (Don't worry I will be covering that too)
4.How accurate is my mouse?
Obviously every gamer wants an accurate mouse to give him some advantage. But before i touch on this topic, I would like you to know and establish a difference between accuracy and precision. If you are unclear of the differences, please look at the picture below.
Unless you have a spoiled mouse, all mice are all equally accurate. BUT they all have different precision (think consistency not accuracy). So now you will probably be screaming at your computers "JUST TELL ME HOW GOOD IS MY MOUSE AND CUT THE HORSE****". But I had to make sure you know the clear difference between accuracy and precision so that will not be any misunderstandings.
5.Perfect Control Speed/Malfunction Speed
These technical terms basically measure how precise your mouse actually is. The higher the speeds the better.
Perfect control speed refers to the maximum speed at which your mouse tracks without any mouse acceleration.
Malfunction speed refers to the maximum speed at which your mouse tracks any movement. A good list of the perfect control/malfunction speeds of mice is the ESReality Mousescore 2007. One factor which might affect the perfect control speed/malfunction speed of the mouse is it's polling rate. Polling rate is the rate at which the mouse updates and sends information about its movements/positions. Most gaming mice allow you to adjust its polling rate in the drivers. But in case, you have a regular mouse or cant switch your polling rates with your drivers, there are a few programs which you can download to overclock your polling rate of the mouse manually. Whether your looking for information on how to overclock your mouse's polling rate or just get more detailed information about polling rates, the CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide got it pretty well covered.
Quoted from CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide:
Quote:
Probably the most misunderstood topic in my opinion (you can see people making these mistakes even in mouse reviews!). Many people assume that laser technology is superior to optical just because its newer. When in actual fact optical sensors are superior because they are more reliable and precise as they have higher perfect control speeds and higher malfunction speeds. I am pretty sure some random guy will come and scream "NO~~~ LASER MICE CAN TRACK ON GLASS, OPTCIAL CANT, LASER MICE FTW". Sure, your laser mouse tracks well on your window pane but simply fails on a cloth mousepad like the QCK. Anybody who owned a laser mouse would probably have noticed they are extremely particular about the surfaces they are on unlike optical. They tend to jitter alot on certain mousepads and just track randomly.
****, What should I do if I am using a laser mouse?!
Switch to an optical mouse and you will see an improvement. I will list some laser mice and suggest some optical replacements that are of similar shape(even cheaper as well).
Laser - Optical
Mamba/Habu - Deathadder/Microsoft IE3.0
G500/G5/Imperator - MX518
Xai - Microsoft IMO 1.1
Still, many people believe that laser mice are just as good as optical mice. So I decided to backup my claims with some statistics quoted from ESReality Mousescore 2007.
Quoted From ESReality Mousescore 2007:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
And here's another benchmark done on the steelseries i2 mousepad (glass not cloth), so we would expect the laser mice to have the upper hand over optical right?
A mouse with good tracking should have a nice diagonal line with the pixels closely knit together until it reaches its perfect control speed. A good example is the deathadder. If you look closely, you can see the lines of the X8,G9x and mamba are not as smooth, the gaps between the pixels are also larger. This indicates that it is less consistent in its tracking.
Probably one of the more popular laser mice in the market at the moment - the Steelseries Xai which uses the Avago ADNS S9500 sensor. It has mouse acceleration present in the sensor itself EVEN at very low speeds which cannot be fixed from mouse fix (amount of acceleration varies between different mousepads). It has both positive and negative mouse acceleration as you can see from the graph.
Other popular mice that uses the same sensor and might be suffering from the same issue is the G500/G9x/G700
Quoted by Derp:
Quote:
1.Get a hard mousepad (preferably it should be plain with lesser graphics)
2.Check that your mouse does not jitter on the mousepad (don't assume that all hard mousepads would do the job)
3.Keep sensor and mousepad away from dust (clean if you have to)
7.Wired vs Wireless
With wireless gaming mice like the mamba and g500 becoming more popular, I feel that this is a topic I should include too.
Long story short, get a wired mouse.
Afterall one of the main reasons why you spend so much of a gaming mouse is because its more responsive. So why buy a wireless gaming mouse to negate all the advantage you can get with a gaming mouse?
Not to mention that most wireless mice have laser engines (inferior to optical) and are more expensive/cumbersome (heavier with battaries/have to constantly recharge/change battaries).
No matter how gaming companies try to advertise about their "near 0 response time" wireless gaming mouse, fact is they respond slower than their wired counterparts. Again, I will suggest some replacements if you are interested in a particular wireless mouse.
Wireless - Wired
Mamba - Deathadder
G7 - MX518
8.Which mouse should I get?/Which mouse is the best?
Obviously there isn't a 1 mouse fit all, so I cant tell you which mouse to get. But what I can tell you is what to look for/ignore/avoid, so you can make a purchase that is truly worth the money and not fall into gaming companies marketing strategies.
What to look for:
1.Shape (Personal Preference)
2.Size (Personal Preference)
3.Weight (Personal Preference)
4.Build Quality
5.RMA Support
6.Perfect Control Speed/Malfunction Speed
7.Sensor Position(usualy preffered to be centre)
8.Price (DUHHHHH)
What to ignore:
1.DPI/CPI
2.Professional Gamers "commenting" about a certain product (more like boot-licking, obviously they get paid)
3.Reviews made by uncredible sources (sponsored/affilated) (again they will praise the product to the skies)
4.Gold-plated USB connector (a gold plated usb connector and a normal 1 have the same speed/connectivity because its the internal components (same) that actually affects speed/connectivity)
What to avoid:
1.Laser sensor
2.Wireless
9.Where can I find more truthful review/information about gaming mice?
ESReality Mousescore 2007
Ramla777 youtube videos
OCN Mouse Sensor Reference and Performance Sheet
Forgive my spelling/grammar mistakes. Have fun and feel free to ask me any questions/comment
I know that there is a CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide already stickied in the forum but I decided to make my own mouse guide because I felt that there were simply a few things left unsaid/misunderstood.
Content
1.Mouse DPI/CPI
2.Windows Pointer Speed
3.Mouse Acceleration
4.How accurate is my mouse?
5.Perfect Control Speed/Malfunction Speed
6.Optical vs Laser
7.Wired vs Wireless
8.Which mouse should I get?/Which mouse is the best?
9.Where can I find more truthful review/information about gaming mice?
1.Mouse DPI/CPI
DPI/CPI refers to dots per inches or counts per inches. It refers to the sensitivity of your mouse. However a very common misunderstanding about it is that DPI/CPI is a benchmark for how accurate your mouse is.
This is wrong! DPI/CPI is just the distance your mouse cursor moves in relation to the distance your mouse moves in real life. So for example, a mouse with higher sensitivity moves 3 pixels/cm whereas a mouse with lower sensitivity moves 1 pixel/cm, BUT they both have the same accuracy. Many gaming companies take advantage of this misunderstanding and often boast about their high DPI/CPI mice when they are actually overpriced garbage. Some gaming companies even use interpolaration (using software to trick the sensor) to increase the DPI/CPI further even at the expense of the mouse's performance. DO NOT BELIEVE their marketing and fall for their traps. DPI/CPI HAS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH ACCURACY OF YOUR MOUSE. A good example is the microsoft intellimouse 3.0, a very popular choice among professional gamers, it only has 400 dpi but its a very good mouse nevertheless.
So how much DPI/CPI do you actually need?
Quoted From ESReality Mousescore 2007
Quote:
So unless your playing with an extremely high resolution (eg:1920x1080) and a high sensitivity, 1000 dpi should satisfy even high sens gamers.
Quoted by Skylit:
Quote:
2.Windows Pointer Speed
Another popular misunderstood topic.
In the CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide, it was claimed that windows pointer speed should be kept at 6/11 and mouse DPI at maximum and only change your sensitivity in game. This is not entirely true. In fact, there is actually hardly any difference that you probably wont notice it if you use 1800 dpi with 3/11 (0.25) windows pointer speed and 450 dpi with 6/11 pointer speed. In fact, many professional gamers with mice like the deathadder use settings like 1800 dpi, 3/11 pointer speed instead of 450 dpi , 6/11 pointer speed. If it really matters that much to you, you can use the MarkC Windows 7 Mouse fix to ensure you get a 1 to 1 mouse to pointer movement.
And here are the exact sensitivity values for each notch of the windows pointer speed.
1. 0.03125
2. 0.0625
3. 0.25
4. 0.5
5. 0.75
6. 1.
7. 1.5
8. 2.
9. 2.5
10. 3.
11. 3.5
3.Mouse Acceleration
Another highly controversial topic in my opinion. Some say that its impossible to get good with mouse acceleration because its inconsistent. Again this is not true, I think results speak for themselves. There have been professional players who played with mouse acceleration and won tournaments. In fact many professional quake players use mouse acceleration even till today. However with that said, most people would probably find it easier to play without mouse acceleration. I highly reccomend you trying out playing without mouse acceleration for a while (give yourself some time to get used to it), if you feel comfortable with it after a while, just carry on playing with mouse acceleration off, if not just change back.
How do I turn off mouse acceleration?
There are several mouse fixes such as the MarkC Windows 7 mouse fix (win 7 only) i mentioned earlier, Cheese mouse fix and CPL mouse fix.
Unfortuanately the mouse fix is unable to alter mouse acceleration in the mouse/sensor itself.
So how do I know if my mouse/sensor has acceleration? (Don't worry I will be covering that too)
4.How accurate is my mouse?
Obviously every gamer wants an accurate mouse to give him some advantage. But before i touch on this topic, I would like you to know and establish a difference between accuracy and precision. If you are unclear of the differences, please look at the picture below.
Unless you have a spoiled mouse, all mice are all equally accurate. BUT they all have different precision (think consistency not accuracy). So now you will probably be screaming at your computers "JUST TELL ME HOW GOOD IS MY MOUSE AND CUT THE HORSE****". But I had to make sure you know the clear difference between accuracy and precision so that will not be any misunderstandings.
5.Perfect Control Speed/Malfunction Speed
These technical terms basically measure how precise your mouse actually is. The higher the speeds the better.
Perfect control speed refers to the maximum speed at which your mouse tracks without any mouse acceleration.
Malfunction speed refers to the maximum speed at which your mouse tracks any movement. A good list of the perfect control/malfunction speeds of mice is the ESReality Mousescore 2007. One factor which might affect the perfect control speed/malfunction speed of the mouse is it's polling rate. Polling rate is the rate at which the mouse updates and sends information about its movements/positions. Most gaming mice allow you to adjust its polling rate in the drivers. But in case, you have a regular mouse or cant switch your polling rates with your drivers, there are a few programs which you can download to overclock your polling rate of the mouse manually. Whether your looking for information on how to overclock your mouse's polling rate or just get more detailed information about polling rates, the CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide got it pretty well covered.
Quoted from CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide:
Quote:
6.Optical vs Laser
Probably the most misunderstood topic in my opinion (you can see people making these mistakes even in mouse reviews!). Many people assume that laser technology is superior to optical just because its newer. When in actual fact optical sensors are superior because they are more reliable and precise as they have higher perfect control speeds and higher malfunction speeds. I am pretty sure some random guy will come and scream "NO~~~ LASER MICE CAN TRACK ON GLASS, OPTCIAL CANT, LASER MICE FTW". Sure, your laser mouse tracks well on your window pane but simply fails on a cloth mousepad like the QCK. Anybody who owned a laser mouse would probably have noticed they are extremely particular about the surfaces they are on unlike optical. They tend to jitter alot on certain mousepads and just track randomly.
****, What should I do if I am using a laser mouse?!
Switch to an optical mouse and you will see an improvement. I will list some laser mice and suggest some optical replacements that are of similar shape(even cheaper as well).
Laser - Optical
Mamba/Habu - Deathadder/Microsoft IE3.0
G500/G5/Imperator - MX518
Xai - Microsoft IMO 1.1
Still, many people believe that laser mice are just as good as optical mice. So I decided to backup my claims with some statistics quoted from ESReality Mousescore 2007.
Quoted From ESReality Mousescore 2007:
Quote:
And an opinion quoted from Fatal1ty's website by himself:
Quote:
This is believeable because he says that even though the mice that were branded after him were using laser sensors.
And here's another benchmark done on the steelseries i2 mousepad (glass not cloth), so we would expect the laser mice to have the upper hand over optical right?
A mouse with good tracking should have a nice diagonal line with the pixels closely knit together until it reaches its perfect control speed. A good example is the deathadder. If you look closely, you can see the lines of the X8,G9x and mamba are not as smooth, the gaps between the pixels are also larger. This indicates that it is less consistent in its tracking.
Probably one of the more popular laser mice in the market at the moment - the Steelseries Xai which uses the Avago ADNS S9500 sensor. It has mouse acceleration present in the sensor itself EVEN at very low speeds which cannot be fixed from mouse fix (amount of acceleration varies between different mousepads). It has both positive and negative mouse acceleration as you can see from the graph.
Other popular mice that uses the same sensor and might be suffering from the same issue is the G500/G9x/G700
Quoted by Derp:
Quote:
If you really insist on using a laser mouse, here are a few tips to get the best tracking out of it.
1.Get a hard mousepad (preferably it should be plain with lesser graphics)
2.Check that your mouse does not jitter on the mousepad (don't assume that all hard mousepads would do the job)
3.Keep sensor and mousepad away from dust (clean if you have to)
7.Wired vs Wireless
With wireless gaming mice like the mamba and g500 becoming more popular, I feel that this is a topic I should include too.
Long story short, get a wired mouse.
Afterall one of the main reasons why you spend so much of a gaming mouse is because its more responsive. So why buy a wireless gaming mouse to negate all the advantage you can get with a gaming mouse?
Not to mention that most wireless mice have laser engines (inferior to optical) and are more expensive/cumbersome (heavier with battaries/have to constantly recharge/change battaries).
No matter how gaming companies try to advertise about their "near 0 response time" wireless gaming mouse, fact is they respond slower than their wired counterparts. Again, I will suggest some replacements if you are interested in a particular wireless mouse.
Wireless - Wired
Mamba - Deathadder
G7 - MX518
8.Which mouse should I get?/Which mouse is the best?
Obviously there isn't a 1 mouse fit all, so I cant tell you which mouse to get. But what I can tell you is what to look for/ignore/avoid, so you can make a purchase that is truly worth the money and not fall into gaming companies marketing strategies.
What to look for:
1.Shape (Personal Preference)
2.Size (Personal Preference)
3.Weight (Personal Preference)
4.Build Quality
5.RMA Support
6.Perfect Control Speed/Malfunction Speed
7.Sensor Position(usualy preffered to be centre)
8.Price (DUHHHHH)
What to ignore:
1.DPI/CPI
2.Professional Gamers "commenting" about a certain product (more like boot-licking, obviously they get paid)
3.Reviews made by uncredible sources (sponsored/affilated) (again they will praise the product to the skies)
4.Gold-plated USB connector (a gold plated usb connector and a normal 1 have the same speed/connectivity because its the internal components (same) that actually affects speed/connectivity)
What to avoid:
1.Laser sensor
2.Wireless
9.Where can I find more truthful review/information about gaming mice?
ESReality Mousescore 2007
Ramla777 youtube videos
OCN Mouse Sensor Reference and Performance Sheet
Forgive my spelling/grammar mistakes. Have fun and feel free to ask me any questions/comment