bluetooth mouse & gaming

[nfamous]

I want a bluetooth mouse for my laptop, so that I don't have a usb reciever sticking out of it all the time. I do play doom 3, hl2, etc on my lappy. I"m used to just a run of the mill optical - how would a bluetooth mouse compare?

 

[erwos]

I've used two different brands of Bluetooth mice:
1. Logitech MX900
2. Microsoft Bluetooth Desktop (keyboard+mouse)

The MX900 is pretty reasonable for gaming. I personally think it's way too heavy (much heavier than the MX1000, which seems positively light in comparison), and it eats batteries pretty quick, but response time is, on the whole, quite good. My own, totally subjective feeling is that the RF-variant MX1000 (there's also an MX1000 for Bluetooth now, apparently) is slightly more responsive. Keep in mind that I primarily use Linux, so any tricks used by the Windows drivers are not going to be as readily noticeable to me. Interestingly, the MX900+cradle can be used as either a HID (ie, normal USB input device) or HCI (ie, Bluetooth device), depending on whether you install the Bluetooth drivers (or use hid2hci in Linux). HID mode, for whatever reason, seems a little better than HCI mode - maybe Bluetooth has more overhead?

The Microsoft BT mouse (I have the newest variant - bought it a couple weeks ago) has awful response time issues. It doesn't chomp the battery, and it's not as heavy as the MX900 (I think), but you're not going to seriously game on that thing, ever. Thankfully, it wasn't bought for gaming, so I'm still gold.

End result: I'd go with a corded mouse for gaming on a laptop. I'm personally still deciding on whether I want to bequeath the MX900 to my wife (who doesn't game at all), and just buy an MX1000 (possibly G7?) and bluetooth dongle instead. The MX900 has served me well for a long time, but it's hard to justify the damage it does to my wrist these days.

-Erwos

 

[pulsedrive]

Really?!? I own the MS combo and have never had any problems with response time, that is actually why I bought it because BT has better response times than some of the double digit hrtz wireless ones. I was very pleased with my response time with taht mouse. Not as pleased as I am with my MX1000, but then again they aren't even in the same ballpark.

 

[erwos]

*shrugs* That mouse definitely has some lag - my totally inaccurate estimate would be 25-50ms. Maybe I just notice it more, you notice it less, we use it for different things, we use different receivers, or it has something to do with distance (although I'm not _that_ far away) or drivers. The MX900 kills it completely in my book, though. I don't want to come off as some kind of l33t gamer (I'm not), but I think it's pretty noticeable. In any event, I would not recommend it because of that and the awful mushy scroll wheel, which is positively terrible for gaming due to the lack of feedback.

There are a few interesting Bluetooth notebook mice on the market that come with USB chargers to allow you to use your BT mouse in pseudo-wired mode (connection is still through BT, you just get power from the USB). I was hoping that Logitech would come out with a laser variant of those, but it seems they've not gone so wild this time around. Maybe next year.

For the record, I personally use a trashy old Belkin corded optical notebook mouse for my laptop, and I find that it works reasonably well.

-Erwos