Mouse enthusiasts?

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If I take my dpi and double it while decreasing my ingame sensitivity by half will it act any differently? I'm thinking going from 900 to 1800 dpi on the mouse & from 1000 to 500 sensitivity on the mouse should make the precision a little bit better while maintaining the muscle memory feel to it.

For some reason I can't get my mouse movement to feel equal from my center to left back to center to right. Something is a-miss :hmm:

 

[Cerb]

Depending on mouse, yes, it should.

Have you disabled acceleration? If not, you could be moving at different speeds going left or right, expecting the same physical distance to actually be the same distance in pixels/counts, when it won't be.

 

[DigDog]

consider that most quake pros play on 400dpi; dpi is mostly a marketing gimmick, there is practically no difference between 400 and 800 in term of physical sensitivity.

especially if you play low sens. if you play high sens .. well, stop and learn to play low.

in answer to your post : same thing.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

consider that most quake pros play on 400dpi; dpi is mostly a marketing gimmick, there is practically no difference between 400 and 800 in term of physical sensitivity.

especially if you play low sens. if you play high sens .. well, stop and learn to play low.

in answer to your post : same thing.

Wait till you have to micro/macro on a generic dell keyboard

 

[Ben90]

consider that most quake pros play on 400dpi; dpi is mostly a marketing gimmick, there is practically no difference between 400 and 800 in term of physical sensitivity.

especially if you play low sens. if you play high sens .. well, stop and learn to play low.

in answer to your post : same thing.

Most Quake pros use mouse acceleration...

 

[Anteaus]

DPI does matter. It doesn't have as much of an impact at lower resolutions but with high resolutions it becomes more important.

DPI at it's basic level is how precise it's tracking is over an inch of mouse movement. DPI performance at a given resolution is important, because if you if you take a 400X400 pixel screen, a 400 dpi mouse will cross that screen with one inch of movement with NO software acceleration at any given time.

Now, lets consider a 1920X1920 pixel wide screen. That same mouse would require almost 5 inches of mouse movement to cross the screen, which would put you well off the mouse pad. The answer to this is software acceleration, which basically tells Windows that for every 1 DPI the mouse registers, move X more. By doing this, they can make a 400 dpi mouse cover 1920 pixels in say 2 inches by moving the curser 2.4 pixels for every 1 DPI. This works, but you lose sensitivity if your making small movements. You can imagine that it would be a pain to aim a gun in game if everytime you moved the mouse even a little the crosshairs would jump farther than you wanted. This is what happens with a low dpi mouse on a high resolution/high mouse accelerated setup.

Now lets say your mouse has 2000 DPI. Suddenly you can cross a a 1920X1200 screen with about 1 inch movement. "But the curser moves TOO fast when I use that setting!" someone screams. True, but you need to turn down software mouse acceleration to compensate, but this is where the good stuff happens. Remember, the less acceleration you apply to the mouse in software, the more precision you gain at the mouse itself. Suddenly your mouse can track the smallest movements of the hand even at much higher resolutions.

There is a threshold where DPI is too high for a given resolution, but that is very easy enough to figure out. 4000 DPI would be silly for a 1080P display, however once the resolution starts climbing again it becomes more important.

That being said, really high DPI can still be used to give advantages in games where it is nice to have ridiculous tracking speeds, such as a tank turret that takes way to long to turn, but these types of advantages are few and far between.

Bottom line, it isn't a gimmic. It's not a magical number where more is automatically better. It's a tool that will help you optimize your controls. If you buy a fancy mouse and just max the DPI expecting better gameplay you will be dissappointed. However, if you take the time to find your optimal DPI given your particular setup, you would be amazed at the level on control you can have.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

snip

Nice work. Kudos

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Thank you everyone for the replies.

I'm still working it out. My mouse can adjust in .25 increments. And no I don't have acceleration on.

 

[Cerb]

And no I don't have acceleration on.

Have you verified that you have acceleration off? In Vista and 7, it's not something you turn on, but something that must be overridden to turn off.

There's always a chance, of course, that the TwinEye is not for you.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Have you verified that you have acceleration off? In Vista and 7, it's not something you turn on, but something that must be overridden to turn off.

There's always a chance, of course, that the TwinEye is not for you.

:hmm: I never heard of that :hmm: I do have it unchecked (win7) and my mouse is a R.A.T. 7 btw

whats the twin eye? hope it's nothing like the brown eye 😉

 

[Cerb]

:hmm: I never heard of that :hmm: I do have it unchecked (win7) and my mouse is a R.A.T. 7 btw

http://donewmouseaccel.blogspot.com/2010/03/markc-windows-7-mouse-acceleration-fix.html

Read all about it. The included mouse recorder program can be used to help see if the Cyborg's applet is doing a sufficiently good job. Logitech's 'plain' Setpoint does not, IME.

whats the twin eye? hope it's nothing like the brown eye 😉

A sensor by Philips, used in some mice. It offers very high precision tracking, but is far from perfect in the high-DPI models, and hates cloth pads. The 5700 DPI one acts a lot like the Avago 9500 (G500, G700, G9x), though the latter likes cloth better (both are jumpy and have too-high lift-off at higher DPIs, can track weirdly at very low DPI, and the degrees of both issues vary by sample, so I speculate that much greater than 4000 DPI is either too cutting edge, or at the limits of lens and sensor manufacturing precision).

Nothing is perfect (now, if Logitech would just resurrect the MX3x0 shape, and give it a ~2000 DPI optical sensor w/o prediction, I could change my mind on that 🙂 Yes, I'm going to try the G100).

 

[bononos]

Theres several mouse sensitivity calculators available if you google and the some links have discussions about the topic.

........
DPI at it's basic level is how precise it's tracking is over an inch of mouse movement. DPI performance at a given resolution is important, because if you if you take a 400X400 pixel screen, a 400 dpi mouse will cross that screen with one inch of movement with NO software acceleration at any given time.

Now, lets consider a 1920X1920 pixel wide screen. That same mouse would require almost 5 inches of mouse movement to cross the screen, which would put you well off the mouse pad. The answer to this is software acceleration, which basically tells Windows that for every 1 DPI the mouse registers, move X more. By doing this, they can make a 400 dpi mouse cover 1920 pixels in say 2 inches by moving the curser 2.4 pixels for every 1 DPI. This works, but you lose sensitivity if your making small movements. You can imagine that it would be a pain to aim a gun in game if everytime you moved the mouse even a little the crosshairs would jump farther than you wanted. This is what happens with a low dpi mouse on a high resolution/high mouse accelerated setup.

Now lets say your mouse has 2000 DPI. Suddenly you can cross a a 1920X1200 screen with about 1 inch movement. "But the curser moves TOO fast when I use that setting!" someone screams. True, but you need to turn down software mouse acceleration to compensate, but this is where the good stuff happens. Remember, the less acceleration you apply to the mouse in software, the more precision you gain at the mouse itself. Suddenly your mouse can track the smallest movements of the hand even at much higher resolutions.
.........

I think what you're referring to as mouse acceleration is actually mouse sensitivity (pointer speed setting in windows control panel menu). A higher more sensitive setting would mean that the mouse would skip pixels (cursor going further on-screen)

Mouse acceleration is different in that the change in speed of the mouse movement would also result in corresponding changes in how far the cursor moves whereas mouse sensitivity doesn't care how fast your mouse moves - eg 1" of mouse movement always corresponds to 400pixels whether you're moving fast or slow with acceleration turned off. The pointer precision toggle setting in windows sets acceleration on/off in 2d desktop but I'm not sure if the setting carries over in games.

So the unequal left/right mouse movement of the OP is caused by acceleration rather than the sensitivity setting.

 

[Cerb]

I think what you're referring to as mouse acceleration is actually mouse sensitivity (pointer speed setting in windows control panel menu). A higher more sensitive setting would mean that the mouse would skip pixels (cursor going further on-screen)

I think he was referring to DigDog's first post, which states the falsehood, "dpi is mostly a marketing gimmick, there is practically no difference between 400 and 800 in term of physical sensitivity," rather than anything about the OP's post.

I don't like having to choose between very long movements just to get across my desktop, or unusable cursor precision (either by high sensitivity setting, acceleration, or both). If you like low sensitivity, that's fine. If you like cursor acceleration, that's fine. You're best off with what feels intuitively correct, and that does not cause strain.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

http://donewmouseaccel.blogspot.com/2010/03/markc-windows-7-mouse-acceleration-fix.html

Read all about it. The included mouse recorder program can be used to help see if the Cyborg's applet is doing a sufficiently good job. Logitech's 'plain' Setpoint does not, IME.

A sensor by Philips, used in some mice. It offers very high precision tracking, but is far from perfect in the high-DPI models, and hates cloth pads. The 5700 DPI one acts a lot like the Avago 9500 (G500, G700, G9x), though the latter likes cloth better (both are jumpy and have too-high lift-off at higher DPIs, can track weirdly at very low DPI, and the degrees of both issues vary by sample, so I speculate that much greater than 4000 DPI is either too cutting edge, or at the limits of lens and sensor manufacturing precision).

Nothing is perfect (now, if Logitech would just resurrect the MX3x0 shape, and give it a ~2000 DPI optical sensor w/o prediction, I could change my mind on that 🙂 Yes, I'm going to try the G100).

Great advice, man! Thanks! The reg files do seem to work :thumbsup:

 

[bononos]

I think he was referring to DigDog's first post, which states the falsehood, "dpi is mostly a marketing gimmick, there is practically no difference between 400 and 800 in term of physical sensitivity," rather than anything about the OP's post.

I don't like having to choose between very long movements just to get across my desktop, or unusable cursor precision (either by high sensitivity setting, acceleration, or both). If you like low sensitivity, that's fine. If you like cursor acceleration, that's fine. You're best off with what feels intuitively correct, and that does not cause strain.

Yeah I know but he was also mixing up sensitivity and acceleration which mean diff things. Its just confusing to the OP who is having problem atm and probably reading other stuff.

 

[Cerb]

Great advice, man! Thanks! The reg files do seem to work :thumbsup:

Awesome. I've noticed quite a few people I know, usually not gamers, oddly enough, unable to figure out WTF is wrong, and it kept turning out to be acceleration, disabling of which used to be just a few mouse clicks away. Most of what 7 brought was improvements, but they did drag a few rotten apples over from Vista.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Oh yeah. Try playing CSS with a pos dell mouse....AWP Head shots all-day

 

[Cerb]

Oh yeah. Try playing CSS with a pos dell mouse....AWP Head shots all-day

Most plain Dell mice I've used have been far from POSes, honestly. They used to all be rebranded cheap Logitechs. Every few years, you may need to re-glue the feet. When it won't track fast movement on a hard smooth surface or cloth pad, and the shape was designed to look good more than to be ergonomic, that's when it's a POS (current Gateway mice, FI).

 

[McWatt]

Yeah I know but he was also mixing up sensitivity and acceleration which mean diff things. Its just confusing to the OP who is having problem atm and probably reading other stuff.

Ha, this is one of my pet peeves. I doubt that a third of the people complaining about "mouse acceleration" on the internet actually know what it means. That imprecise language makes communication about the problem doubly difficult, often resulting in "how do I turn off mouse acceleration" threads going in totally unhelpful directions.

 

[DigDog]

hmmm...
quakelive.com

i'll see you guys there.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Yeah I know but he was also mixing up sensitivity and acceleration which mean diff things. Its just confusing to the OP who is having problem atm and probably reading other stuff.

Wait, you are saying I'm mixing these two different things up? If yes, lets see.

Sensitivity is the setting which your mouse is set at through the OS which can also be indirectly manipulated via the DPI setting.

Acceleration is where your mouse doesn't consistently move the same distance in relation to your hand movement.

No? if not I am 😕

 

[Cerb]

DPI/CPI is the setting for what the mouse sensor reads out. Sometimes it's direct, other times interpolated by software (FI, the G400 only has 800, 1800, and 3600 for native settings, IIRC--any others are interpolated from the next highest one). But, if it is interpolated in software, that gets done before anything else can mess with it.

Windows or game sensitivity, usually mimicked by your mouse maker's software on the Windows side, adjusts the counts from the mouse after they have been read, and is usually by a constant factor (if not, you're using a horribly broken console port 🙂).

Acceleration is when the counts/distance increase as you move the mouse faster. Negative acceleration is typically a misnomer, but it reflects what we feel is happening better than saying that the mouse can't process images fast enough, and loses counts.