Mouse settings - DPI and Windows pointer speed

[simonizor]

I don't think your line test is an accurate way to do this. Of course there is going to be more "stairstepping" at a higher DPI; the mouse is sensing more of your movements when it is on a higher DPI than a lower one. The 400 DPI line looks the smoothest because the mouse isn't really sensing the fine movements of your hand, making it much easier to draw a straight line. With the higher settings, it senses the fine movements in your hand, making it much harder to draw a straight line and producing the "stairstepping" effect that you see.

 

[Throckmorton]

I don't think your line test is an accurate way to do this. Of course there is going to be more "stairstepping" at a higher DPI; the mouse is sensing more of your movements when it is on a higher DPI than a lower one. The 400 DPI line looks the smoothest because the mouse isn't really sensing the fine movements of your hand, making it much easier to draw a straight line. With the higher settings, it senses the fine movements in your hand, making it much harder to draw a straight line and producing the "stairstepping" effect that you see.

I don't think the stairsteps are the movements of my hand though. When I draw the line, it feels drastically different from what my hand feels, like the cursor is jumping.

Also, I've gotten much worse stairstepping in the past, when my sensor/laser was dirty. I had noticed jumpiness so bad that I was about to buy a new mouse. So I came up with this test to try to see what the mouse was really doing. After cleaning with a Q tip and alcohol, the lines were smoother.

It would be cool to rig up some contraption that restricts the mouse movement to an exactly straight line, then draw the lines. Or maybe put the mouse pad on a lazy susan and spin it.

 

[TheUnk]

Throck, if you haven't already, uncheck the "Use OS native driver for speed and acceleration" in your SetPoint software.

In my case having this option checked gave me really bad stairstepping. With it turned off- drawing in mspaint became very fluid.

 

[ixelion]

Why is "smoothness" so important to you? As a gamer, I need my mouse movements to be predictable, if I move my mouse a certain amount I expect my cursor to move an equivalent amount on screen. Introducing any interpolation completely destroys the 1:1 movement between your hand and the onscreen cursor. Since I do a lot of long distance shooting in BC2 I have my rat 7 setup with 1600, 1200 and 800 dpi using the lowest when zoomed in and switching to 1200 in CQC, I rarely use 1600.

I am using a Razer Exactmat on the "speed" side, which provides little resistance to you hand movements, which is probably why I use 800 dpi a lot. I would imagine on a cloth type mouse pad higher dpi may be necessary.

 

[TheUnk]

Why is "smoothness" so important to you?

If you are tracking someone at a distance why wouldn't you want it smooth? If your cursor is stairstepping all over it's gonna be a hard head shot.

 

[Throckmorton]

Why is "smoothness" so important to you? As a gamer, I need my mouse movements to be predictable, if I move my mouse a certain amount I expect my cursor to move an equivalent amount on screen. Introducing any interpolation completely destroys the 1:1 movement between your hand and the onscreen cursor. Since I do a lot of long distance shooting in BC2 I have my rat 7 setup with 1600, 1200 and 800 dpi using the lowest when zoomed in and switching to 1200 in CQC, I rarely use 1600.

I am using a Razer Exactmat on the "speed" side, which provides little resistance to you hand movements, which is probably why I use 800 dpi a lot. I would imagine on a cloth type mouse pad higher dpi may be necessary.

But the stairstepping isn't the motion the mouse is making, unless you're a robot. It's an error

 

[Throckmorton]

Throck, if you haven't already, uncheck the "Use OS native driver for speed and acceleration" in your SetPoint software.

In my case having this option checked gave me really bad stairstepping. With it turned off- drawing in mspaint became very fluid.

I don't run the Setpoint software. I only used it to set my DPI presets.

With the slider on notch 6 and enhance precision turned off, shouldn't the OS just be accepting the input pixel by pixel?

 

[TheUnk]

I don't run the Setpoint software. I only used it to set my DPI presets.

I would still try it...

 

[tweakboy]

Look DPI dots per inch per second

The higher the DPI the less you have to move the mouse to cover lots of real estate.

Simple.