poor mouse control in most first person shooters and some rts, is it mouse or system?

[simsalabim24]

Hello,

I seem to have a problem with precise mouse control in most of the new first person shoorters for instance Call of Duty 2 the most recent example, Starship troopers, Quake 4, Real time strategy D&D Dragonshard.

System is a AMD, WinXp with SP2 Home Built comp, built by me.

CPU: is a AMD A64 2800 Zalman cpu cooler
Mem: 2x184 512meg Corsair Value Select DDR Dims 400mhz
MB: is a chaintech VNF3-250
Sound: Using built-in Sound on MB, I have a Sound Blaster Card, Mlive card should I use this instead of the built-in sound? I thought I heard someone say that SB cards cause freezing, so I pulled it. Seems like now though the processor is having to handle the sound in addition to graphics because in the games the sound option is cpu based sound.
HDD 7200rpm 20 gig.
Video Card Geforce 6800 Leadtek Winfast A400 TDH w/ 128megs vram stock cooling.
Case: ATX Aluminum Lian Li style case 3 fans 1 on the side 1 in the front and back.
Monitor: Dell LCD 25ms response time I think

Most processes are shutdown while I run games except for essential opporations.
Using Directx 9.0c
Latest Nvidia Driver

Game settings are usually high because I have the recommended hardware and sometimes more. However they are not the highest.

Mouse: is a Logitech PS1 optical mouse.

Anyway I just get not precision in games basically the mouse control kinda floats around a bit, makes it real hard to not get killed in games.

Now I have thought that my system might be too weak for the higher settings, so I tried changing graphics for best performance, but alas no luck.

Anyhelp in this would be greatly appreciated and sorry if this is the wrong place for this.

 

[ribbon13]

back to regular sound card and disable onboard sound in BIOS.

your hardware must be ancient at 20GB, perhaps you meant 200GB?

anyway, maybe your mouse just sucks. is it a plain jane logitech optical? have you tried other mice? What I buy for friends/family

 

[simsalabim24]

My hard drive is old, yes. I make due with it, I just have never needed more then 20 gigs. Im not a music person per se, so I dont pack music on it and I only am ever playing one game. Keep the odd app on there, but the ones I need never take up much room.

Yeah in the past I tried buying a logitech optical mouse that supposedly had more resolution then my current mouse, alot more resolution and same problem.

 

[ribbon13]

I'd seriously upgrade that HDD if I were you. Even if you don't need the space, the access times and definately the sustained transfer rates will give you a much needed performance boost. Especially if your lags happen to be caused by your page file being accessed and your drive being slow. I'd recommend a Seagate 7200.7 series. The 7200.8 and 7200.9 series performance hasn't increased that much, and they run slightly louder, warmer, and cost more. And you'll be able to keep more than one game installed.

$60 - 80GB 7200.8

 

[AMCRambler]

Do you notice any difference if you use the ps2 port or the usb port? I would think usb would be quicker. I had trouble running Call of Duty 2 at medium to low settings on my rig that will run BF2 just fine at fairly high settings which kind of surprised me. But your setup is way beefier. I think even with that 20gb ATA drive you'd still be able to run the game very nicely.

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I'd seriously upgrade that HDD if I were you. Even if you don't need the space, the access times and definately the sustained transfer rates will give you a much needed performance boost. Especially if your lags happen to be caused by your page file being accessed and your drive being slow. I'd recommend a Seagate 7200.7 series. The 7200.8 and 7200.9 series performance hasn't increased that much, and they run slightly louder, warmer, and cost more. And you'll be able to keep more than one game installed.

$60 - 80GB 7200.8

Thanks for the suggestions. However I guess I failed to mention that the hdd I have is 7200rpm so how is this newer drive going to help if its the same rpm does it have a greatly imrpoved data cable or something? Thanks.

*Confused*

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Do you notice any difference if you use the ps2 port or the usb port? I would think usb would be quicker. I had trouble running Call of Duty 2 at medium to low settings on my rig that will run BF2 just fine at fairly high settings which kind of surprised me. But your setup is way beefier. I think even with that 20gb ATA drive you'd still be able to run the game very nicely.

Never thought to use the mouse usb, ill give that a try thanks.

 

[mdchesne]

has anyone noticed he's running an LCD? that's probally a main reason. the ghosting on a 25ms screen would be horrendous. Some other post in video was started last week containign something like "I'm playing at 50fps but it feels like 12!" Basically, that guy was playing with an lcd screen too and his game repsonse was causing the same kind of problem. try gaming with a basic VGA crt and post the results

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: mdchesne
has anyone noticed he's running an LCD? that's probally a main reason. the ghosting on a 25ms screen would be horrendous. Some other post in video was started last week containign something like "I'm playing at 50fps but it feels like 12!" Basically, that guy was playing with an lcd screen too and his game repsonse was causing the same kind of problem. try gaming with a basic VGA crt and post the results

Hmm I never noticed the ghosting. I guess Im just use to it or something. So you think the monitor is responsible for making the mouse kinda float around a bit?

Wish I had a CRT to try out with the comp., maybe I can get a friend to loan me theres.

Would a faster ms response time lcd work to? I really like LCDs they are so much easier on my eyes. CRTs tend to give me a headache after only a little while of use.

 

[mdchesne]

faster response (<ms) would reduce any ghosting or screen lag. but again, I'm not sure it is the crt. If you have a crt lying around that you could slap on, you could see if your mouse movement increases. Generally, it sounds like you move your mouse to target a kraut, and the mouse kinda "floats" over there at less speed than your actual mouse movement. try setting COD's mouse sensitivity higher for starters. or the actual system's mouse movement speed settings. If that doesn't help, 60% is't gonna be the video or monitor. since you have a high end card, that narrows it down to monitor. 40% something else, or a combination of something else. try DLing nvidia's newest drivers or the latest COD2 patch (if there is one out already)

 

[Reapsy01]

Aren't all those games except the last one pretty hard on the system? Try setting all the details to low and lower the resolutiion and see if you still have the problem.

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: simsalabim24

Now I have thought that my system might be too weak for the higher settings, so I tried changing graphics for best performance, but alas no luck.q]

 

[ribbon13]

is your system infested with malware? when is the last time you ran Spybot

 

[Reapsy01]

It can't hurt to uninstall your vga drivers, reboot to safe mode run driver cleaner, run cab cleaner reboot and install them again.

 

[imported_rod]

25ms response time isn't great, but I wouldn't think it would be causing big problems.

Also, an 80GB HDD would run faster than a 20GB, even at the same RPMs, for two reasons.

1. When HDDs near full, the fragmentation of the file system starts to become a noticable negative factor. This can be fixed with regular de-fragging though.
2. The further the tracks are from the center of the platter, the faster you can get data off them. Since an 80GB hdd has more track, more of them will be further from the centre, so more off the tracks will be faster.

RoD

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: rod
25ms response time isn't great, but I wouldn't think it would be causing big problems.

Also, an 80GB HDD would run faster than a 20GB, even at the same RPMs, for two reasons.

1. When HDDs near full, the fragmentation of the file system starts to become a noticable negative factor. This can be fixed with regular de-fragging though.
2. The further the tracks are from the center of the platter, the faster you can get data off them. Since an 80GB hdd has more track, more of them will be further from the centre, so more off the tracks will be faster.

RoD

Okay...but will this make a big enough difference or we only talking slight difference. Plus I always have at least 5gigs free on the drive if not more.

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
is your system infested with malware? when is the last time you ran Spybot

No malware.

 

[simsalabim24]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Do you notice any difference if you use the ps2 port or the usb port? I would think usb would be quicker. I had trouble running Call of Duty 2 at medium to low settings on my rig that will run BF2 just fine at fairly high settings which kind of surprised me. But your setup is way beefier. I think even with that 20gb ATA drive you'd still be able to run the game very nicely.

No noticeable difference using the USB port.

Thanks though.

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: simsalabim24

Originally posted by: rod
25ms response time isn't great, but I wouldn't think it would be causing big problems.

Also, an 80GB HDD would run faster than a 20GB, even at the same RPMs, for two reasons.

1. When HDDs near full, the fragmentation of the file system starts to become a noticable negative factor. This can be fixed with regular de-fragging though.
2. The further the tracks are from the center of the platter, the faster you can get data off them. Since an 80GB hdd has more track, more of them will be further from the centre, so more off the tracks will be faster.

RoD

Okay...but will this make a big enough difference or we only talking slight difference. Plus I always have at least 5gigs free on the drive if not more.

Sorry, I meant to mention that this would only cause a small drop in performance. Less than 5%, except in extreme cases. If you have 25% free, then I don't think this would be the problem.

RoD

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: simsalabim24

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I'd seriously upgrade that HDD if I were you. Even if you don't need the space, the access times and definately the sustained transfer rates will give you a much needed performance boost. Especially if your lags happen to be caused by your page file being accessed and your drive being slow. I'd recommend a Seagate 7200.7 series. The 7200.8 and 7200.9 series performance hasn't increased that much, and they run slightly louder, warmer, and cost more. And you'll be able to keep more than one game installed.

$60 - 80GB 7200.8

Thanks for the suggestions. However I guess I failed to mention that the hdd I have is 7200rpm so how is this newer drive going to help if its the same rpm does it have a greatly imrpoved data cable or something? Thanks.

*Confused*

It's not only the rotational speed which is key factor in HDD performance. The aerial density of the disc platter, i.e. how densely data is packed is the a major direct performance factor. Say if a high density disc is spinning at 7200 rpm, and a low density disc same at 7200 rpm; The higher density disc would have much higer performance because more data can be accessed in 1 rotation because of the much higehr density.

You will get at least 2-3x performance improvement by getting a new HDD of at least 200GB range

Also newer HDD have better interface optimization; acoustic management and power management.

 

[Reapsy01]

I got an old maxtor 80 gig drive from when 80 gigs was the biggest you could get, it is kindof slow but it operates at half the temperature of my newer maxtor 80gig drive 18 C vs 35 C and has been going for years.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Do you notice any difference if you use the ps2 port or the usb port? I would think usb would be quicker. I had trouble running Call of Duty 2 at medium to low settings on my rig that will run BF2 just fine at fairly high settings which kind of surprised me. But your setup is way beefier. I think even with that 20gb ATA drive you'd still be able to run the game very nicely.

Wrong, it's vice(sp?) versa. The PS/2 port is ancient and has been with computer hardware for over a decade, it has the lowest lantecy wtih virtually no overhead, therefore making it faster than USB. There is too much emulation with USB, causing it to stutter in certain situtations like if the USB bus is being paged. When CPU utilization is maxed out by an application, if your using USB, you may or may not notice it stutter a bit and may jump around the screen, with PS/2, because of how old it is, it will and SHOULD run smoothly despite all CPU resources being taken because of how little overhead there is with PS/2.
PS2>USB. Only use USB if you HAVE TO.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: rod
25ms response time isn't great, but I wouldn't think it would be causing big problems.

Also, an 80GB HDD would run faster than a 20GB, even at the same RPMs, for two reasons.

1. When HDDs near full, the fragmentation of the file system starts to become a noticable negative factor. This can be fixed with regular de-fragging though.
2. The further the tracks are from the center of the platter, the faster you can get data off them. Since an 80GB hdd has more track, more of them will be further from the centre, so more off the tracks will be faster.

RoD

While that is true, the HDD will only be a factor if the OP doesn't have sufficient ram due to the HDD being paged. I think the first thing the OP needs to do is add more ram, these days, with highest settings, it requires so much ram that even though your video card may be up to par, it still needs lots of ram to store the textures to be sent to the video card. When I had 512MB of ram while running farcry, the system would stutter every so often, upgraded to 1GB of ram and it all went away.

 

[simsalabim24]

Well I have a gig of name brand ram that has low latency and all zat shaz.

I dunno anymore Im beginning to think gaming on the pc is a joke you spend 2-3x what you would spend on a console and for what to have a game that barely performs. It seems like the value is sooo low for an upgrade in the pc world, the bang for buck factor is just not there. Plus the console games seem to have much, much better graphics, more texture, smoother looking, etc. Talking Xbox. You dont have to keep upgrading hardware, if anything they make the games look and run better with age on the consoles. I guess the only thing I would miss is the use of a mouse in first person shooters.

 

[Reapsy01]

I think your situation is unfortunate, and it doesn't sound like it is easy to solve. However there is a solution I'm sure. I would be tempted to start the build again, take it all apart put it back together format your drive (it wouldn't hurt to buy a faster one but I don't think that is the cause of your problem) install windows and go from there. If you still have problems then you may have a problem with your hardware, chek your memory with memtest86 check your 3dmark scores if they are low for your hardware then RMA your graphics card.
Anyway good luck.