What's the best way to configure a mouse for gaming?

kissenger

kissenger

kissenger

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I've been playing PC games for a while now (mostly CSS, COD4), but I recently decided to step my game up by investing in some gamer-oriented peripherals.

I dumped my old microsoft optical and bought a Razer Salmosa mouse, Razer Goliathus mat, and Razer/MS Reclusa gaming keyboard.

So far, all the gear 'feels' quality, but I'm sure I'm not making the most out of it. The biggest thing is the mouse. I have no idea how it should be set up for optimum gaming performance. Obviously, to a certain degree it's a case of 'whatever feels best', but I'd be interested to hear how all of you have your own mice set up.

Right now, mines at 800dpi (manual), and I have the slider set at 6 in the Razer software that came with the mouse. Is this best? Does the fact that the mat I bought is a 'speed' version matter at all?
 
LOL! Yeah, I've been using that MS mouse for years and although it looks a bit ugly it really is excellent for gaming. Very accurate and smooth.

I play most games at 1900x1080 (or 1200), if that makes a difference?

Why would somebody want to go as low as 400? I guess it's because it increases the amount of work done by your arm in moving the mouse, which allows you to be more accurate?

In which case, it seems a bit strange that mouse manufacturers advertise their products on the basis of HIGHER dpi settings.
 
This is probably a silly question, but what do you mean by '6/11' - are you talking about the mouse settings in control panel? I've set the slider in control panel to 6, but there's only 10 notches, not 11, so maybe you're talking about something else.

As far as polling goes, I have a manual switch on the bottom of my mouse. It has notches for 125Hz, 500Hz and 1000Hz - should I set it to 1000 (should I use that all the time, or just when gaming?
 
Skyfall said:
The Salmosa really isn't much of a gaming mouse really.

I've been using a habu for a good while now and the on the fly DPI adjustment can be very useful, plus the two extra buttons add some more flexibility.
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What are you basing that on? I'm no expert, but the Salmosa is the best mouse I've ever used for gaming, and it has good reviews at various sites online.

It's very accurate, manually customisable on the fly (polling switch, DPI switch), nice and light, etc, etc.
 
melipone1 said:
Kissenger 6/11 is the mouse pointer setting in the windows control panel. You sure you're not looking at your mouse software you installed? There are 11 notches in windows. 6 is the default. If you have an option for 1000 polling rate then use that imo. I just leave mine at that all the time, but I don't know if it shortens the life of your mouse.
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I miscounted, you're right :D

I've set my mouse to 1000Hz, but I was just reading this article and it says that doing that "will set you back in terms of CPU consumption (up to 50 % on our Intel Core 2 Duo E7300)."

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/mice-logitech-razer,review-1306-7.html

Maybe they worded it wrong and just meant 50% more CPU power than a non-1000Hz mouse would use.
 
Skyfall said:
I'm not saying it's crap or anything, it's for all intents an purposes a pretty basic mouse. Even cheap mice come with high DPI these days and the DPI switch on the bottom I wouldn't call "on the fly" you can't really change it mid battle, for me at least and again it's my opinion it doesn't really have any particular "gaming features" it doesn't have any extra buttons, it doesn't have buttons for you to change DPI easily mid game, it doesn't have customizable weight tray, it doesn't have adjustable ergonomics.
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But none of those things are necessary for a mouse to be a good gaming mouse. I know for a fact that I wouldn't use even a single ONE of those features you mentioned.

I know this because I have a logitech mouse which has most of them and I never use it.

All I want from a gaming mouse is smoothness, lightness, accuracy and responsiveness. That's it.
 
One other thing: I've been playing COD4 this weekend but one slightly annoying thing I've had to deal with is a bit of mouse skipping when I lift it of the mat to readjust my hand position. Is this normal? My mouse doesn't skip like that when I use it on my desk - only when I use it on my mat.

Don't get me wrong, the mat is excellent. I have really improved since getting it but this one thing is a bit of a pain in the backside. Is there anything I can do to sort it? Should I send it back or is that something that most people just deal with?
 
Rroff said:
I've always got that skipping with laser mice - even the ones people claim don't...
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LOL! I can only refer once again to your original post about the MS 1.1a - I just tested that out on my new mat and it works fine (just a tiny bit of movement after I lift the mouse up off the mat, nothing really noticable) :D

What do you do about the skipping Rroff? Are there any tricks to stop it or minimise its effects?

I suppose one way is just to lift the mouse up less and use the whole of your mouse mat, but even if you do that you will still have to lift it up sometimes because you will run out of mat real estate at some point.

I'm seriously considering just sending my mat back, because my new mouse seems to work better on my wooden desk overall (it's slightly less accurate, but skipping isn't a problem). Or maybe I could get the 'Control' version of the Goliathus (I'm using the 'Speed' version at the moment) - maybe that would help.
 
I've been looking into this problem some more. I even emailed Razer. Seems like the Salmosa has a pretty high 'lift-off distance', which is not good for me because I life my mouse a lot. The guy at Razer just said I'll need to lift my mouse higher off the mat than usual - but that won't cut it. It's hard to get used to that.

I'm gonna try updating the drivers and if that doesn't work I might return it.

Can anyone recommend a mouse with a very low lift-off distance?
 
Yeah, the WMO is fine, but don't the DA and the Salmosa have the same sensor, the 3G infrared @ 1800dpi?

If you've used the DA and found it to be a solid mouse with low lift off, that leads me to believe that the problem is actually with the mat (the Goliathus speed). I don't have another mat to test that theory out on, but the lift-off distance on my desk is minimal, same as the WMO.

Can I ask which mat you used when you were using the DA? I could buy that one and see how the Salmosa performs.
 
QPAD hybratek, eh? I'll look into that. I've read elsewhere that that works very well with the 3G sensor, so that shoudl be the way to go.

I just did the old CD test for measuring lift-off distance. On my Goliathus, the sensor was still reading at 2 CDs, but not at 3. On my desk, it was reading at 1 CD, but not at 2, so clearly something is wrong with the mat.

It's all a bit daft really, though, because Razer made both products and they should perform best with each other.
 
One more thing, Rroff, is your QPAD the black or white version?

It says on the Razer site that the 3g works best on a white surface, so I thought that might be a factor.
 
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