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?
 
You prolly dumped the best gaming mouse there is :P

The MS WMO 1.1a is one of the best mice for gaming around ironically... and often overlooked...

Don't care too much about dpi either - depending on resolution 400-800dpi is fine - set the control panel sensitivity to whatever is most comfortable in windows and then tweak the ingame sensitivity so you can pull an accurate 180 degrees in the space you can cover with the mose from left to right with your palm resting on the desk/mousepad.

If your a low sensitivity player then you might want to halve the sensitivity again.

You could use one of the calculators like this one http://www.mikofoto.net/ae/calculator2.php but personally I find your best off tweaking it manually like above.
 
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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.
 
Higher DPI can help, but you only really need really high DPI if your playing on a really high res display or you play at sensitivity extremes...

IMO 400 dpi is good for upto 1680x res, you only need about 600-800 for 1920x and maybe above 800 for 2048x and higher... but if your one of these people that play at sens 1 then you might need to double that.

I've not tried the salmosa but the only mouse I've found better for gaming than the WMO was the deathadder and unfortunatly the shape doesn't quite work for me - sooo close but sticks out on the right front too far :(

Everyone likes bigger numbers simple as that, so the manufacturers hype on that, but for the most part as you drop sens you have to increase DPI and you end up pretty much back where you started.
 
DPI is just a marketing gimmick really. Its an inbuilt sensitivity..doesn't make it more accurate or anything. Unless you get it over 9000

Don't mess about with windows sensitivity as that can affect the accuracy. Leave it at 6/11

I have a g9 and use 800DPI and 1.5 sensitivity in CSS . Just use what feels comfortable for you or try taking the sensitivity as low as you can while still being able to react fast enough

Edit: Forgot..make sure you remove all acceleration. If you have XP then get mousefix too. Theres some commands for games like css to remove sensitivity as well. Get your polling rate as high as you can. Theres probably a setting in your mouse software
 
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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.
 
melipone1 said:
DPI is just a marketing gimmick really. Its an inbuilt sensitivity..doesn't make it more accurate or anything.
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DPI helps when trying to be accurate at high sensitivities, but there really is no need for it to be any higher than 1000 (or 500, really). If you need high sensitivity, it's best to increase DPI before anything else, but it doesn't really matter.

The speed your cursor moves at is determined by DPI x sensitivity. At 1:1 sensitivity and 800DPI, moving your mouse 1 inch in any direction will move the cursor 800 pixels. This means if you moved it 1/800th of an inch, it'd move 1 pixel. However, if you had 400DPI and 2:1 sensitivity, the speed will be the same when moving your mouse, but you can't get accuracies down to a single pixel, because it can't detect 1/800th of an inch. If you moved it 1/400th of an inch, the lowest increment, it'd move 2 pixels.

Not an issue at any rate though, unless you have like, 10 DPI :D
 
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
D D Danneh said:
DPI helps when trying to be accurate at high sensitivities, but there really is no need for it to be any higher than 1000 (or 500, really). If you need high sensitivity, it's best to increase DPI before anything else, but it doesn't really matter.

The speed your cursor moves at is determined by DPI x sensitivity. At 1:1 sensitivity and 800DPI, moving your mouse 1 inch in any direction will move the cursor 800 pixels. This means if you moved it 1/800th of an inch, it'd move 1 pixel. However, if you had 400DPI and 2:1 sensitivity, the speed will be the same when moving your mouse, but you can't get accuracies down to a single pixel, because it can't detect 1/800th of an inch. If you moved it 1/400th of an inch, the lowest increment, it'd move 2 pixels.

Not an issue at any rate though, unless you have like, 10 DPI :D
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Thats the best post I've seen on this in awhile.
 
kissenger said:
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?
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I'd leave it at 1000Hz all the time. The higher the Hz, the faster it refreshes and updates any changes, so you'll get less "mouse lag". I don't think there's any negatives to having it so high, except maybe more power draw, but in a mouse, that isn't really an issue.
 
Danneh, nice explanation on DPI, didn't know about that. High DPI also can give you negative acceleration if you move it too fast, because I believe your mouse in windows actually moves as you move your mouse ingame (but you don't see it obviously), and it can end up moving so fast it can cause some issues. Thats partly why you shouldn't have a really high DPI and then just put your sensitivity ingame low..your mouse is still moving at the high dpi in windows

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.
 
1000Hz is usually fine and ideal if it works... on some mice/setup you can get buffer over-runs with it but dropping back to 500 should work fine... anything over 250Hz should top out the response in most mice tho anything higher will make only marginal difference.
 
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.
 
It does use more CPU power but it should be almost un-noticeable on a modern CPU... think I worked out on my E6600 that at 1000Hz the CPU usage spiked +2% higher than normal Hz rate if I went nuts with the mouse input on a test.
 
kissenger said:
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.
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That review didn't look very good so would take that with a pinch of salt. They assume everyone wants to use their full palm on the mouse rather than play with mostly fingertips and have that as their "cons".. From what i've seen its pretty split between fingertip players (wrist on desk all the time) and full arm mousers. So having a small mouse is what you want if you play with the wrist. I do both like a hybrid type grip, but never have my palm on my mouse :D .
 
kissenger said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
Rroff said:
You prolly dumped the best gaming mouse there is :P

The MS WMO 1.1a is one of the best mice for gaming around ironically... and often overlooked...
Click to expand...

..still using mine :D Love the narrow middle as i tend to flick the mouse with thumb and third finger rather than have my hand resting on top.
 
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