FPS Gamer's Mouse Guide - Legit?

[REVENGE]

I came across this today:
http://www.eve-films.com/forum/showthre ... ting-Games

Does anyone follow these recommendations?

[Machete234]

I have an old death adder with turned of mouse controll via a special firmware.
And I always use windows default sensitivity (6).

Also the least you should do is disable "enhance pointer precision" to have less accelration or even use a special fix.
There is no way around that imho if you want to make good reaction shots.


I think its all true even though I dont use a super low sens like 99% of all pros.

[rattle]

I've got a G5 at 800 DPI using the default speed of 1, USB refresh was at 500 HZ I believe (driver software refuses to work atm for some reason) and mouse acceleration has always been turned off...

I don't read mouse optimization guides cause I don't really care much, just use what works best for you.

[SwiftSpear]

I used to do some amateur competitive stuff in FPS games. My experience is there's a tonne of hoops to jump through in terms of getting your equipment to work ideally, so nothing on that page surprises me.

I've done all the mouse acceleration fixes for windows before. Mouse acceleration is ass and fail.

[knorke]

the trick is to wiggle the mouse furiously until you have won.

[aegis]

that's a very biased post.

I will be going over the mice that are commonly used by professionals FPS players, and the pros and cons of each. I have owned the 1.1, 3.0, Deathadder 3G, Deathadder 3.5G, Logitech MX518, G5, and G500 first hand.

which mice does he list in the review/comparison?
the ones he said he owned.

so he's the only "pro fps player" who matters?

he also says "most" or "99%" far too often.


and I love my razer orochi

[knorke]

DPI: A marketing concept used by mice companies that is a complete gimmick. All it does is reflect speed. It does not reflect accuracy; that is mouse FPS and mouse refresh rate.

Oo
I think DPI refers to the resolution of the mouse? IE the smallest moveable distance that the sensor can register.
Mouse with a ball inside of 2 of these wheels: http://www.kfztech.de/kfztechnik/elo/se ... ulsrad.jpg
Now when the mouse is moved and these wheels turn, a photo sensor registers the holes in the wheel. More holes = more impulses per revolution of the wheel = more impulses per cm of mouse movement.
Imagine a impulse wheel with only one hole in it. The wheel could rotate almost 360┬░ and the sensor would not notice the movement.
Of course 800, 1600 or a million DPI probally do not make a difference in practice. But his explaination seem wrong. But then i am not a "FPS professional."

tl;dr
its written by someone who uses the nick FraGTaLiTy

[aegis]

high dpi makes it possible for your smaller movements to be accurate. I play in a very small area with high dpi and I'm fairly respectable at the fps games I've taken time to learn

[REVENGE]

I skipped over most of his recommendations on mouse hardware. Rather, I was really interested in knowing whether the acceleration and refresh rate fixes make a real difference in your aiming ability, and it seems like it does for the most part.

[aegis]

the only issue I had with acceleration was mouse smoothing in unreal 3

after trading it for motion blur I could do my twitch snipes again

[JohannesH]

Dunno about the refresh rate stuff, but mouse acceleration is pretty horrible for pretty much anything, turn it off.

And its right to say that dpi means speed. You move the mouse the same amount with same settings, cursor moves distance relative to dpi. But if you have high dpi mouse you can turn down the speed from software-side and it'll be ok, when with low dpi mouse if you try to turn the speed up beyond a certain point it'll be less accurate.
But for fps pros high dpi is meaningless since they use low sensitivity. Or for anyone else who's used to low sensitivity.

[knorke]

And its right to say that dpi means speed.

dpi = dots per inch. Thats resolution, not speed. Can not measure speed without time.

You move the mouse the same amount with same settings, cursor moves distance relative to dpi.

Thats just the result.

With a DPI of 1 you could move the mouse by a whole inch and it would not register.
With a DPI of 100 you must move the by 1/100 inch until it registers.


If the mousepad has a size of 10x10 inch.... (25*25cm)
with a DPI of 1 you can put the mouse in 10x10 x1 = 100 (recognized) positions.
with a DPI of 100 you can put the mouse in 10*10*100 = 10.000 positions.
a DPI of 800 gives 80.000 positions.

This comes before anything else and is not influecned by the software or settings.

blabla to be honest i have no idea if it is this way but it just makes more sense to me and i would not buy a $24.99 mousepad based on the article.

[Hobo Joe]

Almost everything about that post is wrong.

Also his ideas of what the "quake professionals" and "Counter strike professionals use is completely ridiculous and made up. It's his own personal preference projected onto his idea of what the 'pros' use, a group he wishes he was a part of. (He plays Halo 3)

Mouse is all down to preference, obviously below a certain point it's going to be crappy but only the most OCD mouse enthusiasts are gonna notice the difference between 1200 and 2000 dpi. And just making a note here - dpi is more than just speed, I've got an MX518 and I can definitely notice the accuracy difference between the settings, especially if I'm using mouse acceleration which can make much bigger movements on screen for a much smaller movement on you desk. I always use it on max sens because of this.

And speaking of mouse acceleration, that's all preference too, I used mouse acceleration for a very long time when I played FPS comp, depending on what I played, I'd switch it between games. If you know how to control it, it's absolutely fantastic for twitch shooters, You could transition instantly between instant 180's with barely any hand movement to small adjustments with big hand movements, which is great. However for something like quake which takes as much or more tracking as twitching, having no mouse accel is obviously better. "Acceleration will make muscle memory for flick shooting opponents impossible. Don't use it." This is completely wrong. For me, twitch shooting is much much easier with mouse accel, it's just much more difficult to track. Everyone says this because they've never taken the time to master it.

[in game sensitivity] * [DPI] * [windows mouse sensitivity value] = your real sensitivity value

This part is especially ridiculous, this guy is clearly just pulling stuff out of his ass, different games use different values and the only way to get the same sens is by feel or measuring your actual mouse movement for a 180. Also, another note about sensitivity, a lot of people will tell you to lose low sensitivity. This is wrong. For some people, that's how they play best and that's great, but that sure as hell doesn't mean you should use it to. For one, you have to move your arm around instead of just your wrist. And your arm is a lot less accurate than your wrist by nature, so without a ton of time and practice this will suck. Personally, I play with an extremely high sens, because this is what works for me. And yes, I have played comp because apparently that's sooooo important to this guy.


And stuff like this "Can control hand speeds of up to 4.8 M/s (top players don't go past 2 M/s in game, so this is more about bragging rights I suppose)." Seriously?


He goes on and on about what "pros" used what mice and when and why they're better. Seriously? Use what works for you, it doesn't matter if fatality won with some uber 1337 expensive as hell mouse or a piece of crap from walmart, he used what worked for him and so should everyone else.


Ok big rant but that really hit a nerve...


@Knorke yes you are right that is more or less how it works. More DPI does = more speed, but only BECAUSE it = more resolution/higher sensitivity.


But really, this guy talks as if he's the be-all and end-all of mice, and he's all in the know about what the "pros" used(because it's super important!), and he plays HALO. I dunno about you, but I cannot take that seriously.

[JohannesH]

Kinda retarded to just say "use whatever works for you", cause it's pretty obvious that all methods aren't equal. Sure you mightve gotten used to an inferior method and don't care enough to relearn, and that's totally fine, but no point to suggest others to use that method too.

Or is it just coincidence that most pros use similar mouse setups...

And that formula is totally right, you have your mouse dpi, your system can multiply that by whatever, and the game you're running can do that too. WTF else calculates into it?? From that you get how many pixels your cursor moves for 1" mouse move.
Ofc screen resolution also counts into what kind of movement you need to do some thing but that doesn't contradict that in any way.

Fragtality might not be the best reviewer ever, most of his stuff I just skimmed thru, but either way you don't have a clue of what you're talking of :/

[knorke]

I typed a longer text but then i accidently the whole window and now i will just post a lame flame how halo is played with gamepads anyway.

Do not get hung up on the formula. He basically uses it to explain if you get a new mouse with double the DPI you must lower the sensity ingame by 50% to get the old feeling.
That is correct, as long the settings are all linear and blabla

Seeing as the opticial sensor in a mouse is basically a small camera, wouldnt it be interessting to compare those? Like in a cheap mouse the sensor takes pictures with a resolution of 10x10 and the zomg gam0r mouse has a 50x50 grid. From the difference of taken pictures the mouse calculates motion. How reliable this system works seems more important than some other mentioned stuff.

The "Laser Mice Suck" paragraph I do not get at all btw.
The laser is just a different way of lighting up the surface for the sensor to "fotograph" it.

[aegis]

laser mice are better at weird surfaces.

[JohannesH]

Basically for maximum accuracy you need a certain amount of dpi, depending on how high sensitivity you use. Your accuracy is capped by your resolution anyway, your mouse only needs to match that.

More detailed explanation: http://www.esreality.com/?a=longpost&id=1265679&page=2

And you probably won't even notice any difference if your mouse skips pixels occasionally, unless you're really accurate and good to start with

If you're picking a mouse, just go with whatever fits your hand well, for most people high dpi makes 0 difference

[Machete234]

DPI: A marketing concept used by mice companies that is a complete gimmick. All it does is reflect speed. It does not reflect accuracy; that is mouse FPS and mouse refresh rate.

Oo
I think DPI refers to the resolution of the mouse? IE the smallest moveable distance that the sensor can register.

Probably youre right but on the screen you can just move one pixel as a minimum so you sure as hell dont need 5000 DPI.
In fact you will dumb this super awesome mouse down when you set your windows sense lower than 6 because then a percentage of your signals will be thrown away.
So you can save the money.

And I think theres a lot of marketing involved for example I once owned a mouse that had 800 DPI consisting of two 400DPI sensors
Does this really make a mouse 800DPI? I dont think so!

And I think its true that many FPS pros have these simple microsft optical mice without many gimmicks and 400 DPI which should be enough.
That laser is not a perfect technology yet is not really a secret.

Do not get hung up on the formula. He basically uses it to explain if you get a new mouse with double the DPI you must lower the sensity ingame by 50% to get the old feeling.

And he's 99% right.
DPI will translate directly into speed.
You dont want to brain sugery on that guy you want to shoot him so forget 1000nth of an inch.

The "Laser Mice Suck" paragraph I do not get at all btw.
The laser is just a different way of lighting up the surface for the sensor to "fotograph" it.

Laser mice have skipping issues thats a fact.

[aegis]

I run about 1600-2000 dpi usually on my 4000dpi mouse, it just means you can move the mouse less to get one pixel of movement

I barely move my wrist to use my mouse.. anyone who uses a higher dpi setting would probably need to turn down sensitivity ingame etc

[RogerN]

For me, twitch shooting is much much easier with mouse accel, it's just much more difficult to track. Everyone says this because they've never taken the time to master it.

IMO, this is spot on. I played Quake 2 and 3 quite a bit and always used mouse acceleration. It was great for making split-second twitch shots, which are particularly important when playing with instagib and railguns. It works extremely well with shotguns, too, as you don't need pinpoint accuracy. Even if your accuracy is off a little bit compared to a player not using acceleration, your speed advantage when making twitch shots can give you the edge. It doesn't matter that your opponent is more accurate if he never has time to fire his weapon.

When using mouse acceleration, though, it's advantageous to control engagement distance. Your advantage is most noticeable at close range rather than fighting over long distances.

Granted I'm not a pro, but most of the time I found my way to the top of the scoreboard.