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High Performance Gaming Mice Don't Perform
An anonymous reader writes "A new mouse performance speed-testing software has scientifically demonstrated that there is virtually no difference between the performance of expensive, high-end gaming mice and cheap laser office mice. The software, called Metalocity, is available for free download so you can test your own mice and confirm the empirical results for yourself. It also shows that the multi-button approach of the Razer Naga and WarMouse Meta increases user speed by up to 112 percent." Note that this report comes from someone who wants to sell you a $80 gaming mouse with a zillion buttons on it, so a grain of salt is required here. But the question is valid: are the expensive mice really worth anything?
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that TFA is actually a gratuitous piece of advertising fluff, which basically says "our competitors' products are rubbish so buy ours"... I've tried all kinds of mice over the years, including high-end Razer gaming mice and the like - and to be honest, I've never found that there's any kind of big, glaring performance difference. I think the most important thing with regard to mice is just to find one that you're comfortable with. For me, the Intellimouse Explorer 3 (but emphatically not the later versions) fits my hand well and has the right number of buttons positioned just where I want them, so I use that. It also has the advantage of being pretty cheap, which is handy since the wheel tends to gum up after 18 months or so in a way that I've never been able to fix, requiring periodic replacements. But at the end of the day, any "performance" differences are going to be pretty slim, so I'd just focus on getting something you're comfortable with and that supports your hand properly, to avoid joint pains later in life. The same goes for the keyboard - I've seen players with expensive gaming mice risk giving themselves all kinds of RSI by using keyboards which, through either sheer cheap-and-nastiness or plain old bad design, force their hands into all kinds of contortions.
On what you are buying it for.
If you are buying an expensive mouse because you think it will make you a l337 gaming god, then no. It won't do jack for you.
If you are buying an expensive mouse because it has better ergonomics than your cheap mouse and you want to reduce wrist strain, or if it has more buttons and you need or want that extra functionality, or if it has greater accuracy in movement and you need more precision, then yes. It will help you.
A mouse is a tool, like any other. Buy the tool most appropriate to your needs and desires. Don't buy one expecting it to make you a better USER of the tool.
In terms of things like ergonomics, number of buttons you can actually use/remap, etc. but the bottom line is that optical sensors have gotten pretty good, even at the low end.
It is true that the fancy laser stuff will let you mouse on surfaces where basic LED mice won't; but even laser diodes aren't all that costly, though they are used as a price discrimination feature.
Beyond mere ergonomic satisfaction, which is something of a matter of taste, and utility of extra buttons, which is a combination of taste and design, the only place that really dramatic differences jump out at you is with the wireless stuff. It is harder, though still entirely possible, to buy some really dire wireless mice. Slow refresh, shuts down to save power at the worst possible times and then spends 10 seconds waking up again, that sort of thing(and bluetooth? Pay double or insert dongle...)
For your basic rat on a string, though, it is hard to get too worked up about the differences between modern sensors.
I shelled out and got me a setup that has the top (expensive) logitech stuff: G19 keyboard, G930 headset and the G700 mouse. It was the programmable macro keys (and the cordlessness of the mouse and headset) that sold me. Especially with the headset where I have a macro key as "push to talk" in teamspeak, so I can communicate with my pals while fixing a sandwich in the kitchen or (I usually don't announce this over comms) sit on the toilet...
The mouse fits my hand nicely has a nice rugged surface on the edges, has some nice macro keys and it can work both with the cord and cordless.
I mostly play Arma2 (fps/sim) and EVE Online (MMO) and the occasional Left 4 Dead 2 game.
English is not my first language, so cut me some slack -: Om du kan lasa det har sa kan du Svenska
As an avid computer FPS gamer, I can tell that using a higher end mouse definitely makes a difference. I've used quite a few in my days, mostly Logitech. I currently use an MX518. However, let's say for the sake of argument that the sensors are not of higher quality and don't offer any higher DPI or sensitivity than their mainstream office counterparts. There are other aspects to gaming mice that are quite important. The ergonomic shape of the mouse. The placement of the buttons. The software that allows you to configure the sensitivity very specifically to your preferences. In some mice, you have the ability to add or remove optional weights to suit your specific style. All of these contribute to being able to fine tune your mouse to give you the optimal control that allows you aim more accurately and quickly than a typical mouse that does not have these features.
We'll make great pets
The extra buttons ones I guess serve a purpose if you are incapable of using modifiers or are some kind of Octopi
There's always room for more buttons. When gaming there's no reason to devote dozens of keys to your left hand, and only two buttons to the right. Even just for general use, more buttons make for more a better experience. Ever try using an Apple mouse? Ever try using a mouse without a scroll wheel? It's a pain because we're used to more buttons.
Do yourself a favor. Go out and buy a mouse with extra thumb buttons, and don't look back.
From a technical standpoint, looking at benchmarks and the like? It probably doesn't matter so much. The extra buttons certainly help, if the mouse is well-designed. But I'll tell you this - if I feel more confident because the mouse I'm using cost $80 instead of $20, then I'm going to play better. And that might be worth it.
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
A good gaming mouse should have:
* An ergonomic shape to hold for a couple hours at a time. I find that it works well to have a more arched shape for continuous use, instead of a flatter shape for reaching over to occasionally click something. Thumb rests are also popular.
* Lots of buttons, in a convenient arrangement.
* High resolution. Even if you don't want it to track fast, you want the tracking quantum to be small. For productivity apps, on the other hand, a larger quantum is nice to prevent it from accidentally moving.
There are also firmware differences. Ever notice how the LED goes dim when you're idling? That's a power saving strategy. It's actually just flashing it on occasionally to see if it's moved, then going back to sleep. Cordless productivity mice do this very aggressively, and you *will* miss that golden headshot opportunity if your mouse is idled down, since it won't start tracking again until the next flash - which can be as infrequent as once every couple seconds if you've been camping a while and it's gone into deep sleep.
TFA is measuring performance of speed clicking a bunch of icons. The mouse will never go to sleep in this scenario. If they tried another benchmark - like, hold still for 30 seconds and then click the icon as fast as you can - you will see some BIG differences, and gaming mice that don't go to deep sleep will win handily.
Bluetooth mice also gave wireless mice a bad name, and so a lot of gaming mice still have tails. The proprietary wireless interfaces are much less power hungry and respond so fast I can't tell the difference between my current midrange wireless mouse and the midrange corded one it replaced, other than no longer having the wire get tangled at inopportune moments.
There has still never been a better mouse performance review than the ESR Mouse Score.
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1265679
results comparisons : http://www.esreality.com/?a=longpost&id=1265679&page=21
He later reviewed the original Razer Deathadder and ran it through the same tests here :
http://www.esreality.com/index.php?a=longpost&id=1300293&page=4
But sadly I'm not aware of him doing any later tests, I would really love to see him do an ESR MouseScore 2011
Knowing /. I probably should have directly linked the benchmarking method : http://www.esreality.com/?a=longpost&id=1265679&page=3
notice how the LED goes dim when you're idling? That's a power saving strategy. It's actually just flashing it on occasionally to see if it's moved, then going back to sleep. Cordless productivity mice do this very aggressively, and you *will* miss that golden headshot opportunity if your mouse is idled down,
campers who are able to get their mouse to idle due to excessive camping are horrible, horrible gamers to play with anyway.
sorry, had to ;-)
"Logitech: another company I won't ever buy anything else from ever again." What did I miss about Logitech? Cry about astro-turf all you want, but I have a G15 (original with 18 buttons), MX Revolutions and a wired headset that I absolutely love. I've used Logitech for years and have always been happy with their quality. Out of 4-5 different PS2 wireless joysticks, the Logitech one I had was the only one that worked worth shit. Same for my USB Joysticks. The items that I have used from Logitech have worked for ages and as promised... So again... what has Logitech done to get "Boycott" status? Sony. Apple. EA. Some companies that I try to steer clear of, and for good reason... but why Logitech?
http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/0/06/Extremes_mouse.jpg
I'll explain my point by looking at chairs rather than mice first.
At some point, an office chair is good enough. It's got everything for a healthy working position.
Spend 4 times more money, and you will most definitely sit more comfortable... but the question we're answering here is: do you work harder with significantly less chance for injury? Maybe just a little. Probably no measurable difference.
I don't doubt for a moment that you get a nicer gaming experience with your MX518 mouse. The question in TFA was not whether you like it more, but whether you can click faster or more precise. The answer given in TFA is that you can't really.
There is only one way to find out about the quality of a gaming mouse and it is to play with it. My gaming mouse is comfortable, fast and has a lot of buttons which are all bound and used. The adjustable DPI allows me to quickly swith from a sniper sensitivity to a tank pilot sensitivity. My G500 also has hyper-fast scrolling which is useful to find specific pages in huge documents or doing funny moves in games. Furthermore, I usually browse the web without touching my keyboard. DON'T PLAYER HATE ON ME
I use an old microsoft (gasp!) trackball that rolls off the tongue with a model number x05-87475. I use it because of the very high tracking speed on the trackball. Everything else I've bought since then would choke if I flitted the ball too fast. They either stop tracking at all until the ball slows down (or gets epilepsy) or they track backwards.
It's a big beaste too. But you have very little choice if you want a "right thumb" ball instead of a center ball. I'm amazed no one has made anything like it since then. While I've been looking, I keep running into gamers using this exact same model of trackball mouse for gaming, for exactly the same reason, all of them looking for anything like it. It's apparently the only high speed trackball to ever hit the market.
All these "laser mice" we read about, I tried one, and besides fleecing my wallet, it didn't help. I can't get used to moving the whole mouse, I'm used to just moving the ball. And I don't understand how you can do things like circlestraffe with a mouse since you quickly run out of desk space? I may yet get ambitious enough to take power tools to my pricey laser mouse gathering dust and see if I can turn it into a trackball.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You know, I've used a lot of keyboards and mice over the years. They've been both items that I've bought for myself, and items on other people's computers.
My girlfriend has a Naga Razor. She was very excited about it when she bought it. The first one died after about 4 hours of using it. It just blinked off, to never come back to life. The second one has been working for a few months. It has a gridword of numbered buttons on the side. After a few months, various buttons stopped working. The scroll wheel is behaving weird, and doesn't always click when pressed. The forward and back buttons doesn't work predictably.
I've been very content with the cheap mice and keyboards. I at least demand optical mice (does anyone use ball mice any more?), and a scroll wheel that clicks. For the keyboard. I expect standard layout buttons (ins, del, home, arrows). Other than those wild expectations, I see no performance difference in other devices, other than bragging rights. Who really cares if I'm using a hand crafted platinum with gold inlay mouse that cost more than a new car? :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I was going to mention the G5 myself; I use one at home and love it. The main features that really make it work for me are the size and shape of it (I have big hands and this mouse is fairly big), the fact that you can put weights in it to make it heavier, the extra buttons and the ability to quickly increase or decrease the sensitivity of the mouse which is great for photo work.
I guess you can only define performance once you define your priorities because my gaming mouse performs the tasks I want it to exceptionally well.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
But this has to be the biggest load of shit I've ever read on /.
You don't read idle, do you.
You say that because you haven't used a better mouse. I use an MX518, and the extra buttons/sensitivity controls are so integral with my gaming that I couldn't imagine not having them.
For example, besides the nice feature of being able to navigate web pages faster with the fwd/back buttons, I've remapped the forward button on the thumb to be the knife button for BFBC2. The ability to react faster than everyone else by having one finger always on the knife button but not affecting movement has proven to be a pretty big advantage on tight urban maps.
I also have the sensitivity controls tweaked so that by hitting the button above the scrollbar, I can greatly increase my sensitivity in when manning a tank or helicopter, allowing me to track faster than most vehicles move. When I hop out, I can just hit the button below the scrollbar to get back to normal gun sensitivity. This has also been a huge advantage, allowing me to shoot down helicopters/ATV's that nobody else can seem to hit because they're throwing their mouse trying to make the less sensitive and slower turning tank keep up.
Same goes for Jedi Knight, Jedi Academy. By tweaking the sen on-the-fly, I can switch back and forth between saber and gun sensitivities without having to scramble to find the equivalent keybinding on a keyboard that is already so macro'ed that there are no longer free keys to bind.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
I thought the WarMouse sounded familiar. It was also known, once, as the OpenOffice Mouse. Its lead designer, Theodore Beale, is also known as Vox Day. Vox Day is a anti-evolution, anti-feminist, christian writer and blogger who believes -- amongst other things -- that all atheists are sociopaths.
He is the author of a handful of poorly reviewed games, including the tedious looking The War In Heaven.
None of this will affect the quality of his mouse, it should live and die by its merits. But because of who is behind it, I for one, and going to give it a miss...
What do you know I wrote a novel
I'm thinking less and less that this dude is a shill and more likely a troll. I'd wager that he read one too many accusations of 'shill' and decided to show somebody what a real shill would look like.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a gamer and build my own systems over the years. Lets be clear what I consider performance.
- Smooth movement (is it jumpy or does it smoothly move the icon or view in game)
- Comfort of mouse (does it feel good to my hand so my hand won't hurt later)
- Buttons (Are they quality? Do they depress easily? Are they located in the right spots?)
- Software (Does the software allow me set sensitivity and map keys?)
Mapping out how fast a click response rate is stupid. Of course there won't be little difference.
The purpose of getting a more expensive mouse are the additional features. If anyone purchases a mouse because "it's response rate is faster than an average mouse" is just stupid. I have a Razer mouse and it vastly exceeds in my performance criteria than the standard Microsoft Intellimouse.
I've tried about 20 different mice while gaming and coding and non perform for me as well as the $70 Razer I have. Is it right for everyone? no. But their study is flawed.
This post, right here, is #1 reason why I don't play games like that. People with way too much time and money on their hands make it difficult for people like me to have fun playing.
Not only that, but this guy sounds like a dork, and I'm dorky enough as it is. I don't want or need more dork cred.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That depends on the game. If you're playing Quake-style deathmatch, sure, that kind of camping is lame.
I play things like Project Reality where the maps are enormous and the gameplay is much slower. You squad up and hike across the map for a good several minutes without any enemy contact (though you have to be constantly on your toes). You reach a river. The whole squad crossing at once is suicidal, so you go in pairs, with everyone else staying in the trees and ready to provide cover fire. With 30 seconds for each pair to cross the river, you're going to be sitting there watching your sector for a while. Constantly looking around to keep your mouse awake just makes you easier to see. When you see a muzzle flash on the far bank, you have to react fast: the shooter's already cycling in the next round, and he's sure to have friends. The 1 second it takes your mouse to wake up is an eternity when the guy crouching next to you just took one in the head.
If you live through that exercise and make it to the enemy base, the first part is easy: run in, blow away anyone who objects to your presence. But then you have to hold the territory until you achieve the capture, which means a couple minutes of hiding on the porch or behind some sandbags, holding your breath. It's not going to be a surprise attack: you know the reinforcements are coming; it's just a matter of when and where. Moving means you become the canary. Lag - including from your mouse - means you will let your squad down when half a dozen bad guys with assault rifles jump out of the alley.
I don't want or need more dork cred.
And yet you post on Slashdot, on a thread about gaming mice...
Circle strafing has gone out of fashion in shooters over time. Shooters have gradually drifted towards high damage hitscan weaponry. This results in small fast clashes that end before someone can strafe in a circle.
It hasn't gone entirely extinct. The remake of Serious Sam, and Borderlands still rely heavily on circle strafing, and of course, older games won't go away.
I liked my trackball too, and I got great results with it at the time, but I've moved on since then.