Mouse setup

[Undertoad]

This question is actually directed at dave but I figured other people could answer/benefit from it.

What do you use for mousing in your gaming setup?

I have a Logitech MX500 optical, which is a great mouse in itself. But I'm wondering how to get a smoother mouse feel.

I do have a set of "mouse skates", which is basically some sort of ultra-smooth tape you can put on your mouse's feet to make them move more smoothly. But my mouse surface has just enough texture that eventually the tape gets scratched and then there's as much friction as there was before.

My mouse surface is attached to my keyboard tray so it would be hard to change it out. I spose I could get a surface that I could glue to it...

Well, I have a pair of fUnc 1030 pads that I use on my main computers. Actually, one of them is currently with the cleaning people since the fire, but I saved one. It's got a super-smooth side which, to me, is too smooth (I like a bit of friction) as well as a not-as-smooth side, which is the one I use. So it's cool that you can swap it and find which one suits you best. If you're looking to have your mouse glide effortlessly across the mousepad, the smooth one is pretty good.

You might be interested in a RatPad, which is basically a huge, smooth mousing surface. There are also the Everglide pads, some of which are supposed to be as smooth as glass. Like I said, I find the fUnc pad to be great (plus, you could cut it, whereas the others are really too thick to cut), and you can buy it at NewEgg. It's about $20 and has a mouse cord clip to keep the cord from getting snagged. I don't use a keyboard tray, so the thing is really ideal for me.

Check out a picture at

http://www.msdelta.net/~dave/images/p4box/P0001537.jpg

The only other suggestion I can give is to keep the feet on the mouse clean. I use the MS Optical Mouse Blue, which seems to do a great job of not collecting gunk - I clean it maybe once every three or four months, and only then because I happen to flip it over and see a tiny buildup.

To recap, it sounds like your surface sucks, and that can make a <b>huge</b> difference in the whole mousing experience. Put something new over it or adjust to having your mouse up on the desk. And I highly recommend the fUnc pad for its dual surfaces, heavy rubber bottom (to prevent slipping) and mouse cord clip, which keeps the cord from getting snagged and throwing off my rail.

[hot_pastrami]

Personally, I switched to a trackball years ago, and never looked back. I have to use a mouse at work, and I feel handicapped by it. Trackballs are awesome for graphics stuff and for gaming. As long as you have the mouse speed at a reasonable level, trackballs allow very quiick, accurate movements, which is very useful for any kind of gaming. I've seen some people use trackballs with low mouse speed, which sucks... you should be able to get the cursor anywhere on the screen without lifting your hand.

I used Kensington trackballs for a few years, and I liked their trackballs when new, but they had poor durability... I went through two trackballs in three years. One thing I didn't care for was the button positioning, it was always awkward to right-click for me. My last Kensington was an Expert Mouse Pro, and it had mediocre response, the extra buttons weren't all that customizable, and the scroll wheel was not in an easy-to-reach place.

My current trackball is the Microsoft Trackball Explorer, which is great once you get used to thumbing for the right-click. I've had it almost a year, and I'd have to say it's the best trackball I've used.

The thing I keep meaning to get is a graphics tablet... no good for gaming obviously, but I'll bet they're awesome for graphics once you get used to it.

Well, I think gaming is an issue for The Tone, and, no offense, but I'll spank you every day at a first person shooter with a mouse. So they're not great for <b>every</b> type of game. Tropico, I bet it's swell. But I've played people that use trackballs at Quake and Quake 3 and they just can't compete.

(Incidentally, this is because their vertical movement sucks. Think about the Trackball Optical, which uses a thumb ball instead of one of the awkward finger ones. Okay, so you can move side to side easily when holding it - this is how the thumb is joined. But try moving it up or down fast with any type of precision and you're in for trouble.)

Trackballs are pretty great for regular mousing, and I do indeed like them for this (though I don't currently own any). But gaming... it's really just no competition.

[Undertoad]

That's the thing, see, this combination is 90% of the way there -- I'm just trying to solve the last 10%, which I think I do have to solve for gaming.

For everyday mousing, this surface is OK. I bought one of those Everquest mouse pads for the wife, and my surface is not far off that. It's applied rather than molded, it's plastic-like.

In desktop usage, most mousing is large movements to hit medium-sized targets. In first-person-shooter gaming, there are both large movements to hit large targets (move the mouse an inch to turn and run down that hall) and tiny movements to hit tiny targets (I'm going to snipe and have to move the mouse 1 mm to hit two different things in a split-second).

For me it's the tiny targets that become a problem. If the friction is just high enough, you have to push the mouse harder to get it moving... then you lose precision.

D, how do you set the mouse sensitivity? Is it better to go for a low sensitivity and learn to move the mouse a greater distance, so you get more precision on small movements? Or for high sensitivity so the mouse picks up every twitch?

[hot_pastrami]

Well, I think the trackball's setup is crucial in gaming, and that can be the difference between making the trackball an advantage or a hinderance. When I play LAN games, which as little as six months ago was 2-3 times a week, I kicked everybody's ass, every time. And these are veteran gamers... the only player who could keep up sometimes was my half-cousin, and he was the only other player using a trackball. That's all first-person shooters, I haven't played a Stategy/RPG/watever since I last played StarCraft about two years ago.

Set up correctly, a Trackball is responsive enough to execute movements as dramatic as 180* turns with just a twitch, but sensitive enough to snipe quickly and accurately when needed. Granted, you have to have steady hands to use one well. It's also nice to never hit the edge of a mousepad and have to life the mouse up and reposition it.

I've found that the trick with the MS TrackBall Explorer is to have vertical mouse speed set higher than horizontal, and invert the Y axis.

Of course, some people just don't like the way trackballs feel and react, so naturally they will do poorly with them. It's just a preference thing, mostly.

Well, The Tone, the only thing I play really is Quake 3. As I told you, I got Ghost Recon, but since I got back online I have been busy with competition (and various house things). So, the only weapon I really need that type of precision with is the railgun. I have set up scripts (Q3 really is a wonderful game in this regard) so that when I switch to the railgun, my sensitivity drops to 1/4 what it normally is. So for running and other weapons that don't require the precision of a railgun, it's quick, but with the rail, I move slower. And that's really where the precision is. I'm not sure if you can do that in Ghost Recon. But it's definitely helped my rail quite a bit. You simply have more time that you're moving over a target, and that gives you a bigger window to fire in. If you have cat-like reflexes, a higher sensitivity might be better. But for us mere mortals...

hp - Yes, well, again, no offense to anyone, but those are casual FPSers. If you like Q3 and wanna take a crack at me, hop on irc.enterthegame.com and we'll find a server.

[hot_pastrami]

Such calm, misplaced confidence . If I liked Q3, I'd probably hit you up for a game when I have free time again (which happens to be mid-October). But I'm more of a Medal of Honor/Soldier of Fortune 2/Unreal Tournament kind of guy. I tried Q3 and thought it lacked in every department except visually... I need more of a balance between chaos and strategy... But, to each his own.

Incidentally, I have played a lot with both a mouse and a trackball, and regardless of whether you are a better player than I, I know that I am better with a trackball... hence my insistence that it is not that trackballs suck, just that it is a preference.

Later.

[Undertoad]

GR doesn't have that kind of scripting support. The interesting thing it does for you is to lower the sensitivity as you look through a weapon scope. So if you're just walking around, a mouse movement will turn your character 90 degrees; if looking through a 5x scope, the same movement only turns your character like 5 degrees, enough to move the target across the screen in your scope.

It does mean that to immediately turn around, you have to reduce back to non-scope view, then turn.

[Undertoad]

Heh. I just gotta mention that I had a fabulous Ghost Recon game yesterday. We were using rifles in an urban setting, and playing defense on a "siege" game, about 8 on 8. In seige, you control a base and if any of your opponent team gets to the base point and stays there 5 seconds alive, you lose. I took a silenced weapon and went the back route and snuck up behind the ememy's choke point. Systematically killed their entire team before they realized what was happening. They couldn't tell they were getting shot from behind. They didn't expect it in a siege because they were so focused on offense, moving forward. I love it when a plan comes together.

Well, here's the thing, I guess. I've met a lot of people that swear by the trackball and its precision, and they seem to always chalk it up to a fluke when I stomp them into itty bitty little pieces.

Where the real debate lies now is how you could ever choose Unreal Tournament over Q3. It only lacks in strategy if you don't want to be good. There's actually a fair bit of smarts involved in it, especially if you play team-oriented games such as CTF (which I do). UT's weapons are seriously unbalanced and poopy like. The movement in the game sucks big butt too. Really, the only good thing about it is the level design, which is pretty fun overall. Eeeew, man. Unreal Tournament?

Tony - I wrote a script that does that for me too. It's a shame that GR doesn't have that kind of support, because it's so infinitely useful. Q3, still a relevant game after almost four years. Pretty amazing.

Well, speaking of great games, a few weeks ago I had a spectacular showing at Instagib CTF. Instagib is all rails, one shot kills you. I was playing against some of the best in the community.

http://www.msdelta.net/~dave/quake/s...2003-06-22.jpg - that's the screenshot, and I'm tops on the winning team (and tops overall). The guy you see below me, he's crazy hard to outscore - he's a machine. What was more amazing about it was how poorly I was doing the first 10 minutes until I got warmed up, at which point I added a good 140 points to my score.

(That level would probably be great with a trackball, because the upward movement required is minimal.)

[Undertoad]

Hmmm, there's this Mouse Wax... I might try that.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by dave
Well, here's the thing, I guess. I've met a lot of people that swear by the trackball and its precision, and they seem to always chalk it up to a fluke when I stomp them into itty bitty little pieces.

It's probably because you're outright better than they are when both use your tool of choice. If they switched to a mouse, you'd probably still stomp them into itty bitty little pieces, and probably even moreso since they prefer the trackball. So the trackball isn't their problem, they're just not as good as you are. If a carpenter builds a shitty house, don't blame the hammer.

Wow, deep.

But in this matter, as well as the Q3/UT question, a debate is pretty pointless. I all boils down to opinions and subjectivity. And you're entitled to your wrong opinion .

If by "wrong" you mean "right", then yes.