does mouse dpi make a diff for us?

[Szos]

Ultra-high DPI mice are a joke in my opinion.

Simply look at the number - 2000DPI means that the mouse is sensative to .0005 inches (or .0127 millimeters) - to put that in perspective a sheet of paper is about .005 inch thick - which means that these mice can supposedly register mouse movements that are as small as 1/10th the thinkness of a piece of paper. Are your hands that steady? If so, might I suggest you go into neuro-surgery.

Any modern mouse is more than good enough in terms of accuracy in my opinion. Eveerything else is just marketing BS.

[UrbanFuturistic]

This is very true. If you really want to get accuracy and reliability from your mouse:

- Check that it doesn't easily leak light. If you can see the LED's light through the gaps in the mouse buttons and it works on an entirely visible wavelength then you're going to get jumping problems where environmental light leaks in and the cursor jumps across your screen.

- Speaking of which, try and make it an infra-red LED as this is affected less and, usually, not more expensive than any other good mouse.

- Adjust the mouse 'acceleration' in the driver options. This is an option which means big movements read bigger while small movements remain the same.

Asides from this, just go for a decent brand, picking up a Packard Bell mouse is bound to end in tears but Microsoft mice are good and, while I've seen Logitech mice recommended, my own personal experience is that they break a lot these days.

Also, rechargeable wireless mice are much better than they used to be and there's really no wire to snag; I really don't believe there can be any discernable difference in speed between a wireless and wired mouse as the miniscule delay would be far outweighed by the rate at which any game is likely to process such information... although I imagine running out of battery power mid deathmatch could be seriously detrimental to your score.

I can think of a reason to get a lazer mouse though, maybe you could have fun 'painting' people's foreheads with it.

[andrewjohn81]

Well, I do have an extremely steady hand. Also, moving a mouse is only a 2D movement while surgery would require a steady hand in all world axis, which is Much more difficult. I thought about going into surgery, but I liked computer stuff way more than medical stuff. So that answers that opinion.

thanks for the explaination about light leaking though. I've had a cheap mouse (free after rebate isn't bad) before and I noticed it often jumped on occasion. I could see the laser through the cracks in the top. Not much light should be visible through the bottom though, so that should be fine on any mouse.

What I am curious about though is if windows doesn't allow for higher dpi settings. I wonder if you can only use the highest dpi setting at the maximum acceleration rate due to windows limitations.

We also have had bad luck with wireless mice. I get interference with them here at work because there are so many wireless things around. Somewhere between cell phones, wifi, a nearby wireless projector, and who knows what else there is limited distance and some random strange movements with a brand new microsoft keyboard/mouse set. Although, it's also bluetooth, so i think the only interference might be palm pilots and cells. But that could be a lot of them. I'll stick to the wires. They don't bug me All that much.

Also, FYI, RF wireless mice DO affect your WIFI if you are using a laptop. I've tested it pluging it in and unplugging it to check the transfer rates and the increased by about 20% or more when the mouse wasn't in use. Wireless things Do effect eachother quite a bit when in close proximity.

I might look into this mouse then. Most of the nicer ones are rediculously expensive simply because they have the dumb design on the top. If you know much about manufacturing most of the parts are the same anyway, so other than the body construction and drivers for these they will be the same. I hightly doubt viewsonic actually makes the mouse. If it ends up giving us more control then we'll probably purchase the "higher quality" mice after. I think they are usually just more expensive for the lame ass "gamer" lights, starwars sounds effects, and other lame things like that that gamers supposedly like. I like games, but I'm not sure about the people that these things are marketed toward...it sure as hell isn't me.

If anyone could answer the windows question I would really appreciate it. If it only really effects the ability to make acceleration all the way to the maximum then it really wouldn't help anyone unless you just really hate moving your hand much to move the mouse. God forbid you actually burn any sort of calories while using your mouse. lol

[UrbanFuturistic]

Ah yes, forgot to mention interference. When I said improvements, I just meant the batteries no longer die after half an hour :)

As for the Windows question: no, it can't give you subpixel accuracy, not because that would be impossible but because it would be impossible to use :D Theoretically the mouse screen-co-ordinates could be mapped at a higher resolution than the screen resolution, but this would require some interesting use of the alpha channels and anti-aliasing and would be almost impossible to discern, never mind put to practical use.

On the other hand, if you have a graphics tablet and you're working on an image at 25% then I imagine mapping the tablet's input to a sub-pixel resolution input on the canvas could be put to some use, although I don't know if this is already done. Be hella expensive on the computations though.

Oh, and pointer acceleration is often on by default, you probably just haven't noticed it overmuch. I tend to find I have to crank it down on some installs.

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