Optical vs Ball Mice

James

Member
I was playing today and I realized (seriously never realized it before) that when I would make fast moions with my optical mouse, not only would it not recognize the movement, but it would point me straight down looking at the floor!

Then I tried experimenting my making fast motions in Windows, and sure enough, pointer would go all the way to the bottom of the screen.

Unplugged it and attached it to another computer, same result. No wonder my aim was always low!

I switched it now with a ball mouse and the difference is unbelievable! Smooth as silk, and as steady as a wheelchair with anti-tip wheels.

Optical mice may look cooler, but for gaming it's ball mice all the way for me.

P.S. I always thought that when I would be looking at the floor, it was because of lag or someone knocked my view down there. This is a real eye-opener.
 
I did use the standard Windows driver. I'm thinking my mouse was just a lemon, because at times, it would move without me ever touching it and other oddities like that.

It should never be though that if I make a fast movement horizontally that my pointer would move to the bottom of the screen, and on two separate machines...

I've heard good things about the IntelliMouse Explorer from Microsoft. I may try that, but the next thing I buy will be that headset.
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I use an Mx1000 Laser Mouse. I don't know what your looking down problem is, but optical and laser have been much more precise for me than ball mice. My old MS Wheel Mouse didn't register a lot of my movement.

I use low mouse sensitivity. When I had an MX510, my sensitivity in UT2004 was 0.35. The new laser mouse has different drivers that have lower innate sensitivity (though are 20x more precise than optical) and so now my sensitivity is set at 0.85. It sounds antithetical, but low sensitivity actually improves your aim, because it's harder to focus on any one spot exactly. My 180 turn distance is about 12 inches on my desk. I don't use a mousepad and I have 2/3rds of my computer desk space reserved for mouse movement.

Anyway, use what works-- no two ideal setups are alike. If ball mice do it for you, stick with them.
 
I bought a cheapo $10 optical mouse that had that same exact problem, it sort of stopped happening after alot of use. But I'd suggest just get a new optical mouse by microsoft or logitech or something, cause it's so much better than a ball mouse IMO.
 
Razer mouse: nytejade::LOB::, one of the best North American UT2004 players, has a review here. He's a pretty cool guy. I've had the opportunity to speak to him a number of times. We share common interests besides UT: he also enjoys bassdrive internet radio, which is one of my favorite stations. In fact, he mixes drum'n'bass, and he also likes Star Trek, which are both good things by my standards. I told him to try your website too, Shagz; I hope you don't mind.
 
I am currently using an mx500. My windows setting (the windows setting is not overridden by 2k4) is about 3 clicks from max and my UT2k4 setting is around .57. This is why you have to account for both windows and 2k4 settings when making comparisons, and there is no real standard way to measure who has what sens setting. The higher sens settings seem to have that effect that you experienced James with the guy looking at the floor. With all the advantages of optical mice, I would never return to a ball mouse. For one, you won't have loss of performance due to a dirty track ball. Secondly, you have much greater precision and thirdly, with the mx510 coming in at around $40 (shipped) on newegg...it is not that much of a stretch to get something that will last a long time and give you great performance. As far as the Diamondback, I am tempted to get one but after seeing nytejade's review, I think i'll wait till they get the drive issue fixed before even thinking about it.

-Cham
 
Optical pwns you. A cheap optical mouse is junk though, buy a quality one like the Logitech MX line. Cheap ones won't be nice and accurate and keep up with extremely quick movements in fps games. To avoid an 8 hour explination of why this is I'll keep it to a quick over view:
a) Optical mice function by tacking pictures of whats under them, cheap ones take far fewer of these in far larger intervals
b) They then compare these pictures to each other to interpret the movement of the mouse, cheap ones use lower quality pictures to analyze and can't do so nearly as well
c) Cheap ones take pictures at a much slower rate creating a lower level of data to analyze and creates gaps in the pictures with fast movement
The MX 510 can be found for about $30 to $35, see here, which are aside from the newest ones the nicest in the line. They take the higher resolution, ie more precision available, and have an ever higher performance version of the MX engine. They're really quality and I think they look pretty spiffy too, and you can choose from red or blue. You get one of those you'll see why ball mice can't touch opticals.
 
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