PC gaming and mouse feeling control

[Xenozx]

OK, so this is just a general thread i thought i would start about mouse control in games and the various settings that seem to effect it. What is the ideal setup for perfect mouse control in FPS's?

Like, you have


windows settings, mouse driver settings (like use logitech setpoint instead of windows)
enhance pointer precision
Laser / optical
Acceleration
Mouse Smoothing
angle snapping
Poll rate (1000,125, etc)
144hz, 120hz, 100hz, etc (not even sure why this setting would effect mouse movement)
Mark C fix
cheese fix
CPL fix
different settings for XP, vista, 7, 8.1, and even 10 by default

The resolution you game at apparently changes the feeling, so same settings on 640x480 will feel totally different at 1920x1080.

Some games have settings like reduce mouse lag

Nvidia SLI and ATI crossfire (apparently SLI will totally change the way a mouse responds

G-sync, free sync, ULMB, light boost technology.

Then you have 100 different mices, from laser, to optical, with different settings and sensitivities. Use a razer laser mouse with the same settings as a logitech laser mouse, and the feel is going to be totally different.

So to end my post, my question is, in the last 10-15 years, how have we not perfected mouse control on the PC yet? I feel like it shouldn't be this complicated. You should be able to just sit and play, and not have to adjust and make sure 100 different things are setup perfect for you, and then how do you know your settings are the correct ones, and if you had them setup a different way, maybe your aim would be marginally better?

How does say fatal1ty's aim overshadow say the average FPS gamer by like 400% (fictitious # but 1 persons aim may be on a totally other level in comparison to someone elses, and im getting at could this be due to settings, or is it really a human person difference?

 

[Armenius]

Mouse movement is one of those things that changed drastically when we went from analog to digital. It is also something that can never have a "one size fits all" approach due to differences in musculature, ligaments, response time, neurological health, etc.

That being said -

Logitech G700S (laser wired/wireless mouse with full control)
Default Windows pointer settings
Logitech Game Profiler used to map actions to mouse buttons for particular games
Mouse Smoothing disabled / RAW input enabled
1000 Hz Polling rate @ 800 DPI
144 Hz G-sync monitor @ 2560x1440
No software fixes applied
Settings remained the same from a W7 -> W8.1 upgrade

One thing is that 800 DPI is too fast for me at 1920x1080. I ran 500 DPI at that resolution before upgrading my monitor. It makes sense on the resolution front, as fewer dots on the screen means shorter travel distance.

With the settings above, the default mouse sensitivity in most (if not all) games I have played does not need to be changed. Before upgrading to a G-sync monitor I would have had to fiddle around with the DPI and in-game sensitivity to get it to feel right.

I feel the big thing to keep in mind these days is polling rate. With Adaptive-sync monitors coming and G-sync monitors already in consumer hands, 1000 Hz is really a must to avoid sync and lag issues.

Going from a MX518 to G700S made a big difference for me. For one, I'm not physically lifting the mouse as much to adjust positioning anymore. For two, I now realize that issues I used to chalk up to game performance or framerate issues were really mouse issues. I no longer suffer fatigue in my wrist after long gaming sessions and overall it has just been more enjoyable. Whether or not that has affected my aiming ability or "K/D" is a nonissue in my opinion.

 

[Comixbooks]

Using my Rival Steelseries

at 1350 sensitivity

500 Polling Rate

Hotline mouse skates competition

Razer Speed knockoff mousepad Medium size

Play Duke Nukem Forever and Quake for two years for practice =)
A lot of mouse control has to due with your brain and knowing the map inside out.
Like should I camp here or not =)

Turn up sensitivity in games so you can turn around faster aim faster.

 

[Xenozx]

Ive played Unreal tournament 2004 for many years, its the only online multi player game i have stuck with for the long haul. I play a lot of newer online FPS's too, and even UT 4 alpha, and every game feels different lol. Its kind of annoying.

One of the things Ive noticed, is there are many times where i am trying for a shot and I either over shoot or undershoot, and I feel like that is a case where somethings not right, either a setting or something. It really would be awesome if perfection could be achieved. In that case I would assume your accuracy should be close to 100% right? like IRL if your good with a pistol at 25 yards maybe your can hit within 2 inches on a target 95% of the time. well i would think the same would relate to videogames and going for that snap hs. if the person is within say 20 in game feet you should be able to reproduce a hairpin shot 95% of the time, but instead for the most part it feels totally random.

Now dont get me wrong, I average 35-50% most of the time, but im getting at, there are people who are probably much better than me, and I wonder if it really is a human difference and not a setting / mouse control issue.

probably just too many variables to come to a realistic answer.

 

[Armenius]

Ive played Unreal tournament 2004 for many years, its the only online multi player game i have stuck with for the long haul. I play a lot of newer online FPS's too, and even UT 4 alpha, and every game feels different lol. Its kind of annoying.

One of the things Ive noticed, is there are many times where i am trying for a shot and I either over shoot or undershoot, and I feel like that is a case where somethings not right, either a setting or something. It really would be awesome if perfection could be achieved. In that case I would assume your accuracy should be close to 100% right? like IRL if your good with a pistol at 25 yards maybe your can hit within 2 inches on a target 95% of the time. well i would think the same would relate to videogames and going for that snap hs. if the person is within say 20 in game feet you should be able to reproduce a hairpin shot 95% of the time, but instead for the most part it feels totally random.

Now dont get me wrong, I average 35-50% most of the time, but im getting at, there are people who are probably much better than me, and I wonder if it really is a human difference and not a setting / mouse control issue.

probably just too many variables to come to a realistic answer.

This is what mouse acceleration was supposed to help people with. If the user is moving the mouse slower then they must want finer control. Of course the problem with mouse acceleration is that the acceleration curve is often constant and doesn't take into account whether you're wanting to do a quick flick turn or move a few cm on-screen to get that headshot. And acceleration requires motion to calculate the acceleration rate.

That's what DPI helps you with. Lowering the DPI to 100 is only going to move that reticle 25 pixels when you move the mouse a quarter inch. If you're running at 800 DPI then all of a sudden you're moving 8x as much on-screen over the same physical distance. A finer scanning resolution combined with a higher polling rate will enable to make those fine adjustments without overshoot. But of course you're not going to want that fine control all the time. This is what I love about the G700S because it allows you to make those DPI adjustments in real time with the click of the button, and you can program how many steps each click takes.

 

[socK]

OK, so this is just a general thread i thought i would start about mouse control in games and the various settings that seem to effect it. What is the ideal setup for perfect mouse control in FPS's?

Some games already pretty much as close to perfection as you could possibly hope to get with mouse input.

Like, you have


windows settings, mouse driver settings (like use logitech setpoint instead of windows)
enhance pointer precision
Laser / optical
Acceleration
Mouse Smoothing
angle snapping
Poll rate (1000,125, etc)
144hz, 120hz, 100hz, etc (not even sure why this setting would effect mouse movement)
Mark C fix
cheese fix
CPL fix
different settings for XP, vista, 7, 8.1, and even 10 by default

Windows settings should probably ideally not affect games at all. Some (generally older) titles would get the mouse movement delta by locking your cursor to the center of the screen and with each frame, track how far you managed to move it. Since they were actually watching your cursor coordinates, stuff like pointer acceleration could end up applied, and if you ended up hitting the edge of the screen (framerate too low to reset it to the center before it collided or very high sensitivity) you effectively ran out of useful information and got negative acceleration.

A lot of games use the Raw Input API on Windows now. You literally just get how far the mouse traveled since the last time you checked, and so you dodge a lot of the weird issues.

The resolution you game at apparently changes the feeling, so same settings on 640x480 will feel totally different at 1920x1080.

If you do this, your implementation is absolutely broken. This should never happen for a camera, and it should be completely resolution independent (Like Quake, Source, etc). The camera should never turn X pixels, but instead X degrees.

Some games have settings like reduce mouse lag

Usually at the cost of performance, by doing things like forcing a pipeline flush and reducing the number of prerendered frames.

Then you have 100 different mices, from laser, to optical, with different settings and sensitivities. Use a razer laser mouse with the same settings as a logitech laser mouse, and the feel is going to be totally different.

So to end my post, my question is, in the last 10-15 years, how have we not perfected mouse control on the PC yet? I feel like it shouldn't be this complicated. You should be able to just sit and play, and not have to adjust and make sure 100 different things are setup perfect for you, and then how do you know your settings are the correct ones, and if you had them setup a different way, maybe your aim would be marginally better?

How does say fatal1ty's aim overshadow say the average FPS gamer by like 400% (fictitious # but 1 persons aim may be on a totally other level in comparison to someone elses, and im getting at could this be due to settings, or is it really a human person difference?

It shouldn't be very difficult most of the time. Find a comfortable sensitivity, line up with something in game, move across the pad in a straight line. Guestimate the rotation in degrees. Do the same in next game. Across my mouse pad is about a 270 degree rotation. New game, line up with something, spend a few minutes tweaking, done.

Also this exists
http://www.mouse-sensitivity.com/