mx1000 mouse fatal flaw

[herf]

Hello,

I am a big fan of Tom's Hardware, and normally I am not on the cutting edge of knowledge of anything technical, but here I think I clearly am, and would love your input on the issue, basically so people can have the best mouse possible, and so logitech will correct the mx1000 mouse report rate capability, so I can buy the new one : )


The mx510 with usbport.sys patch (addendum below) to increase report rate to 500mhz is FAR superior to mx1000.


The difference is quite stunning actually. I have read people saying the speed patch makes there mouse obviously smoother, I thought so to, but in the back of my mind the questions were: 1) maybe its really NOT smoother (which I doubted severely) and 2)maybe its not that much/significantly smoother.

First a bit of background. I am a huge logitech fan. I had a mouseman wheel, then bought the mx500, then the mx510, and now the mx1000.

The mx1000, uses a laser to form the pictures it takes of the surface, vs the usual LED, this results in a picture 20X more detailed per the logitech literature. All well and good.

The advantage of the usbport.sys speedpatch, quite simply, completely and obviously destroys any advantage the mx1000 has over the mx510. The mx1000 report rate is limited to 125hz even with speedpatch due to the transmission from mouse to mousebase is capped at 125hz, the mx510 with speedpatch achieves 450-500 average rate easily (one can patch to 1000hz as well).

I am sitting here with both mx510 and mx1000 installed on my computer at the same time, when i move the mx1000 the cursor is just obviously jerky, I mean really obviously jerky..... The mx510 is not, its smooth, there is basically no jumping of the cursor at all. Testing both of the report rates with mouserate.exe the mx1000 is stuck at 125, the mx510 is getting 450-500hz. Both mouse will move the cursor, both are active right now, the testing is done side by side, basically same speed.

If you are a serious gamer, or really like precise movements, do not buy the mx1000. Run the mx510 with the raziel usbport.sys speed patch at 500hz. The difference in smoothness is quite simply huge, obvious, significant, and I think undeniable.

This "test" I have done is very simple Tom's Hardware, but I think its basically irrefutable, unless I have screwed something up somehow, so please check this out!

If you have bought the mx1000 mouse, install the patch (I know little and did it, but as usual if it goes wrong, dont come to me) and try out your mx1000 mouse and your mx510 mouse mouse side by side....

Its the report rate I believe thats bottlenecking quality of mouse movements.
ADDENDUM:

http://www.warleagues.com/viewnews.asp?view=45

Page 2: The patch sequence
NB! This only covers WindowsXP, check the comments to see if someone had success with other Windows versions. The ppl behind Razer said they will make patches for windows2000 this year, with their Diamondback release.

Before you begin. It may have an affect on other usb devices, both positive and negative. So test with
only the mouse connected first, then try adding the other devices and see if they work. If they don't try decreasing the samplerate, or go all the way back to the original file. But noone wants to do that, once they feel the power of 500hz

1. Locate usbport.sys in %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers
2. Take a backup of the file, save it like usbport.BAK for instance.
3. Hexedit the file, locate this sequence of hex values: "3C 08 73 09 C6 86 0A 01", look in FAQ
if you can't find it.
(You can google for one, a lot of free hexeditors on the net. I used Hex Workshop 4.0)
4. It's found at different offsets depending on what usbport.sys version you got. non-SP/SP1/SP2
5. Replace that string with this one: "B0 04 73 09 52 8A 0A 01"
6. Save&reboot
7. Go into safemode (this is to avoid WFP), replace the patched usbport.sys in both
%SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers AND %SystemRoot%\System32\dllcache (hidden folder)
8. Reboot, and it should all work fine.
9. Back in WinXP, check samplerate, and you SHOULD notice the change. For the ones with total
blindness for such things; you will notice that sensitivity feels LOWER.
Other things: Better responsetime/less jitter/mouselag/whine from you.

And this is the 250hz patch.
500hz : "B0 02 73 09 52 8C 0A 01"
1000hz : *Removed*
500hz should be enough for all at this point.

As you notice, the second hex value defines the milliseconds. 1000hz is the highest samplerate possible.
Since the number is set with a whole number, and the lowest whole number is 1.

Mice and reported success:
Intellimouse Explorer 3 - 250&500hz&1000hz
Logitech MX300/310/500 - 250&500hz
Logitech MX510 - 250&450hz
Razer Viper - 250&500hz (doesn't fix the skipping)

By RaZiel

 

[Svarvsven]

The mx510 without usbport.sys patch can use 200hz instead of 125hz. Any "pro gamer" knows that and wouldnt play with anything less. I'm wondering why this fact wasn't mentioned in the original article in Toms Hardware.

If the mx1000 at least could do 200hz then I might try it, but plain vanilla 125hz? No thanks...

 

[Reubenrosa]

There is one Mighty flaw with your assertion.
And this is from someone who has been a hardcore mouser since the First RAzor Boomslang was released. I have owned that..
The Mx500,M510 and now the Mx1000.

I am absolutely happy with the mx1000. It is perfect for me.
And There is one big reason it is perfect for me.

Its wireless.

Thats right. How simple huh? Its better then the mx510 and its wireless.

End of story. I don't have latency. Its a nice weight for my hands.. the battery life is awesome and its a smoother glider then the mx510 is.

And I am a mouser who was used to playing with RAzer and the Mx510 with HIGHEST acceleration settings on.

And now I am adjusting to the highest settings with the mx1000.

Logitech has done a fantastic job.

 

[herf]

It would be better than the nonpatched mx510, but its simply not better than the patched mx510 in terms of on screen precision, end of story.

If you like wireless better, then thats certainly a factor, I think I would likely like the mouse better, I like the size, I do like the wireless aspect. But in terms of screen cursor/aiming movement, the patched mx510 has it beat hands down.

Try it out yourself, its quite easy to do, just install the patch, backup the usbport.sys, and you can have both mice running at same time, get the mouserate.exe program to test to make sure your running at the 500hz rate, then just move both mice at same speed across a white screen, the mx1000 cursor will skip across the screen, while the mx510 cursor will not.

Likewise, do the test where u strafe back and forth, and try and hold your game cursor constant on one spot, its easier with the patched mx510. This is more subjective that the previous test admittedly though.

 

[Reubenrosa]

Here are the important things I look at when I choose a mouse.

Does it fit my hands.
Is it Comfortable.
Does it offer things that my previous mouse could not.


The Logitech Mx1000 overs all these things over the mx510.
Its more comfortable for me.
I can still pull off the attack moves I did with the mx510 in UT2004 And now I Can pull even better moves because I don't worry about damn wires.

That is why Mx1000 is superior for me.

I Am just as accurate as I was with the Mx510 and now I am getting even better.

CAnned tests don't show anyone anything when it comes to reworld gameplay.

Its the 3dmark2005 argument again.

I Am not going to use a canned test to determine if a mouse is better when that canned test doesn't apply to the games I play.

IF everyone bought 3dcards based on 3dmark2005 scores there would be alot of disappointed gamers.

 

[herf]

yeah, I agree all those facts are important. In term of the test being "canned" or like the benchmark or what have you, I dont think its the same, but I cede thats debatable.

Basically in fps, you more or less have to put the cursor where you want in, we all know that.

Now with moving mouse medium to fast, the mx510 patched version appears smooth, ie the cursor appears to be advancing a like a pixel at a time. With the mx1000 medium and especially fast, the cursor is incrementally appearing, jumping pixels. So if one wants to put one cursor right on a particular pixel, say a long range shot, its simply going to be harder to do quickly with a mouse that when its moved kinda fast, doesnt really go over all the pixels.

The hand size, etc, etc, can certainly outweigh that. What other things besides button layout, size, and cordless does the mx510 offer? Those are all important things, personal preference wise, but there doesnt seem to be any advantage per se. Ie YOU like them better, others may not, as far as I know, all those things are a wash. Sure find a mouse that fits your hand. But those things, I am really not addressing per se. They are not charging 60-80 bucks for the mouse buttons and layout and size, they are charging that for purported better aiming ability, which compared to a patched mx510, it doesnt, to my limited testing, appear to do that.

I am just addressing the technical aiming ability, and there a patched mx510 beats a mx1000.

 

[El_Jefe_77]

I am using the thing right now. mine wobbles, I can RMA it i hear, but most likely i will wait for a shipment of new ones to come. This one was in the MAC department of the store, i.e., never seen by a soul, so therefore, first of the lot.

It wobbles. WTF? right? shouldnt, of course not, 2 dollar mice do not wobble, my c64 GEOS mouse does NOT wobble.

Besides that? Does a pathetically slow human hand with severely slow liquid wire (nerve) connection to the spinal cord actually require 200+ mhz?
NO.
not in the slightest. Unless im missing a very key point... Do we need a mouse that moves THAT well? yeah, and this does, really well, and yes I game and am normally at the top 1-3 of the 50 person plus servers that I play on. (hint, it aint the mouse that can't aim when getting shot at...)
it responds perfectly, and, if you have settings right on your mouse you need about 1 3/4 inches up down left and right to cover a whole screen, my 22 inch Diamond pro mitsubishi at 1600x1200 gets swept across fast, and if i have 2 more inches, i can do an easy 180 to swing my tank or whatever around. Also, I can pick up my mouse for over a second, actually over 2 seconds and plop it down and it tracts, tried it for a few minutes just now, nothing wrong.
The thing just has a wobble, it feels 100x better than any mouse there is to buy, (if there existed one that felt better, I would have bought it) its truly wireless and doesnt act strange, I used the logitech software, works great. It could be a problem with YOUR mouse. NO ONE writes into a forum complaining about their boomsling going bad or their logitech "click!" mouse dying, thats because no one normally cares about such posts. In general, the rule is: no one posts who likes something, maybe 1-2, the rest complain, this mouse was mass bought out, 1000's of geeks have it who complain about things like:
Stickers falling off
The mouse not tracking after holding it in the air for 3 days
75 mhz of speed difference when their eyes go at a rate of 0.07 mhz

Now the wobbling design is a flop, i can see how it happened during the last step of the manufacturing process.

Ed. Note:
I wonder if the poor, underpaid, near slave workers new about this, I guess we should sue them. Based upon reports on living, I am going to guess that those who assembled this are not given enough money to even buy a computer for their own house. strange, isnt it?

 

[Squid]

I bought one of these ( mx1000 ) very close to when it was released just out of courisity about it. It worked great for a few days. I mainly play old HalfLife mods ( DoD, CS ) and I was pretty happy with it. I'm not really that good ( being an old man ), but I hold my own, play with pretty high sensitivity and all of that jazz. After about a week or so ( the adjustment period ) I started noticing that effect that is described above, where it seems like it's jumping pixels. I plugged in my old IBM mouse ( which I really liked ) just to confirm it wasn't my imagination. I went out the next day and picked up a mx510. I'm pretty certain it's the mx1000 and not something with my setup. It seems like the cursor is just hopping around a few pixels left and right whenever I move diagonally. It's kind of like when you use a regular LED optical mouse on a bad serface ( wood grain reflective desk for example ).

Maybe I'll give it to somone for christmas, I don't think it would bother a non-gamer. I really like my new mx510 and I'm pretty sure whatever problem I encountered will be fixed in the next version ( if indeed I'm not imagining the whole thing ).

Squid

 

[Svarvsven]

El_Jefe_77 wrote:

---Begin Quote

Besides that? Does a pathetically slow human hand with severely slow liquid wire (nerve) connection to the spinal cord actually require 200+ mhz?
NO.
not in the slightest. Unless im missing a very key point...

---End Quote

Yes, a key point like we are talking about 125 hz, 200 hz and 500 hz for the mouse? Not 125 mega/million/zillion hz, 200 mega/million/zillion hz and so on?

Well, I think that freq stuff is techno mambo jambo detail and its the "whole package" we are comparing here. I dont have the mx1000 and I feel it could be interesting to try out. I've read some posts about that it "jidders around" and for such an expensive mouse...well, I'm not sure I want to try buying it until they come up with an explanation of what that could be.

I was just so excited that we where about to finally have a cordless mouse...but I guess we dont. Not yet. 🙁


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by svarvsven on 10/24/04 07:10 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[pagan666]

i have MS explorer and this MX 1000.

i had many troubles with MS op mouse, but now it works fine.

heres i found some basic tips around various web sites for optical mouse.

@wrong video driver can make your mouse crazy(happened to me with old Nvidia driver)

@Dont click on accelerator in mouse option. this might cause samething as above.

for MX-1000

@due to its high scan ability, extremely fast setting could cause some skipping.

@as optical, you might have trouble when accelerator option is enabled.

for me, medium setting is just fine in windows, and I can also adjust mouse sensitive in most games.

the reason i bought MX-1000 is not just because it has high
scan ability(which makes more accurate scanning).

it has new functions(horizonal scrolls), Lithium battery(long life, and very short recharging time), and it fits excellent in hand.

im being happy with my mx-1000


When Hell Is Full, The Dead Will Walk The Earth...

 

[Panther]

I bought an MX-1000 and I have a few questions/comments. First, I'm a big fan of Tom's Hardware, but I must admit that the review on the MX-1000 may have been too "all good", specially when I read all the complaints from users.

I've read complaints about wobbles, choppyness, surfaces problem, weight, but I experienced none of these. I generally like the mouse, but I'm having a hard time getting used to it in games like UT2004, where I use the 3 basic buttons, includind the wheel, at high speed. Right from the start, I must say that my previous mouse wasn't a "gamer" mouse, and was not from Logitech: it was an MS Intellimouse optical 5 buttons. Switching from one company to another may require to get used to it, but I wonder if anyone else experienced the same thing as I did.

What I dislike about the MX-1000 is the middle mouse button. You gotta PRESS the wheel too much, compared to ROLLING it. For me, it ends up in rolling it when I only wanted to press the wheel. In UT, it would make me switch weapons while I was jumping. It doesn't happen VERY often, but it may happen a few times during a game, while I had no problem at all with my Intellimouse. To me, the Intellimouse's wheel button has a better tweaking on that matter. I can also add that the NEXT button is hard to reach, but this can only be MY problem, with my hand! 😉

What is your opinion about this? Anyone else could compare those two mice? Does the MX-510 have similar "tweaks" with the wheel button?

My final words about the MX-1000 is that 3 members of our UT2004 clan bought the MX-1000 (including me), and here is what they think:
- One think it's too heavy and can't turn quick enough in games. Also, she couldn't program the buttons as she would like in the game: would have returned it, but threw away the packaging.
- Another one don't like the grip (makes his hand sweat), couldn't program the buttons he wanted in the game, he likes it for everyday surfing, but not as much for gaming. He doesn't think it's worth the money. He returned it, and bought a GE wireless 5 button optical mouse for $20. He likes that mouse very much!
- There is me. I don't know if I'll keep it. I'm trying to get used to it in UT2004, but if I keep on switching weapons accidently, I will return it.

So that's a bad average. Out of 3 people, 2 returned the mouse, or would have done so if possible, and 1 (myself) may return it...

The ironic thing about it is that I probably made a few persons buy that mouse, cause I suggested that purchase after reading Tom's review, but BEFORE I bought it myself...