optical mouse mousing surface

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Archived from groups: alt.games.unreal.tournament (More info?)

Thought I'd share a little something:

Occasionally, the question about which mouse is best for gaming comes up...
I've become partial to any old optical mouse even over my razor boomslang.
The 5 button microsoft intellimouse is a good choice... I have a four button
IBM that I like quite a bit... logitech makes a couple of really good
opticals...

Anyway, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine and I entered a bit of a debate
with each other about what is the best surface for an optical. We decided
to do some comparisons. I have a couple of 10" by 10" - $1.59 pads I
picked up at a Staples or somewhere like that. I like them because they are
big. My friend just uses the top of his desk (a light cherry-wood top)...

Well, we tried a few different colours of formica, and some different
textured surfaces, and some of the pads with wrist-rests, and four different
colours of wood desk tops, and perhaps half a dozen or more other things.
We tried cloth, lanolium (sp?), plastic, aluminum - you name it and in many
different textures and colours.

I ran across a review somewhere of the new Ratpadz GS. I had a few bucks in
my paypal account so I picked one up on Ebay. I doubted very much that any
surface was much better than another for an optical (though we did discover
lighter colors of any mousing surface adversely affected optical mouse
performance) Well, I'll never go back to a soft, cloth-covered mouse pad for
my optical mice. There really is a difference, and I'm very surprized at
just how much that difference is.

I had to turn down my mouse sensitivity in UT 3 full points. UT2k4 was a
full point. Other games were similar. The mouse glides on the GS almost
too easily and the texture of the surface seems to actually create a mousing
environment condusive to better performance. - As a test, I made a little
drawing in paint (for you windows users - Start - Programs - Accessories -
Paint) with a Microsoft Intellimouse 5 button from one of my large cheap
mouse pads... and I tried to draw the same little doodle/cartoon again from
the ratpadz GS. The second drawing was easier to make and I was at least
50% more acccurate creating freehand shapes and lines. -

If I could find drivers for the Microsoft that refresh about twice as often,
I think I'd never use anything but the combination of the intellimouse and
the RatPadz.

 

[Flash]

Archived from groups: alt.games.unreal.tournament (More info?)

§ï×darts wrote:
> Thought I'd share a little something:

Thanks, it's interesting.

> Well, we tried a few different colours of formica, and some different
> textured surfaces, and some of the pads with wrist-rests, and four different
> colours of wood desk tops, and perhaps half a dozen or more other things.
> We tried cloth, lanolium (sp?), plastic, aluminum - you name it and in many
> different textures and colours.

MDF?

Plain unfinished MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard, very popular in the uk
for home improvement shows) has an, to me, ideal resistence to my MS
Optical Wheelmouse and gives very good definition. I use a bit cut off a
6mm sheet approx twice as wide as a normal mousepad and a little deeper
- 'cos I was always falling off them. It's screwed onto my desktop.

Only downside is that it gets dirty after about six months and needs
turning over or replacing.

It's cheap and good.

--
Flash

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.unreal.tournament (More info?)

On 3 Oct 2004 16:42:34 -0000, UT_Master
<UT_Master@blackhole.riot.eu.org> wrote:


>I'm using a micro$oft wireless intellimouse explorer. I've got a
>wireless optical mouse blue that I like, even though it only has three
>buttons, but it eats batteries for breakfast.

Using the "force feedback" mode for purposes other than the intended?

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.unreal.tournament (More info?)

"§ï×darts" <sixdarts@hotmail.com> writes:
>Occasionally, the question about which mouse is best for gaming comes up...

Beware, this is a holy war issue.

>The 5 button microsoft intellimouse is a good choice... I have a four button
>IBM that I like quite a bit... logitech makes a couple of really good
>opticals...

My current recommendation is the logitech MX700. Great mouse, with lots of
buttons you can program your games for.

>Anyway, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine and I entered a bit of a debate
>with each other about what is the best surface for an optical. We decided

The only real requirement is that it be a non-reflective surface (no
mirrors) that has some sort of pattern that will be visible under the
extreme contrast-cranking that mice use. My office desktop, which is to the
naked eye untextured white formica, works fine with an optical mouse. Maybe
because it's a bit dirty.

>lighter colors of any mousing surface adversely affected optical mouse
>performance) Well, I'll never go back to a soft, cloth-covered mouse pad for
>my optical mice. There really is a difference, and I'm very surprized at
>just how much that difference is.

While I agree with you completely that there's no reason to use a cloth
mousepad at all anymore, there is one good thing about them. The
friction gives you a nice hand reference for how far and fast you're
moving. For twitch gaming I toss it, but when I'm doing something in, say,
photoshop, I always use one. It's also a softer surface to rest the meat of
your thumb on.

>If I could find drivers for the Microsoft that refresh about twice as often,
>I think I'd never use anything but the combination of the intellimouse and
>the RatPadz.

The good thing about some of the pads I've seen is that they use a
non-repeating pattern, which is a very good thing if you're flinging the
mouse around at high speed. You certainly don't need a mousepad to
accomplish that (the woodgrain on a desk is probably just as unique on a
square-inch basis), but the ratpadz do look nice. On the downside, they're
just a bit too slippy for me. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.