Hello there, so as the title says i would like to have a talk about gaming mice and well mice in general, i used to think that it was no use having a fancy gaming mouse with all of those RGB lights and shit. But like 3-4 months ago i got introduced by Freak into this interesting gaming mice world, since i have always used to play with an old logitech office mouse for all games and well the perfomance wasnt the best sometimes.
I would like to know your thoughts about mice in general, how much you care about DPI, sensors, shape, design, brand etc or perhaps if you dont care about having a good gaming mouse at all, and you have enough with your average office mouse for casual gaming.
There are many things that can make a gaming or normal mouse being good or bad, and there are other things that may get confusing when it comes to gaming mice so im gonna post a few tips i got thanks to Freak and over the internet that helped me a lot.
General and basic stuff about mice
-DPI - dots per inch - basically, this describes the sensitivity of your mouse. When you move your mouse, it detects how much you have moved it, and moves the cursor accordingly. The more DPI you have, the less movement is required to move the cursor the same amount.
-Acceleration - If a mouse has acceleration, it means that as you move the mouse faster, it will move your cursor faster. For example, lets say if I move my move one inch in one second, the cursor will move 500 pixels. With acceleration, if I move my mouse one inch in half a second, the cursor may move 750 pixels. Some people like acceleration, others don't. If your mouse comes with this feature, there is usually a way to enable/disable it.
-Polling Rate/Response time - The polling rate for a mouse is how many times per second it sends information to your computer. A 1000Hz polling rate will send 1000 updates to your computer per second. This means your mouse has a 1ms response time, or it sends one update per millisecond.
Things we should look into for our gaming mice.
- DPI and the ability to switch between different DPI settings - a high DPI allows for quick and precise movement while gaming. The ability to quickly change your DPI settings allow you to be more accurate when you need to be for example when zooming in with a sniper. For most people a DPI from 400-1200 works best. Though, some mice can go up to 5000 DPI or more.
- Mouse sensor - Nowadays you could find top-tier sensors in almost all good mouse brand and manufacturers. Most of these top-tier sensors(if not all) are developed by Pixart Imaging Inc, there is a large list of good sensors but i would recommend to look for PMW3310, PMW3325 but i would highly recommend the flawless sensor PMW3360 and many of its variants like PMW3366, PMW3389, or its variants from top-notch brands like razer, logitech, corsair, ROCCAT etc.. (Razer 5G sensor, Razer Focus+, Hero sensors from logitech etc). But as i said there any many variants but i would go for the ones stated above.
- Customizable buttons - A lot of gaming mice have extra buttons you can program to do whatever you want, some mice only have one or two buttons, while others may have 10 to 12.
-Wireless vs. Wired - This almost comes down to personal preference, however, most mice work better when wired. Also there's no need for batteries with a wired mouse. Side note: unlike keyboards, there isnt any advantage to using a PS/2 mouse over a USB mouse. Most mice today are USB mice.
-Response Time - Generally, a response time for 1-2ms is good. 4-8ms is perfectly fine for general use, but for gaming, this is somewhat of a disadvantage, as you can't react as fast with longer response times.
-Laser vs Optical - The main difference between both is the way both types of mouse track different surfaces and use different technology to track movement, but its well known that Laser sensors have nothing to do agaisnt modern Optical sensors. I recommend you to go for Optical instead of Laser always. There is nothing much left to say since Laser sensors are quite obsolete for gaming, so i will skip this point already.
Other minor points.
-Ergonomic Design - This means that the shape of the mouse is designed to fit your palm. The ergonomic shape is generally good for palm grippers, while claw and fingertip users won't mind a non-ergonomic mouse as much.
-Surface - If you're going to be spending certain amount of money on a mouse, you want to make sure that it actually works the way you want. Check that mouse will work well with whatever surface you will be using it on, or buy a gaming mouse pad. I've heard good things about the Steelseries QcK, but that discussion is for another thread.
-Braided Cable - Most gaming mice today come with a braided cable. This ensures that your cable wont get tangled up. Non-braided cables are usually fine, but are also less durable.
-Top-notch manufacturers/Brand - Logitech, Corsair, Razer, ROCCAT, Steelseries, Cooler master, Zowie and there could be many others but I think these that are stated above could be a right choice.
This was a little list with basic stuff you should take into consideration before buying any gaming mice/mouse, and of course we could do further discussions about other points or what shape or sensor is better. But this thread was meant to be for helping those members of this community that may not know a lot bout this topic and of course for those that also have a good knowledge of gaming mice to share their thoughts and their opinions.
So feel free to post what is your opinion about gaming mice, which one you own, which one you would like to own or perhaps you have any doubt and you need some help.
Thanks in advance.