Introduction
Many PC gamers view their mouse as an extension of their body. As we all know the mouse is the pinnacle of precision and accuracy in the gaming world, but have you ever seen a review of a mouse that measures performance of mice in a scientific manner? No, most likely because manufacturers do not want you to know. In fact many pro gamers who have their name branded on "gaming" mice do not even recommend or use their own products. I intend to write short, comprehensive guide dispelling myths and educating potential buyers of what they should look for in a gaming mouse. If you want to go into more detail you can click the links provided.
Mouse DPI/CPI
Quotes from Lewis6194's "The Truthful Mouse Guide" @ http://www.overclock.net/t/951894/the-truthful-mouse-guide
"DPI/CPI refers to dots per inches or counts per inches. It refers to the sensitivity of your mouse. However a very common misunderstanding about it is that DPI/CPI is a benchmark for how accurate your mouse is. This is wrong! DPI/CPI s just the distance your mouse cursor moves in relation to the distance your mouse moves in real life.""...Many gaming companies take advantage of this misunderstanding and often boast about their high DPI/CPI mice when they are actually overpriced garbage."
There is some proof of this, many of you with gaming mice can test this yourself by drawing lines in M$ Paint and switching your DPI/CPI settings. Nine times out of ten the lower DPI/CPI settings will be responding to your inputs more accurately. This is why you see many pro gamers, especially FPS pros, use low DPI/CPI settings.
Now another thing to consider is "Native DPI/CPI settings". These are the CPI values where the sensor is tracking every count without altering, or "throwing away" counts. Although this really doesn't matter a whole lot, if you're serious about your gaming, try finding your mouse's native CPI steps on the interwebs.
Mouse Acceleration
http://i.imgur.com/deEkIM1.jpg
Mouse acceleration generally makes movements inconsistent by changing how fast the mouse goes on screen in relation to how fast you're moving it in real life, many modern games have options allowing you to bypass all windows alterations to your mouse movement, but it's good to have no acceleration at all times. This is achieveable by downloading markc's fix here:
http://donewmouseaccel.blogspot.com/2010/03/markc-windows-7-mouse-acceleration-fix.html
Follow all the steps in the readme and you'll be good to go! Also remember to keep the windows pointer speed setting on the 6th tick or the fix will have no effect.
Perfect Control/Malfunction Speed
Quotes from Lewis6194's "The Truthful Mouse Guide" @ http://www.overclock.net/t/951894/the-truthful-mouse-guide
"These technical terms basically measure how precise your mouse actually is. The higher the speeds the better. Perfect control speed refers to the maximum speed at which your mouse tracks without any mouse acceleration. Malfunction speed refers to the maximum speed at which your mouse tracks any movement. A good list of the perfect control/malfunction speeds of mice is the ESReality Mousescore 2007. One factor which might affect the perfect control speed/malfunction speed of the mouse is it's polling rate. Polling rate is the rate at which the mouse updates and sends information about its movements/positions. Most gaming mice allow you to adjust its polling rate in the drivers."
This is something overlooked when shopping for a mouse, but obviously main reviewing outlets, the manufacturer's website, not even the back of the box tells you of these benchmarks. Reviewers get a pass though as testing a mouse to get these values scientifically would require some specialized equipment, as employed by pro Quake player Sujoy's 2007 Mouse Benchmarks (More details in the link):
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1265679
This benchmark is unfortunately quite outdated, but it goes to show you just how much more there is to a mouse than most people think. There doesn't seem to be any more of these kinds of benchmarks on the web unfortunately.
Optical Vs. Laser Sensors
Quotes from Lewis6194's "The Truthful Mouse Guide" @ http://www.overclock.net/t/951894/the-truthful-mouse-guide
"Probably the most misunderstood topic in my opinion (you can see people making these mistakes even in mouse reviews!). Many people assume that laser technology is superior to optical just because its newer. When in actual fact optical sensors are superior because they are more reliable and precise as they have higher perfect control speeds and higher malfunction speeds. I am pretty sure some random guy will come and scream "NO~~~ LASER MICE CAN TRACK ON GLASS, OPTCIAL CANT, LASER MICE FTW". Sure, your laser mouse tracks well on your window pane but simply fails on a cloth mousepad like the QCK. Anybody who owned a laser mouse would probably have noticed they are extremely particular about the surfaces they are on unlike optical. They tend to jitter alot on certain mousepads and just track randomly."
The information in Lewis's guide is sound, but again a bit outdated, some of the problems with laser mice on surfaces have been smoothed out. Many laser mice have also been proven to have seemingly random bouts of acceleration issues that can cause you to miss a crucial moment in whatever game you play.
Quote from Sujoy's MouseScore 2007 Benchmark
"In almost every mouse review I've read, the writer makes the automatic assumption that laser mice must be better than optical. I imagine it's down to the perceived firepower of each word. No one ever destroyed an Imperial Cruiser with an LED gun. The performance benchmarks show that todays batch of laser mice can't keep up with the finely tuned optical ones. They do have slightly higher resolution, but not enough to make up for their poor performance at speed."
It is almost certain that this is STILL the case 7 years later! Reviewers of mice have not employed methods to give a very important piece of OBJECTIVE information that is obviously very important when choosing a gaming mouse. (Linus please read this!!!)
Wired Vs. Wireless
While I was tempted to use the argument presented by Lewis, I feel the guide has shown its age once again. If you are not gaming competitively, a QUALITY wireless gaming mouse should be absolutely fine. Although for some reason it is hard to find a quality wireless optical mouse, so keep that in mind.
Other Important Considerations
Shape/Grip: How you naturally grip your mouse is important to your selection of a mouse. Going through this guide can help you find your grip style, and what shape of mouse you would prefer based on your style (This Razer-made guide is for educational purposes only, I am not trying to subliminally recommend Razer products): http://www.razerzone.com/mouseguide/ergonomic
Size: This is also subjective to your hand size, I would recommend sizing yourself up and comparing to manufacturer specs in order to avoid too big/small mishaps!
Weight: Once again, this is also subjective to your relative hand size, wrist strength, and personal preference.
Build Quality: You can try to get an idea of build quality by viewing pictures or reviews of a mouse you are interested in.
RMA/Customer Support: Mice are more prone to defects than most products, so if you notice something weird, or you get a dud, knowing the reputation of the mouse's manufacturer's support is good.
What To Ignore When Shopping For A Mouse
Quotes from Lewis6194's "The Truthful Mouse Guide" @ http://www.overclock.net/t/951894/the-truthful-mouse-guide
- DPI/CPI
- Professional Gamers "commenting" about a certain product. (They get paid and if they are answering honestly, they will likely not recommend their product)
- Reviews without proper benchmarking of the mouse. (Pretty much ignore what they have to say about the mouse's accuracy/precision, they do not objectively test this)
- Gold-plated USB connector (a gold plated usb connector and a normal 1 have the same speed/connectivity because its the internal components (same) that actually affects speed/connectivity)
Some Mice I Would Recommend
- Logitech G400s | Right-Handed Palm Grip, Large Size, Medium/Heavy Weight, "Perfect Sensor"
- Razer DeathAdder | Left/Right Handed Variants Palm Grip, Medium Size, Medium Weight, Great Sensor
- Corsair M40 | Right Handed Claw/Fingertip Grip, Medium/Smallish Size, Medium/Heavy w/Adjustable Weight System, Great Sensor
- Zowie AM | Ambidextrous Palm/Claw/Fingertip, Medium Size, Light, "Perfect Sensor", Very Low Lift-Off Distance
- Steelseries Rival | Right Handed Palm Grip, Medium/Large Size, Medium Weight, Very Good Sensor