Attn: Mouse Experts

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by nickwsu, Feb 27, 2006.

  1. nickwsu

    nickwsu Private First Class

    I need someone to put this issue to bed for me. This argument is about wired vs. wireless.

    First of all let me just say that I personally cannot tell a difference, but some people will swear that wireless mice (ex. G7) have a "lag" time that is not present in wired mice (ex. G5), therefore making the G5 the superior mouse.

    If someone out there who knows their mice could provide some insight into this matter that would be great.

    I am not looking for an opinion, but rather some numbers and simply a way to quantify the "lag time" a wireless mouse may have. (report rate may be the appropriate stat iirc)

    Lets say there is a lag time, how big of a difference is actually noticeable to a user? like would a RR of 1000 be a noticeable difference over 500?

    I have an MX1000 that gets dogged on alot for being a) a hand-mouse and b)this supposed lag time. Different people like different styles and I like a heavier mouse that fills the hand, but can you really say my wireless is not as responsive as your G5/copperhead?

    Thanks I would appreciate if someone could shed some non-opinion light on this argument for me.
     
  2. Jazagod

    Jazagod Command Sergeant Major

    think it depends on your gaming needs, from what I have read thats the only lag complaints about wireless mice.
     
  3. Colemanguy

    Colemanguy MajorGeek

    Another big complient about wireless mice, is in a lan environment if you get to many wireless mice/keyboard devices can interfer with each other.
     
  4. nickwsu

    nickwsu Private First Class

    So you are saying you have read lag complaints from people who game with wireless?

    I have also read a ton of complaints, which led me to post this question. But what about evidence?

    Lets face it, some gamers are elitists, especially when it comes to their hardware, more times than not I suspect that these complaints come from people who have a G5/copperhead or whatever and swear they are better becuase they (with their uber skills) can tell the difference (while your noob recepters are not quite sensitive enough). Or they get owned while using one and say it sucks, has lag, too heavy, blah blah.

    Again, I have never noticed a difference, and cant imagine i would be able to if I had the two mice side by side, but yet the critics are out there....
     
  5. Jazagod

    Jazagod Command Sergeant Major

    LOL , I agree with you on this, I cant tell, and i have both, but that is what they say. What would we do without critics?:confused:
     
  6. Orbital57

    Orbital57 Private First Class

    Biggest reason that people complain about the MX1000 is that to save energy it turns itself off quite quickly. If you're playing an FPS and trying to take pot-shots at people with a sniper rifle then it may turn off and have that tiny lag as it turns on again next time you move it....

    Personally if that's the biggest complaint that people can find then I'm with you, it's 'Uber Gamer' one-upmanship. Personally I hate wires and love the smooth feel of the movement from my MX1000. :)

    So to answer your question more directly, yes there is a measureable lag. But there's a differrence between an Athlon 64 3500 and a 3700, doesn't mean the user is ever likely to notice unless they're looking at benchmarks and see the 1% improvement...
     
  7. splitt3r

    splitt3r You are now the victim of a drive by title change

    cheap wireless mice can lag, I haven't really heard anything bad about the G7 though, Iam using an mx518(wired) right now.
     
  8. ~Pyrate~

    ~Pyrate~ MajorGeek

    I have a razer diamondback, now while it's the fastest mouse I've ever used and I really like the feel over anything logitech has, the clincher for me is the mappable buttons. Maybe the logitech G5/7 whatever, has mappable keys, I don't know, but I haven't seen anything about it on their website. Mappable keys even have uses outside of a gaming environment.

    Now, I don't trust wireless as far as I can throw a horse, I just don't like the idea of remembering to charge it all the time. It must be a royal pain if you're in the middle of a game and your mouse just runs out of batteries. I know it's splitting hairs but a wireless mouse can only poll as many times as the wireless transceiver/reciever can. I forget the numbers off hand but I'm quite sure wireless mice can only do 125Hz(Mhz?) while wired can do 500Hz(MHz?), now the copperhead is supposed to do 1000Hz, but I don't know how since I think that's impossible as the USBs frequency doesn't run that fast, but whatever. Most mice do like 16ms? or so, but the copperhead does 1ms latency. I don't know how much real world performance this gives you, but I'm sure that's a much lower latency than any wireless will give you.
     
  9. splitt3r

    splitt3r You are now the victim of a drive by title change

    The g7 has a battery life meter right on it and rechargeable li-ion batteries, i belive you can buy extra batteries too.
     
  10. viper_boy403

    viper_boy403 MajorGeek

    i dont know if its true about all wireless mice but ive teird my friends microsoft wireless, dont know what model, and there is a slight lag present. As far as other mice go I really cant tell the difference between a $20 mouse and say a razer copperhead or logitech g5. You must have to be really obsessive about your games if you think a better mouse will get u more frags. I still kick @$$ with my $15 cool-blue-light-up microsoft mouse :p ;)
     
  11. splitt3r

    splitt3r You are now the victim of a drive by title change

    I noticed a huge difference between my MS optical wheel mouse v1.1 and my mx518:)
     
  12. nickwsu

    nickwsu Private First Class


    I checked the copperhead on newegg, says that its 1000mhz and 1ms whereas other "gaming mice" are 125mhz and 8ms. then I checked the g5, which didnt provide frequency or response time, but rather report rate, which they said was 500 reports/second.

    that makes it a bit difficult to compare, I'll try checking toms hardware later today, they may have something.
     
  13. ~Pyrate~

    ~Pyrate~ MajorGeek

    http://www.rodcad.be/N_frame.html?http://www.rodcad.be/N_art_915.html

    From that link I'd gather that the G5 would be a 2ms latency. Again, splitting hairs... Also, you need a hack to get 500Hz pollng(I'm thinking that's the same as 500 reports/second as hertz is the number of times something cycles from on to off) I got this hack from nlite when I installed windows, I'm sure you can find it on the net somewhere, but here's a quote from logitech:

    http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2464,CONTENTID=10715

    So it seems unless you have this hack a G5 will run at the same latency as any other 10$ mouse out there.(assuming you're using winXP) But I don't know if logitechs drivers will prevent it or not.
     
  14. thesunscreen

    thesunscreen Specialist

    Ok so Not a big gamer, but I had a logitec duo scroll mouse, and never noticed even a slight lag. Also I have a labtec wireless usb, and same thing not even a trace of a lag. Good luck
     
  15. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    Apples to oranges, as far as I am concerned. You guys are comparing a Razr mouse, which is optical, to a laser mouse, which is, well, laser.

    Laser more accurately tracks.

    I dumped my MX1000 not due to its accuracy, but due to ther jerkiness of wireless. It was there on the 1000, plain as day. It is not on my 518, even at the lowest DPI. I've not found one wireless mouse that does not do that.
     
  16. nickwsu

    nickwsu Private First Class



    I think its saying that it will only limit the report rate for win 9x/ME. Xp users should get 500/s.

    @Adryn - I havent noticed any jerkiness, what kinda pad were you using? Laser is supposed to track way better than optical, on everything but a mirror (and glass i think). Maybe it was a defective mouse?
     
  17. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    I'm using an Everglide pad.

    I've noticed it in every wireless mouse I've ever had. If you slowly move tghe mouse cursor across the screen, it tends to "jerk" along the way. With my MX500 and 518, it was/is quite smooth. This is outside of games mind you. Inside, I'd daresay the difference between it and wired counterparts was nil.
     
  18. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    I was looking at the G5 URL, those adjustable weights seem pretty cool.

    Indeed, it appears Pyrate misread the report rate info.
     
  19. nickwsu

    nickwsu Private First Class

    Ok, I see what you are saying now about the jerkiness. I have always attributed that to thinking my hands could not move that smoothly and it was just picking up the jerky movement of the hand. (I think its pretty much impossible for me to have my hand be perfectly still you know?)

    I havent tried an mx518 but if that jerkiness goes away, it might be worth looking at.
     
  20. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    I agree some of it must be attributed to the hand, too. Its just, IMO, the corded mice with high DPI close the gap on the jerkiness, although not entirely.
     
  21. nickwsu

    nickwsu Private First Class

    Okay, so I guess we can conclude this by saying that technically there is a difference in latency (or jerkiness even :) ) between wired and wireless, but by a negligible amount (for all intents and purposes) and the larger factor is probably going to be whatever feels/works the best for you personally.

    As Pyrate said earlier... splitting hairs... but hey, I was curious what the actual difference was.

    Thanks for the responses all.
     

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