OS X mouse acceleration: What works and what doesn't!

lamboman

Gawd
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
Messages
598
Hi all,

Considering that I've had problems with this and finally got it sorted, I will cut to the chase first, then explain. I'll post this on a few other forums as well, so you might see this elsewhere if you don't just hang here.

Mac OS X has built in mouse acceleration - itself, not a problem. However, there is no way to turn it off, and in Lion especially, the way in which the acceleration functions has changed, being described as scrolling through mud. You move the cursor slowly, it's too slow. Speed up to compensate, and you've moved too far.

If you don't want mouse acceleration, the app that I have found that works well, stops mouse acceleration, yet also allows high compatibility with many mice, is Steermouse. Supports my G5 DPI buttons for other functions, and most importantly allows me to completely kill acceleration (which was proving a PITA for gaming!).

Under the cursor tab, set tracking speed to 0, and decrease sensitivity to your desired speed. Simple!

USB Overdrive, from what I have found, doesn't allow you to completely kill acceleration off; it merely changes makes the acceleration curve more linear, as opposed to the cliff-edge of the standard acceleration curve.

ControllerMate works, but is overly large and complex, and is expensive.

The Mouse Acceleration pref pane doesn't work anymore (and hasn't for years), but this comment from a user sums up a way that has been going around the internet, but in reality doesn't really work:

User said:
Submitted by Mmm... on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:50
The following turns off acceleration completely in 10.6 Snow Leopard

1. Start Terminal App

2. run this to see the current settings for acceleration:
defaults find scaling

2. run the following commands in Terminal to disable acceleration;

For mouse:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1

For trackpad:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling -1

3. Log out an log back in.

to revert the setting go to preferences mouse/trackpad and set your settings by UI.
the default values for the above settings are 1.

The problem with this method is that it apparently gives you a slow mouse, and little control of your speeds other than that specified speed. While I haven't tried it as I found my fix first, it might work, so it's here for reference.

Hope this helps!
 
USB Overdrive was the only decent solution I found but it completely kills the functionality of my magic trackpad. :|
 
What's your point? Or is your point to just be trolling?

Seconded.

How come Windows PCs have a whole website with subforums for separate topics dedicated to them, in which everything related to Apple, no matter what it is, has to go into one subforum...? :rolleyes:

Anyway, Ankle, do give Steermouse a try, it's free for 30 days. A lot of users have reported that it that doesn't affect the trackpad at all.
 
I use a program called mousefixer. Doesn't screw up the trackpad like USB overdrive does and the acceleration issue is solved.
 
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