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Why does everyone hate mouse acceleration?

J

Jynio

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 6, 2004
Messages
232
Everyone always recommends turning off 'enhance pointer precision', and a zillion other hacks to get absolutely no acceleration. They always give the argument that the mouse should move the same distance no matter what the speed is, however, am I the only one that loves mouse acceleration for work and gaming? For example, say I'm playing Quake. With acceleration turned on, I get a lot more accuracy trying to rail someone at a distance, and at the same time, if someone appears beside me, I can quickly flick my wrist and spin right around. The same applies to general work; both accuracy and speed exactly when you need it. Now, don't mix this up with mouse smoothing, or whatever algorithms some of these games apply. That drives me crazy.

Are there any applications for controlling the mouse acceleration curve in windows? Aside from just turning it on and off, it would be nice to manually tweak the curve.
 
It's a matter of taste. If you've always used Mouse Acceleration, then you'll have no problem with it in games. Most of us never use it anyway, so naturally when it's forced in games it'll throw us for a loop.

It's similar to the Look Inversion preference.
 
its all to the person, ive never had to turn it off. but im sure if you tried it for a while then went back to a game with acceleration on again you'd be bothered by it.

I was the same way with AA, never noticed jaggies till i get a gpu that could handle them, now lack of AA bugs me in games lol.
 
depends on the game.. for arcade style games like quake it works great.. but when your playing a game that has correct size hit boxes then its better to have the acceleration off since you have better control.. honestly i hate mouse acceleration.. which is why i bought my razer lachesis so i can manually control my mouse speeds while im in the game.. im constantly changing the DPI settings on my mouse as im playing and even when im in the middle of a firefight with some one.. when you have the acceleration on(even if you turn acceleration off in a game windows has its own mouse acceleration which can still effect games) it exadurates the DPI changes.. to the point where i have to set my DPI as low as possible just so i can control my character otherwise he will spin around like a top if i have my DPI set at 2000 and mouse acceleration turned on..
 
Did they also tell you the following:

* lower your resolution because low resolution = more accurate?
* laser mouse sucks, optical mouse rocks!
* turn off vsync
* 100fps or go home
* REG REG REG, bullet registration!!!
 
It's counter-intuitive. Two centimeters of mouse movement should correlate to a rotation of X degrees, and X shouldn't change because you moved the mouse two centimeters more slowly or more quickly. I genuinely don't think the brain copes well when it's presented with so many variables it needs to take into consideration to just to perform a simple task.

Frankly, I have no issue with mouse acceleration and with people using it if they wish, but what I do take issue with is when it cannot be disabled.
 
phide said:
Two centimeters of mouse movement should correlate to a rotation of X degrees, and X shouldn't change because you moved the mouse two centimeters more slowly or more quickly. I genuinely don't think the brain copes well when it's presented with so many variables it needs to take into consideration to just to perform a simple task.
Click to expand...

I agree, I believe you will always improve your aim and consistency of being on point every time if you disable mouse acceleration (removing one variable from the equation).

Also agreed that the only time it's bothersome is when it can't be disabled.
 
I use it in Quake Live. I would use it every FPS game if it was implemented as well as it is in QL.
 
Jynio said:
Everyone always recommends turning off 'enhance pointer precision', and a zillion other hacks to get absolutely no acceleration. They always give the argument that the mouse should move the same distance no matter what the speed is, however, am I the only one that loves mouse acceleration for work and gaming? For example, say I'm playing Quake. With acceleration turned on, I get a lot more accuracy trying to rail someone at a distance, and at the same time, if someone appears beside me, I can quickly flick my wrist and spin right around. The same applies to general work; both accuracy and speed exactly when you need it. Now, don't mix this up with mouse smoothing, or whatever algorithms some of these games apply. That drives me crazy.

Are there any applications for controlling the mouse acceleration curve in windows? Aside from just turning it on and off, it would be nice to manually tweak the curve.
Click to expand...

I don't want to sound like a dick here but... you clearly don't know how much better it is to not have mouse acceleration.

Maybe if you went to Apple's OSX operating system you'd understand how poor mouse acceleration is. Apple uses some horrific mouse acceleration curves and they don't even provide any way to disable it. Probably the only reason why I refuse to use OSX as my primary operating system on my MacBook.

Mouse acceleration is just such a poor idea for those who require precision of any sort. My hands already accelerate accordingly to the situation at hand, I don't need some outside influence further interfering with what I do in an attempt to "help me along". The bottom line is, those who require precision want the computer to interpret their input as closely to the movements they make in reality as possible. It isn't even just mouse acceleration, I've altered the USB driver files to alter the polling rate on my system from the default (terrible) 125 hz to 500 hz. It DOES make a difference and I can clearly tell when a system is running 125 hz.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think people should be excluding mouse acceleration, because I know people who genuinely need it for one reason or another. But then again, those people tend to be those who find it necessary due to some physical condition and are happy to be able to use a computer at all, let alone play a game competitively and pull off headshot after headshot in a game. It's just that there's a problem when a game or operating system doesn't let you choose to turn it off.
 
xSnowmaNx said:
My hands already accelerate accordingly to the situation at hand, I don't need some outside influence further interfering with what I do in an attempt to "help me along". The bottom line is, those who require precision want the computer to interpret their input as closely to the movements they make in reality as possible.
Click to expand...

Thats pretty much how I am, my hands already know what to do and acceleration just gets in the way. If I had always played with accel on I would probably be used to it.

No accel leads to quick wrist flicking to make up the distances, which I believe caused the optical vs laser issue. Early laser sensors could lose track, I dont have that problem now in the G9x though.
 
Stiletto said:
You're still playing Quake?
Click to expand...

Whats wrong with that? I still play QuakeWorld all the time.

I hate mouse acceleration and smoothing, it just feels awkward. It makes precise movements on the mouse feel inaccurate.
 
xSnowmaNx said:
Maybe if you went to Apple's OSX operating system you'd understand how poor mouse acceleration is. Apple uses some horrific mouse acceleration curves and they don't even provide any way to disable it. Probably the only reason why I refuse to use OSX as my primary operating system on my MacBook.
Click to expand...

Yup. I can't stand using a mouse in OSX. It always throws me way off. Luckily I love the multitouch touchpad on the MacBooks and never feel the need to use a mouse.
 
i turn mouse acceleration off because i want full control over my mouse, i dont want something else interfering with my movement/aiming
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
Did they also tell you the following:

* lower your resolution because low resolution = more accurate?
* laser mouse sucks, optical mouse rocks!
* turn off vsync
* 100fps or go home
* REG REG REG, bullet registration!!!
Click to expand...

AND they're right ( except the lower resolution part, sharpness > smoothness in my book )

0 or close to zero mouse acceleration is vital, i've been using mouse fixes since 2004 and I just can't go back, using accelfix20060417 by anir on XP SP2 and cheese moufix on windows 7 atm

Btw the only decent mice for low sensers are : Qpad 5K - steelseries Xai - logitech g500 - g9x, too bad that they all suffer from a little bit hardcoded positive mouse acceleration from what i read http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1767295
 
Because doesn't feel like precise movement, it feels as though my pointer is lagging behind my movements.
 
xSnowmaNx said:
Maybe if you went to Apple's OSX operating system you'd understand how poor mouse acceleration is. Apple uses some horrific mouse acceleration curves and they don't even provide any way to disable it.
Click to expand...
You can use USB Overdrive to disable the acceleration curves in OS X or use vendor-specific drivers with your mouse.
 
phide said:
You can use USB Overdrive to disable the acceleration curves in OS X or use vendor-specific drivers with your mouse.
Click to expand...

It doesn't fully eliminate mouse acceleration. And I'd rather not have to have the trouble with dealing with a pop up every time I start nor pay for a program I shouldn't have to buy.
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
Did they also tell you the following:

* lower your resolution because low resolution = more accurate?
* laser mouse sucks, optical mouse rocks!
* turn off vsync
* 100fps or go home
* REG REG REG, bullet registration!!!
Click to expand...

What's the point of this post? Those are all correct.
 
I'm sure it's already been said, but I think it's all to do with consistency. A situation where cursor distance traveled varies with mouse movement speed is a system with at least one more variable than you have with fixed proportionality. More variables to consider means more distraction and less consistency. Mouse acceleration harms one's ability to form rigid, predictive muscle memory. Imagine, if you will, driving a car with steering acceleration. You would have no faith/confidence in your driving!

Sure, people can and do get used to it, but I don't really consider it a setting of taste; I consider 1:1 mapping to be an unquestionably better and more reliable situation.

What bothers me the most is that acceleration was effectively an introduction of a more complex, sophisticated, and unnecessary mouse movement system that just made things worse.
 
First I have heard of people hating it really. BITD we used to always use acceleration.
Edit - Are you talking about window acceleration or game? I never use the windows one, just game.
 
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Because if you use a high DPI mouse with acceleration on Windows becomes annoying to use. The mouse simply moves too fast.
 
Pure taste in my book, but I think reaction time (aiming, not so much seeing) is important. Someone with a slow look speed is *probably* not going to be able to pull off a clutch move like someone with a high look speed.

Funniest thing in the world is when people get on my computer and can't find the cursor. Not because it's off the screen, but because it moves faster than they expect to see it, lol.

As for acceleration, I wouldn't want it to speed up with no change in the speed of my hand movements at all.
 
Mathematically speaking, it adds another level of complexity to the motion of the mouse. Not only are the pointer dynamics a function of how fast the mouse moves with acceleration on, but there is also some kind of mathematical dependence on the acceleration of the mouse.

For practical purposes, it is simply unintuitive.
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
Did they also tell you the following:

* lower your resolution because low resolution = more accurate?
* laser mouse sucks, optical mouse rocks!
* turn off vsync
* 100fps or go home
* REG REG REG, bullet registration!!!
Click to expand...

Sounds like a damn good list to me!
 
Performing calculus on top of whatever other calculations I may be doing at the time kinda gets in the way of the genocide.

You need to look at the difference between high versus low sensitivity gaming styles.



I have two levels of DPI on my Logitech G9 laser mouse: 1,600 and 3,200

10 ( max ) speed with 0 acceleration.

1,000 ( max ) report rate


My mouse is like a Samurai sword and nobody can seem to use it at 3,200 so I can switch to 1,600 DPI ( which I use for sniper mode in games ).

I play at 1680 x 1050 resolution on a SyncMaster 215 TW.

@ 3,200 DPI I only need to move my mouse half a cm to go from the centre of the screen to the right edge, horizontally.

The complete opposite of this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hBJjRguDsI
 
I prefer mine on Low. I've tried to turn it off but I am then forced to increase the sensitivity to the point that I miss-click on stuff. I already run fairly high sensitivity as it is (it's funny to see the normal office people try to use my mouse at work...zipping all over the screen).

IMO with no mouse acceleration the amount of space I have to move the mouse on the desk is not ergonomically acceptable (too much left to right motion, or requiring picking up the mouse ridiculousness).

This is important to me because I've had tendonitis before. I am scrupulous about proper ergonomics when using a computer now.
 
Its because no matter how much it feels like mouse acceleration improves your accuracy, it actually makes the movement slightly unpredictable.

Though the human brain is good at extrapolating where a moving object probably will be, it won't be exact. Its much easier to get used to a fixed amount than have to deal with the added complexity(as other posters have mentioned) of calculating where your mouse will be.

put it this way:
velocity = distance / time
acceleration = distance / time²

(well technicly those values include a direction too, but whatever)
 
just think in real life, do you have point acceleration when aiming a gun?
its unnatural
 
SoFGR said:
Btw the only decent mice for low sensers are : Qpad 5K - steelseries Xai - logitech g500 - g9x, too bad that they all suffer from a little bit hardcoded positive mouse acceleration from what i read http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1767295
Click to expand...


i hope you are meaning only decent laser mice for low sens players, because you have forgotten the 4 optical mice that are perfect for low sens players.

3.0
mx518
deathadder
ikari optical

the difference (and price) between my 1st gen G5 (the orange/rusty one) and my mx518 is just night and day for me. Im a low sens player and i gave up playing ut2k4 on my g5, until i got my 518. and the price was literally half that of the g5
 
It does not feel like I am connected to the game with it on, feels like I move then I have to wait for it to happen like I am trying to run on ice, takes a moment but then it happens.

I like turning it off for a 1:1 movement. With it on I get confused trying to compensate for it and it just does not work.

Certain games I can live with it, but most games I have to kill it.
 
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