http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread. ... 525&page=3
Back on topic:
I'm currently using the G400s (Logitech), but I've literally tried pretty much every mouse released in the past 6 years (ranging from the larger part of Logitech's complete range to Deathadder's, SteelSeries', Zowie's, Roccat's, Cooler Master's, MadCatz', you name it).
I consider myself a hardcore mouse collector now (only because of trying to find a mouse with a proper filter, which doesn't exist).
Yes, you can achieve near perfection in terms of smoothness while playing at a polling rate of 125Hz @ 125fps @ 125Hz refresh. The closer you get, the longer it will take for the polling rate and refresh rate to misalign. This could even take more than a minute if the two values are very closely matching, but they WILL eventually misalign. Realignment will almost look like one missed frame every minute or longer (only visible while panning), depending on how closely the two values match. You might not have smoothing completely disabled in UT2004 (the old engine offers a very good mouse filter, one of the best - nearly no input delay and very adjustable, but the feature got removed in UE3).Falkentyne wrote:I just tested UT2004 at 125hz/125hz, vsync on @ 1440x1080 and mouse turning was just as smooth as keyboard turning, and no stutters. Felt perfect (didn't like the 8 ms input lag, though). But it was literally perfect.
I would not find the example above too much of a problem. One little mouse skip every minute or longer (which is only noticable when actually panning the view constantly) is tolerable I think. But many games won't run at 125fps on my system and I can't select a lower polling rate with any modern USB mouse. Also, many games are internally capped and timed at 60Hz.
I've noticed that the misaligment issue is most clearly visible while strafing and panning at the same time. Most UE games have another thing going on though. The player's movement update rate could also cause the unsmoothness you mention. Easy way to test this would be to walk or strafe with the keyboard, while also looking around with the keyboard (or an xbox controller, since its analogue input is natively filtered). If the keyboard/controller results are smooth, while panning with the mouse isn't exactly smooth, it means the misalignment issue is actually manifesting itself in your example. But if it also happens while playing with a controller or purely on keyboard, then it's not the misalignment issue but probably the player's movement update rate.Falkentyne wrote:it did feel slightly worse when I was using the keyboard and mouse at the exact same time, but when just turning it was flawless.
It could also be caused by a frame rate that is slightly higher than the refresh rate or v-sync target (make sure the fps is ever so slightly lower than the refresh rate to avoid the bulk of input lag and micro stutters, however, this will result in an accumulated missed frame every once in a while - personal tolerance levels may vary), which is a mute point when using G-Sync/FreeSync.
Yes, 'extremely smooth'. That's what I thought as well, until several years ago when my neurotic, over perfectionistic mind started to understand the issue. I've actually always noticed it in games using 'raw' input, but previously attributed it to shaky hands operating the mouse, imperfections of my eyes or something else. Until I fully understood the problem.Falkentyne wrote:500hz and 1000hz were still extremely smooth but not as perfect as 125hz was, but in no way was it noticable or distracting. I liked it and would definitely use it over 125hz (I could feel the input lag)
Reminds me of the days I used a PS/2 mouse, polling at 62.5Hz. I finally figured out how to force my monitor to display at 62.5 Hz and tried for ages to manually sync it with the polling rate, using a tool called PowerStrip. No matter how close I got, eventually the misalignment would rear its ugly head and make itself known with a mouse skip. When 1000Hz USB mice finally became widely available, I thought the issue would be solved. I was wrong. The skips became smaller and harder to see (especially on blurry flat panels), but are still there.
I currently mostly use 1000Hz because of the decreased input delay, but would be fine playing at a lower polling rate, as long as it's smooth. There aren't many options though, it's either 125Hz or maybe half (62.5Hz PS/2), but nearly none of my mice will let me adjust it in smaller steps (the SteelSeries offer a feature called ExactRate or something, but it never properly worked due to a lack of sync). I would actually prefer a lower polling rate, since higher polling rates (mildly) tax the CPU.
I've been struggling with this issue for the better part of my gaming carreer. There aren't really any options left, a global mouse filter seems to be the most reasonable and feasable option to me and will solve the problem in many games using different refresh rates and frame rates. Would prefer it to be system wide, but on a per engine basis is also good, as long as it just works. Not gaming competitively at the moment, so I don't care much for a slight input delay or a little lag, it's all about motion smoothness for me now.
Found another nice read: http://www.flipcode.com/archives/Smooth ... ring.shtml
Tried the demo too, works brilliantly. Too bad I can't inject it in any of my games.