Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or GSYNC

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CrunchyBiscuit
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by CrunchyBiscuit » 14 Oct 2015, 09:21

Hey Falkentyne! Now I remember your name. Check out the thread below, it's mine :D Should have expected to meet you again at these forums, keen eyes I gather.

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).
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.
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).

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.
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.
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.

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.
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)
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.

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.

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CrunchyBiscuit
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by CrunchyBiscuit » 01 Jan 2016, 19:00

Hey again!

I'll be building myself a new system this year. I'm going full blast, not sure if I'm going G-Sync (nVidia) or FreeSync (AMD) yet, but it'll be one of those.

I'm probably a bit late to the party (didn't have much time for serious gaming/tweaking/upgrading last year), but I just read this:

http://rog.asus.com/370662014/gaming-ke ... ling-rate/

2.000 Hz polling rates, AWESOME! Naturally, I'll get one of those as well. I'm hoping it'll all work without problems and that 2.000 Hz is enough to overcome my neurosis :D

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lexlazootin
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by lexlazootin » 02 Jan 2016, 01:33

CrunchyBiscuit wrote:not sure if I'm going G-Sync (nVidia) or FreeSync (AMD) yet, but it'll be one of those.
Might wanna wait for the new AMD cards to be released.
CrunchyBiscuit wrote:2,000 Hz polling rates
I could be wrong but that just sounds problematic and unnecessary.

PoWn3d_0704
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by PoWn3d_0704 » 02 Jan 2016, 14:18

The ROG mouse sounds pretty decent.

It has a great sensor in it, but what we find sometimes is that super high poling rates lead to a sort of jitter that happens during tracking.

Lots of mice are able to run at 1000hz, and often have to be turned down to 500hz to prevent jitter.
Asus VG248QE with GSync. Blur Busters GSync Contest Winner.

flood
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by flood » 10 Jan 2016, 18:10

it doesn't lead to jitter
lower polling/report rates can mask jitter though. doesn't make it better, for the same reason that it's not better to use 60hz instead of 144hz

Sparky
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by Sparky » 10 Jan 2016, 20:51

Hmm, that mouse requires a custom driver. Though I wonder if normal drivers will work if you used a high speed usb interface instead of full speed. (supposedly bInterval is 125µs increments for high speed devices). Somehow I doubt it's actually implemented that way in the windows drivers.

furtsiv
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by furtsiv » 21 Jan 2016, 06:55

personally i prefer 500hz it seem flawless

flood
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by flood » 03 Feb 2016, 01:17

http://www.overclock.net/t/1589644/usb- ... ng-2000-hz
see post39 for pictures showing my wmo actually reporting at 8000hz. (i'm qsxcv)

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CrunchyBiscuit
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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by CrunchyBiscuit » 03 Feb 2016, 08:11

flood wrote:http://www.overclock.net/t/1589644/usb- ... ng-2000-hz
see post39 for pictures showing my wmo actually reporting at 8000hz. (i'm qsxcv)
Extremely interesting and very helpful post!

I understand that this method only works on Win10 so far? Or will it work on Win7?

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Re: Mouse 125Hz vs 500Hz vs 1000Hz visible when strobed or G

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 03 Feb 2016, 18:00

And..... Yep. I agree 1000Hz is not the final frontier.

I do tell the difference....but only barely....and only on strobed displays with Persistence set very low (<1ms strobes -- less than 1/1000th of a second)...and only in games where mouse microstutters becomes the weak link. Many game engines are so stuttery that this doesn't matter. But it does show up in older games that already runs super-smooth.

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I've updated the Blur Busters Mouse Guide to include this new info.

For 99% of people, 500Hz and 1000Hz is enough, but I can definitely confirm that it's not useless to go beyond 1000Hz....in certain circumstances.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

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