500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

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BlazeGaming
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500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by BlazeGaming » 12 Feb 2018, 21:21

I just pre-ordered the new FinalMouse Ultralight Pro, but I found out it can only do 500hz pooling rate. Could anyone explain what are the disadvantages in terms of input lag and other perceivable things compared to a 1000hz? I use a 240hz monitor.

Sparky
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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by Sparky » 12 Feb 2018, 23:08

There's an additional 0.5ms of average input lag an 1ms of variation in input lag, compared to 1000hz. In game it's probably only noticeable statistically, though you may be able to notice the beat frequency effect on cursor movement. Every 25 refreshes there will be two refreshes with an extra poll worth of motion thrown in, instead of 4 refreshes with the extra poll at 1khz(though half as severe)

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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by BlazeGaming » 13 Feb 2018, 10:41

Sparky wrote:There's an additional 0.5ms of average input lag an 1ms of variation in input lag, compared to 1000hz. In game it's probably only noticeable statistically, though you may be able to notice the beat frequency effect on cursor movement. Every 25 refreshes there will be two refreshes with an extra poll worth of motion thrown in, instead of 4 refreshes with the extra poll at 1khz(though half as severe)
Thank you, so from a scale from 1 to 10, how much am I cucking myself for getting 500hz only?

Its mind boggling in 2018 they don't release all mice with 1000hz, high end mice that is.

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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 13 Feb 2018, 10:58

BlazeGaming wrote:
Sparky wrote:There's an additional 0.5ms of average input lag an 1ms of variation in input lag, compared to 1000hz. In game it's probably only noticeable statistically, though you may be able to notice the beat frequency effect on cursor movement. Every 25 refreshes there will be two refreshes with an extra poll worth of motion thrown in, instead of 4 refreshes with the extra poll at 1khz(though half as severe)
Thank you, so from a scale from 1 to 10, how much am I cucking myself for getting 500hz only?

Its mind boggling in 2018 they don't release all mice with 1000hz, high end mice that is.
It's really hard to say.

500 Hz can have extremely good positional accuracy.

The best 500 Hz mice can outperform a common 1000 Hz gaming mouse.

But we've got a problem: Refresh rates converging on mouse poll rates.
It's just not always enough positions-per-second for 240Hz monitors especially when you're playing games that can blast-out more frames than mouse polls per second -- e.g. CS:GO will have some frametimes less than 1/500sec.

What you will need to do is try out all the favourite gaming mice and figure out if the quality of the 500 Hz sufficiently outweighs the lack of 1000 Hz. Also, some 500 Hz mice can be overclocked to 1000 Hz with no problems so in theory you could try doing the same with this mouse, too.

Also, in Windows desktop use, you will notice a very noticeable 10 full-jump mouse-skips per seconds when doing things like dragging around a window (e.g. 10 microstutters per second during VSYNC ON operation) since 500 MOD 240 = 10. 250 is a harmonic frequency of 500, and 250 MOD 240 is 10 beats a second on the harmonic. So for a specific mouse movement speed, if your mouse cursor moves at 10 pixels per refresh cycle during window dragging, you'll see about ten times a second that the window dragging jumps forward a few extra pixels (e.g. 15 or 20 pixels) instead of 10. Which means 10 microstutters a second.

This matters less for VSYNC OFF gaming, but as we know, CS:GO runs at really high framerates. As CS:GO modulates through the harmonic framerates (e.g. 166fps, 250fps, 333fps) of the mouse poll rate, there might be mousefeel variances. If your framerate is consistent, then 500 Hz may not matter much but if your framerate fluctuates all over the place, you don't want harmonic-frequency and beat-frequency effects affecting your aim.

Look at the divisor framerates (harmonics) that you typically fluctuate through. Distant harmonics like fifth-order harmonics (e.g. 100fps with 500Hz mice) will have no noticeable effects, but close harmonics such as second-order harmonics definitely has mousefeel problems (e.g. 250fps with 500Hz mice).

As your VSYNC OFF game varies in framerates, you're fluctuating through those second-order, third-order and fourth-order harmonic framerates when playing CS:GO which can easily achieve 166fps (third-order harmonic of 500Hz) and 250fps (second-order harmonic of 500Hz) and you will have amplified beat-frequency microstutter effects from the mouse poll rate. Worst at beat-frequency (e.g. 498fps @ 500Hz poll, since 500/2 = 250), bad at second-order harmonic (252 fps @ 500 Hz poll), tolerable at third-order harmonic (e.g. 165fps @ 500 Hz poll since 500/3=166.6), etc, etc.

At 10 pixels per frame mouse movement speed, framerate slightly different from a given harmonic:
Beating near full frequency (500), microstutter amplitude is full frame-jump (e.g. 10-10-10-20-10-10-10 pixels)
Beating near second order harmonic (250), microstutter amplitude is half frame-jump (e.g. 10-10-10-15-10-10-10 pixels)
Beating near third order harmonic (166), microstutter amplitude is third frame-jump (e.g. 10-10-10-13-10-10-10 pixels)
etc.

I also saw a similar effect with 1000 Hz mice on my 480 Hz monitor tests. The closer a mousepoll gets to refreshrate, the bigger the mouse microstutters become on the harmonic-effects and beat-frequency effects.

That's why you need overkill mouse Hz. You prefer a 2000 Hz mouse (if it has great positional accuracy) with 240 Hz monitors, ideally. But sensors do degrade in positional accuracy at higher mouse Hz. That's why some eSports mouse manufacturers prefer to do 500 Hz, because of the insanely good positional accuracy. But that doesn't help us 240 Hz monitor users too much! And such mice will be crap for 480 Hz monitors.

So, you gotta keep mouse Hz well above display Hz, especially if you're dealing with precision (e.g. strobing, VSYNC ON) or dealing with massive framerate fluctuation (e.g. VSYNC OFF causing framerates to go towards/away from harmonic frequencies)

I wonder if this is an additional factor why very certain eSports players have reported mousefeel problems with 240Hz monitors too (lag is part of it, but not the whole story -- it's a very complex and multilayered apparently -- with many causes layering upon each other)

TL;DR: Your mileage will vary with 500 Hz mice on 240 Hz displays. But why do mouse manufacturers stay that low?
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BlazeGaming
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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by BlazeGaming » 13 Feb 2018, 11:09

Chief Blur Buster wrote: It's really hard to say.

500 Hz can have extremely good positional accuracy. The best 500 Hz mice can outperform a common 1000 Hz gaming mouse.

It's just not always enough positions-per-second for 240Hz monitors especially when you're playing games that can blast-out more frames than mouse polls per second -- e.g. CS:GO will have some frametimes less than 1/500sec.

What you will need to do is try out all the favourite gaming mice and figure out the best solution.
Hi Chief, thanks for the prompt response, as always, much appreciated.

My main mouse now is G403 which is 1000hz, I don't play CS-GO. I play other FPS games and I cap them at 237fps with V-Sync enabled only in Control panel.

I tried lowering my G403 to 500 and test by moving cursor on desktop. Its not that visible vs 1000, the most visible difference is when going from 250 to 1000.

My main concern with this is that because of 500hz only, when I play fast paced games on my 240hz, images move a bit more choppy because mouse does not update that often?! Sorry again. I'm not that smart when it comes to all these terms and calculations.
Chief Blur Buster wrote:
TL;DR: Your mileage will vary with 500 Hz mice on 240 Hz displays. But why do mouse manufacturers stay that low?
I don't know either. I hope there is a chance of a 1000hz firmware update, in case I decide to keep the mouse.

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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 13 Feb 2018, 13:08

eSports mouse feel is a complex topic.
Professionals are very accustomed to specific mousefeels.
It can literally be a Pandora's Box subject.

But one thing I can definitely say for sure:
You need higher Hz mouse (without degrading accuracy) to take full advantage of higher Hz monitors.

The key phrase is "without degrading positional accuracy". Some of the sensors have degraded positional performance when run at higher poll rates. This is less the case nowadays, but this was a problem back more than ten years ago, in the very early 1000 Hz pollrate days. This may be what is making some mouse manufacturers reluctant to release true-2000 Hz mice -- waiting for sensor quality to catch up.

You can easily do 2000 Hz today, but not necessarily at the same "locked-position" accuracy as 500 Hz. However, when sensors become that good, there's no reason to not release 1000 Hz or 2000 Hz poll rates, when they obviously visibly reduce mouse microstutter on ultra-high-Hz displays.
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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by A Solid lad » 18 Feb 2018, 13:45

The stuff that Chief wrote about positional accuracy explains why my aim has always felt more on-piont when using 500hz on my mice as opposed to a 1000.

The benefits varied from mouse to mouse...
For example, using 500hz on my g402 (am010 sensor) made a huge difference in how accurate the mouse felt.
My g400 (3090) also felt more accurate, and finally, even my g403 wireless (3366) & fk2 (3310) feels more accurate at 500hz, however, the effect was the least apparent on the last two mice mentioned.

And now, after I've read everything in this post, everything seems to come into place...
The effect is less apparent on my newer mice, since they use more advanced sensors, meaning they are better at maintaining high positional accuracy at higher hertz, but the gains are still there at 500hz, since it's even easier for them to maintain high accuracy at lower frequencies...

Chief, please make a backup of this site, in case it somehow disappears... the info scattered around on this forum is invaluable...
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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 18 Feb 2018, 15:17

There is hourly offsite backups of Blur Busters Forums now. :D

Yes, I hear you there. I love 1000Hz+, I understand why 500Hz is used, we just wish more mouse manufacturers would give us the choice to choose 500/1000/2000 with their attendant pros/cons.
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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by A Solid lad » 18 Feb 2018, 16:26

That's reassuring to know. :D (the existence of the backup, that is)

I agree, it's always good to have a choice, rather than being forced into what the manufacturer thought would be optimal...
but I can also understand where they might be coming from:

Maybe they thought the mouse performed best at 500hz, so they locked it at that.
Otherwise most people would just set the mouse to 1000hz (because of the mainstream "higher must be better in every way" mentality) without even trying out 500 and/or realising what they're sacrificing with opting for 1000hz instead of 500.
...and then people would have judged the mouse's performance and feel, based on what they experienced at 1000hz... and the company didn't want that.
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Re: 500hz Mouse on 240hz monitor

Post by lexlazootin » 19 Feb 2018, 10:15

sensors do degrade in positional accuracy at higher mouse Hz
what are you talking about? can you give examples?

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