I’ve got two computer mice which, in various games, exhibit the following behavior:
The cursor begins moving at exactly the same time I begin moving the mouse, but the cursor ends its movement slightly after I finish moving the mouse.
Meanwhile, I have a third mouse which does not exhibit that behavior. Instead, cursor movement both begins and ends simultaneously with mouse movement.
(I’m simplifying a bit, because I’m not actually talking about cursor movement, I’m talking about rotation of characters in first-person-shooter games. I haven’t been able to verify whether this occurs in other games with actual mouse cursors–the movements I have to make to detect the effect are too large for that.)
The terrible thing is, the one mouse that moves exactly simultaneously with me is a mouse I hate. It feels like it moves inconsistently–often the movement on screen is not nearly as much as I expect based on how much I’ve moved my arm, other times it seems far too much. Mouse acceleration is turned off, btw.
When I’ve asked about this in other venues, typically people ask about dpi settings and whatnot. By whatever amazing coincidence, all three of the mice involved are ones that do not indicate a dpi setting in the control panel. But fwimbw, mouse sensitivity in windows is set in the very center–the sixth tick IIRC. And mouse acceleration is turned off no matter which of these mice I’m using.
Also: This effect occurs regardless of in-game graphics settings, including v-sync, and AFAICT, regardless of Nvidia Control Panel graphics settings, including v-sync and g-sync.
As long as we are appealing to mouse experts, I have another question.
I use a laptop with an external mouse, and I keep the track pad covered with paper so my hand doesn’t brush against it and cause unintended cursor movement. From time to time, my cursor freezes in place, and I have to move it with the track pad, then it resumes normal response via the external mouse. Can a cursor, with a certain mouse, land in a “dead zone” that the mouse can’t extricate it from?
I’ve never seen it with a regular mouse, but a track pad has one or two options for exactly what the OP described. I’m not at my laptop so I can’t look up what they’re called, but if you have a Synaptics driver, that might be the issue. You might just need to turn them off, look for something that specifically mentions the pointer moving after you take your finger off the track pad.
In fact, make sure the computer (and specifically the mouse settings) don’t think you have a trackpad.
ETA, “Inertia”, look for Inertia, if it’s on, turn it off.
I don’t think so. Why not just disable the trackpad? I assume there isn’t a physical button, but you should be able to go into the device manager and disable it there. At the very least that would start the troubleshooting process. I’m going to make a WAG that having two mice is causing the problem.
Yes. Not just the mouse settings in control panel, which is a Windows one-size fits all thing. Your mice might each have their own driver software, which give you more more latitude for adjusting how your mouse responds, in terms of speed of the mouse, options for button assignment, special effects for cursor size, style, and even having the cursor leave a trail as it moves.
Now, how do you find that driver? I don’t know. My wife has done that part for me, and I didn’t watch her closely enough to tell you how it’s done. Someone else will now come around to roll eyes and tell how simple it is.
Using Windows’ mouse sensitivity option, I’ve confirmed that this is not just happening in games–it’s a general fact about how these mice behave, even on the desktop. It does not occur when using the trackpad, though.
All three of the mice–the two that have this issue, and the one that doesn’t (but does have the variable cursor speed issue), are using the same drivers–the generic windows mouse driver.
How could they be behaving so differently? This is driving me nuts.
Is there a mouse icon (might have to hover over each icon to see what it says) in your taskbar by the clock or a program for the mouse in the Start Menu somewhere. On my computer, for example I have a Logitech folder in my start menu, in there there’s a program called ‘keyboard and mouse settings’. While most of those settings do show up in various places in Windows, they do override and have more control over the mouse than the generic device manager settings.
Something else you might do is pull up your Task Manager (Control-Alt-Delete) and look at the running processes. If any of the description names of any of them are the same name as your mouse brand, you could try killing it.
