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PaperclipPerfector  28d ago (text post)   2855 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 27, 2024

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Installed the new factorio and noticed how bad my mouse is for the fast and precise clicking needed to make furnace rows. Worse, my mousepad actually shifts around when I move fast.

Are there any pro gamers on the motte who'd like to share their mouse and pad setups?

Kensington Pro Fit — specifically the full-size version if you have big hands, specifically the wired version if you hate wireless, and specifically not the “ergonomic” version in any case. A no-nonsense, very solid desktop mouse. Had one for 11 years (about 9 of which included ~10h/wk FPS gaming) before the scroll wheel started bugging out, and I just bought the same model as replacement.

Nothing usable to report mousepad-wise, but have you considered nabbing a friction glove for use with drawing tablets, if it's your skin contact (rather than the bottom of the mouse itself) that's yoinking the pad around?

That's a great tip: I tried using my drawing glove to check, but it was just my overly slick desk surface letting the pad slide, which didn't happen with my old sticky pad. Changing to a much lighter mouse and a better surface fixed it.

Ironically, my only major complaint about this mouse is that it’s too light for my tastes. Next time I have shoe goo or something like it in the house, I’m going to crack mine open and see if it’s got anywhere good to put some heavy iron nuts in.

Logitech G102 and a large mousepad. Don't listen to the guys saying you need a 100USD mouse, those days are behind, even cheap gaming mice have OKAY sensors nowadays.

I'd actually switched to an old Logitech M100 that was sitting around, and it completely solved both problems! It's so lightweight the pad doesn't shift, and the cursor accuracy is better than any of the others I tried.

If a M100 works, you didn't need a gaming mouse to begin with, just one that works at all. `

I went for a maximalist mousepad. It's essentially a deskpad that's also a mousepad, comfortable to rest on and pretty good for gaming.

Artisan mousepads are very popular in the aim community. They're pricey, but the quality is good. And in terms of mice, the current trend is for ever lighter, smaller models. The zerømouse is an extreme example, but it's indicative of the general trend. Mouse preference depends entirely on your needs. Unless you’re playing aim-intensive movement shooters, there’s absolutely no reason to get a 26-gram gaming mouse. That said, the Logitech G Pro X Superlight is regarded as a good all-around mouse. At 63 grams, it's still lighter than most mice out there, and I think it will work great for most people and most use cases.

The aim community?

The core of any FPS game is mouse control. You need to react quickly, flick your crosshair onto the enemy's head, and shoot before they shoot you. All else being equal, the player with better aim will always win.

With the rise of games that demand this kind of precise aiming (eg., Overwatch and competitive Fortnite), a demand for synthetic aim trainers also emerged. The goal of these trainers is to improve your "raw" aiming abilities, that is, hand-eye coordination and fine muscle control, skills that can transfer from one FPS game to another.

In aim trainers like KovaaK’s or Aimlabs (the two most popular), you choose from a variety of scenarios, each designed to target a specific aspect of your aim. In one scenario, you stand in a greybox room and shoot static balls that appear on those grey walls. In another, you shoot moving balls, still in that same grey room. Three, four, five balls. Or you track those balls instead.

The choice of scenario depends on the aim mechanic you’re trying to improve. Training routines for Dynamic vs. Static clicking or Precise vs. Reactive tracking, for instance, will vary greatly.

It's like targeting a muscle group in the gym.

The idea is to use an aim trainer as a tool to help you get better in the actual game that you're playing. But a subset of people will just never leave the aim trainer. They enjoy grinding these benchmarks for hours on end, trying to beat their own high scores. It's addicting.

It is somewhat comparable to those who get very good at solving Leetcode problems, but struggle with applying these skills practically.

This is the aim community.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wD-WRSD3LmQ&t=50

Logitech thumb track ball. Its faster and more precise than any 'arm flailing' mouse. There is however a substantial learning curve and adjustment period when switching, up to 6 months before you're better with it than a normal mouse, which turns a lot of people off. I've been using one since 1997. For a classical mouse, any good corded optical one is fine and you don't need a pad for these at all if you have a good desk surface. If you have to have cordless then avoid bluetooth if you can (this is good general advice, bluetooth is terrible tech). A lot of competitive players also use a small armature that holds the mouse cord up and away from the desk surface so it doesn't get in the way. Here's a popular example: https://www.amazon.com/Razer-Gaming-Mouse-Bungee-RC21-01560100-R3U1

What's wrong with Bluetooth?

A lot of things. There are more exhaustive breakdowns of the problems with bluetooth. This thread on HN is pretty good, if technical breakdown. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39028440 To summarize, its a very low power signal that uses a very congested range. Additionally manufacturers often go as cheaply as possible on the hardware and software controllers as possible. This is BTs main appeal too: its dirt cheap compared to the alternatives. Its extremely susceptible to interference from other devices electronic devices and also from the human body itself. There are some robust software controller options for abating some of these problems but they add to manufacturing costs. For non critical applications like listening to music for leisure its fine. PC peripherals are another issue though. The PC itself creates a good amount of interference, multiple BT devices will interfere with each other, and WIFI also is fighting with BT for the same bandwidth. Tiny hiccups that would be unnoticeable in streaming music, which can buffer audio, when using a BT mouse or keyboard can mean 1-2 second intervals where commands from the mouse/kb either aren't received at all by the PC, or are processed a few seconds late. This might be fine for many applications but if the user is concerned with response times when entering commands while gaming, BT is an exercise in frustration. A good option here is what Logitech uses, which they call Lightspeed, which is radio waves over a dedicated dongle that is permanently paired to its device. https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/innovation/lightspeed.html

For peripherals, bluetooth only goes up to 125 hz if I remember correctly. You want 1000 hz for your mouse. Very diminishing returns beyond that.

it operates on a pretty crowded/noisy band of the wireless spectrum. For example, if you're using a bluetooth mouse on a modern desktop computer, it's very likely that your USB3 ports are interfering with the bluetooth signal whenever they're active https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf

Not to mention microwave ovens.

Somebody really needs to write a history about how a small chunk of unregulated spectrum set aside for microwaves ended up containing all the stuff we actually use.

Is the entire rest of the spectrum just camped? I think we're missing big chunks of 5ghz wifi spectrum because it was licensed to some satphone operator who never even used it(?)

Yeah, it’s pretty congested. There’s a ton of stuff we want to broadcast.

I was going to say that going higher in frequency is more expensive due to requiring faster sampling, but then I realized I don’t know the receiver architecture. Do they just down convert everything to baseband?

Either way, there’s definitely historical reasons to want those tasty lower frequencies.

G502 and a pretty large mousepad.

Logitech G502x wireless is nice mouse (using it to play factorio in fact). I use a large Razer mouse pad.

I'm pretty basic but I have a Mira-M mouse and a SteelSeries QcK mousepad

The Mira is super lightweight and really basic in terms of buttons but for the games I play its perfect. Two side buttons, clickable scroll wheel, middle button for adjusting DPI. All re-programmable with the software. Braided cable which is nice and long. Only complaint is that stuff can get inside due to the honeycomb design but its pretty easy to just blow out. If you've never had a mouse this light it can feel kind of toy like at first but it feels perfectly natural to me now. I should add that it's been a couple years since I bought the mouse so I'm not sure about availability.

Not much to say about the mousepad, but I've never had slipping issues.

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