Gaming Mouse Buying Guide: What to Know

Gaming Mouse Buying Guide

Common gaming mouse features

Generally speaking, any mouse labeled as a gaming mouse at a bare minimum offers superior precision, tracking, and control to standard optical mice—the kind usually bundled with a PC. Here’s a breakdown of the most common gaming mouse features, and some recommendations for which ones are the most important.

Enhanced DPI (Dots Per Inch)

The resolution of a mouse is expressed in DPI (Dots-per-inch), or less commonly CPI (Characters-per-inch). Basically, the higher the DPI, the farther the mouse moves with less movement from your hand. Low DPI settings are good for fine control—like sniping in a first-person shooter, or working at the pixel-level in a photo editing program. Higher DPI settings are good for fast run-and-gun shooting, or working on large monitors at high resolutions so you don’t wear out your wrists or your mouse pad trying to move from side of the screen to the other.

Most standard optical mice operate at a fixed rate of 800DPI. Gaming mice typically offer a range of DPI settings from 100DPI to as high as 8200DPI.

Multiple DPI settings

Many/most gaming mice support multiple (3-5 typically) DPI settings. Less expensive gaming mice may have ‘hard wired’ settings that can’t be changed. such as 800DPI, 1600DPI, and 2400DPI. More expensive gaming mice typically let you customize the DPI setting in 25-100DPI increments, so you could have whatever DPI settings you want—for example, 1000DPI, 1750DPI, and 3600DPI.

Gaming mice usually enable you to change DPI settings on-the-fly with the press of a button, so you can quickly change from ‘snipe mode’ (low DPI) to ‘blow the crap out of everything—what’s friendly fire?’ mode (higher DPI).

Programmable buttons

Mid-range and high-end gaming mice have extra buttons that can be programmed to replace keystrokes or store entire macros (strings of keystrokes and possibly other functions).

Be aware that virtually every gaming mouse’s ‘features list’ typically counts the left mouse button, the right mouse button, and the scroll-wheel button when they tally their programmable buttons. Because re-programming these buttons would likely be suicidal in virtually any game, subtract 3 from the total number of programmable buttons listed in the ‘features list’ for any gaming mouse to figure out how many functional, extra ‘actual’ programmable buttons it has.

Acceleration

Acceleration is expressed in G forces (one G is 9.8 meters per second). Acceleration affects a mouse’s ability to move more quickly based on how quickly you move the mouse. High acceleration can be used with a low-to -medium DPI setting to provide good accuracy when you need it (like sniping in an FPS) and quick, high-speed movement (such as turning rapidly) when the action heats up. Virtually all gaming mice support acceleration rates far faster than any human could task, so bullet points stating ‘30G acceleration’ and the like are pretty much meaningless.

Variable Polling Rate

Polling rate is expressed in Hertz (Hz). It essentially refers to how often a mouse is monitoring for input—the higher the polling rate, the more frequently the mouse is looking for/reporting input, and thus the more responsive the mouse will be. (In addition, higher polling rates will take a larger toll on battery life for wireless mice.)

Typical mice have a polling rate of 125Hz, which means the mouse is reporting input 125 times per second. That’s fast enough for typical desktop computing, but not so good for gaming. Gaming mice usually offer a choice of polling rates: 250Hz, 500Hz, and 1000Hz.

Profiles & onboard memory

Most gaming mice store configurations in profiles, enabling you to quickly switch between various configurations for different games. Profiles are usually stored in the mouse’s Onboard memory. Profiles and onboard memory enable you to use the mouse on any PC, with or without installing the mouse’s drivers.

Adjustable weight

A minority of gaming mice include a small selection of weights that can be inserted into the mouse to customize its weight.

Wired or Wireless

Gaming mice, like standard mice, come in both wired and wireless varieties. For a long time gamers shied away from wireless mice because they just weren’t fast or responsive enough. Even the briefest lag (and older wireless mice were very laggy) spells doom in a fast game, especially FPS games.

This is no longer the case, however. Better wireless technology, faster sensors, and other improvements have created wireless gaming mice that are generally just as fast and reliable as their wired counterparts. In addition, most (or all) of them can be used in either mode: wired while charging the battery, and wirelessly otherwise. Best of all, they can be changed on-the-fly. Just pop out the plug and your mouse won’t even miss a beat.

Lighting

LED lighting of some form or another is practically standard now on any mid-range or higher PC peripherals labeled as ‘gaming’—be it mouse, keyboard, headset, or speedpad. Some of the more expensive gaming mice let you specify the color of the backlighting and additional options such as pulsation, color cycles, etc. Lighting is mostly cosmetic but does have some practical applications: finding your mouse in the dark, for example, and tying mouse profiles to specific colors.

Comfort

Gaming mice come in as many shapes and sizes as standard mice, but they are usually made from more comfortable material. Most gaming mice made within the last couple years provide a silky, smooth, soft rubberized grip that makes them cool to the touch but easy to grip. Others use textured plastic, and some use glossy, sleek-looking plastic. Most use a combination of 2 or even 3 of these. Most feature braided fabric USB cables instead of nylon-sheathed cables for durability.

Gaming Mouse Supply: http://www.allreli.com/products/interface/gaming-mice.html

Gaming Mouse Buying Guide: What to Know