Disable Mouse Acceleration/AA? (Without a third party program?)

[Wolfpup]

Is there a way to disable mouse acceleration in OS X like this is in Windows, hopefully without resorting to a third party program?

And is there any way to turn off anti-aliasing, or turn it down further than the "light" setting? I've always really disliked anti aliasing...

[wrldwzrd89]

You can turn Mac OS X's mouse acceleration off, with a pair of Terminal commands, shown here. You can also disable anti-aliasing for font sizes below a threshold you set (it can't be turned off entirely, though) from the Appearance/General System Prefererences pane. You might want to read this article first, though, before you turn anti-aliasing off.

[Wolfpup]

Hey, thanks! So if I'm understanding this right, the two commands are:

defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling -1

To do it for both a mouse and trackpad, presumably, and if you alter the speed setting in the control panel, that restores mouse acceleration/"enhanced precision". Does that sound right?

I'll have to try that, at least for my mouse (I might actually like it on for my trackpad).

[mkrishnan]

According to this (see the comment from "Steve" in the talkback section), you can also use Terminal to write an arbitrary value to that preference (one that isn't necessarily available from System Preferences)...

The syntax would be

defaults write -g AppleAntiAliasingThreshold xxx

Where xxx would be a large number like 128, meaning that any font pitch below 128 pts would not be antialiased (so, essentially, no fonts would be antialiased).

FWIW, you needn't always be afraid of third party system preference panes and utilities. In cases like this, where the setting is more adjustable than Sys Prefs allows you to do, those third party utilities are doing exactly what you're doing with the defaults write command, and the benefit is you don't have the situation where you forgot what command made the change....

[Wolfpup]

Thanks! Do you know of control panels/programs that would basically handle that setting for you, without typing it in manually? I'm going to start messing around with this

[mkrishnan]

You might like this one...

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/mo...1967&vid=26562

I'm pretty sure that this app (TinkerTool) basically only makes use of "hidden" aspects of the preference architecture in OS X (i.e. it isn't in the category of programs that run processes continually in order to change how OS X behaves).

[Wolfpup]

Thanks!

[Wolfpup]

Darn. I've tried using the:
"defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1"

Command, and while it does disable acceleration, it's worthless because it also sets the speed incredibly slow. Anything above that "-1" turns acceleration back on.

So that doesn't work

I tried installing Microsoft's drivers as I read somewhere they had an option to turn off acceleration like on Windows...and maybe they used to, but the current version doesn't.

There's another shareware driver that supposedly allows it, but I hate having to PAY for basic functionality.

Are there any other options? This is driving me nuts, I really can't work like this

[nickmac]

I'm searching for this as well. I hate / never use my mighty mouse because of this, instead sticking with my wacom tablet mouse because the wacom driver allows disabling. Not too useful for on the road though.

Apple - please fix mouse acceleration, let us TURN IT OFF.

Anybody see anything new in the past 6 months?

[nickmac]

note, this thread suggests that setting the terminal command to -1 works, unless you move the speed slider. This may have been the problem with the above poster mentioning it did not work.

[Wolfpup]

Originally Posted by nickmac

note, this thread suggests that setting the terminal command to -1 works, unless you move the speed slider. This may have been the problem with the above poster mentioning it did not work.

It technically works in the sense that it turns off mouse acceleration, except the problem is it sets the mouse speed super slow, so it's still unusable (like you'd have to pick up and move the mouse repeatedly just to get across the screen).

The only work around I've found is a shareware program called "USB Overdrive". I found it harder to set up than the Windows mouse control panel, but playing with the settings I could get it to behave pretty similarly to Windows (I never bought it, as I'm uncomfortable giving out credit card info to companies I've never heard of...wish companies like that would allow Google Checkout of Amazon Payments or something.)

It seems sort of trivial in a way, but the inability to fix the mouse acceleration problem without third party software, and the (to me) terrible, blurry font rendering make using OS X kind of a pain for me. Sort of trivial things, except not in that that's how you're interacting with the OS on a constant basis.

[killmoms]

Originally Posted by Wolfpup

...and the (to me) terrible, blurry font rendering make using OS X kind of a pain for me. Sort of trivial things, except not in that that's how you're interacting with the OS on a constant basis.

Number one crime of Microsoft: getting people used to hideous, crunchy, pixel-y fonts. Talk about ruining the integrity of typography.

[Wolfpup]

It's personal preference, I guess. For me, Apple's font rendering is really ugly and hard to read. All blurry and shimmery. That's actually the main reason I don't use OS X on a regular basis. I don't like ClearType either, but I like it better. My favorite font rendering ever is the "standard" level of AA in Windows.

I know I'm not alone as you can find all kinds of complaints about it with a quick search, though obviously tons of people love it too. I actually didn't mind it as much back when I used a CRT, I think because it blurred it out a bit. But for an LCD I want razer crisp text, and "Standard" AA in Windows is so well done and so light that you don't even realize it's on unless you shut it off.

[Googa]

How's this for a fix?

http://forums3.armagetronad.net/view...=3364&start=15

(yea, it WORKS great on 10.6.2)