Steam is all good, but what about mouse sensitivity?

[jiE]

The only thing im able to find for a sorta solution is USB overdrive. And there are still alot of acceleration.

It should be the most simple thing. Has anyone found a working solution? It is awful to play FPS with mouse acceleration.. or do you guys just accept it?

 

[0098386]

It's why I'm not looking forward to playing any more FPS games under OSX. I'm using USB Overdrive too and it's still not as good as Windows.

 

[Mr-Stabby]

Each Steam game i've played you can crank up the Mouse sensitivity in the actual games options, and that's always been more than enough for me.

 

[jiE]

Each Steam game i've played you can crank up the Mouse sensitivity in the actual games options, and that's always been more than enough for me.

The problem is not the sensitivity but the acceleration.. Sorry for misleading topic title.

 

[pooryou]

Acceleration is a good thing IMO, you just need to get used to it.

 

[baryon]

Yes in Windows you could uncheck "enhance pointer precision" in the Control Panel and you would get rid of acceleration. I believe there was an easy way for games to temporarily disable that as well. However, in OS X, there is absolutely no way to control your mouse, except how fast it moves. No acceleration whatsoever. So I'm guessing that the data the any application in OS X can access is the already accelerated mouse pointer data, not the actual movement of your mouse or trackpad. There should be a solution to this, as I have a graphics tablet that can easily change the way the cursor works with the help of a driver. Now if Steam (more precisely the games themselves) just did something similar, I'm sure it could somehow get more "raw" mouse data. It doesn't annoy me that much at the moment, but it does make looking around in an FPS way less controllable than on Windows.

Here's a pair of terminal commands (one for the mouse and the other for the trackpad) that disables mouse acceleration:

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

Got it from here:
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtopic.php?t=3364

I didn't try it, just so you know!

 

[G-Force]

Acceleration is a good thing IMO, you just need to get used to it.

Sometimes, you can't get used to something. I've been using a Mac since 2007 and I have mouse acceleration disabled since day one (SteerMouse).

 

[Cameront9]

Sometimes, you can't get used to something. I've been using a Mac since 2007 and I have mouse acceleration disabled since day one (SteerMouse).

...If you've had it disabled since Day one, then you never gave yourself a chance to get used to it, did you?

I've had no problem playing Portal with the touchpad and the default acceleration.

 

[G-Force]

Uhm, yes I did. I didn't say I've had it disabled since minute one...

 

[roadbloc]

I've had no mouse problem with FPS's under OS X.

 

[G-Force]

In my opinion, playing UT2004 with OS X's mouse acceleration was a disaster.

 

[Deano.uk]

In my opinion, playing UT2004 with OS X's mouse acceleration was a disaster.

What is mouse acceleration?

Sorry in advance for sounding like a noob

 

[Benjones-KY]

I play with it off, but doesn't it basically prevent you from twitch aiming. As in it only lets the mouse move so fast? Not sure.

 

[G-Force]

What is mouse acceleration?

Sorry in advance for sounding like a noob

This article explains my problem with OS X's mouse acceleration curve. What the author is describing does not only apply to OS X itself, but also to games.

http://db.tidbits.com/article/8893

 

[Consultant]

Hum gonna give it a try with HL2 tonight.

Sometimes, you can't get used to something. I've been using a Mac since 2007 and I have mouse acceleration disabled since day one (SteerMouse).

LOL. Good job "trying" it out for more than a few minutes.

 

[G-Force]

Why should I bother with using the acceleration if I don't like it after a few hours of use? I honestly don't see the issue, the ones that like the acceleration have it and the ones that don't like it, well have SteerMouse and other alternatives. My mouse movement has to feel natural, the acceleration does not feel natural to me at all, it is either extremely slow or extremely fast.

 

[Consultant]

For creative professionals, the precision of Mac OS cursor is better than that of Windows.

 

[G-Force]

I'm pretty sure this is a highly personal thing, even a creative professional could hate the mouse acceleration.

 

[pooryou]

This article explains my problem with OS X's mouse acceleration curve. What the author is describing does not only apply to OS X itself, but also to games.

http://db.tidbits.com/article/8893

The point of that article, though, is about the shape of the acceleration curve.
The author never argues that having acceleration completely turned off is desirable.

 

[dsprimal]

looks like ill be installing steam on my windows partition just to be safe from any issues like mouse acceleration etc.

 

[mixel]

looks like ill be installing steam on my windows partition just to be safe from any issues like mouse acceleration etc.

Its really not that bad and many people can adjust easily. (I have friends who've not even noticed it) There's acceleration in Windows too - just along a different vector. The Mac curve is potentially more suited for things like scope sniping anyway.

 

[0098386]

I'm pretty sure this is a highly personal thing, even a creative professional could hate the mouse acceleration.

I'm a creative professional and I hate it. I've always had it turned off in Windows and I suffered with it for years under OSX before I heard of USB Overdrive (originally bought so I could map my 7 button mouse).
Because of that very reason I've always liked working more in Windows than Mac.

 

[G-Force]

The point of that article, though, is about the shape of the acceleration curve.
The author never argues that having acceleration completely turned off is desirable.

True. However, for me, turning it off feels just right.

 

[teidon]

Unfortunately there's no way to completely turn off mouse acceleration in Mac. All you can do is to turn the tracking speed (or whatever it is called in english) all the way down under mouse settings and then use another application to make the cursor move faster. But even with the tracking speed turned down, there's a little acceleration.

Hopefully Apple will hear the cries of Mac gamers now that Steam is here.



PS. To test mouse acceleration, move your mouse so that the mouse cursor touches the left side of the screen and at the same time the mouse is touching an object (keyboard for example) on your desktop. Then move the mouse rapidly to right, but make sure the cursor doesn't touch the right edge of the screen. Then slowly move the mouse back to left so that it touches the object again and look where the mouse cursor is now:

If the mouse cursor didn't reach the left edge of the screen, there's acceleration.
If the mouse cursor touches the left edge of the screen at the exact same time the mouse touches the object there's no acceleration.
If the mouse cursor touches the left edge of the screen before the mouse touches the object, there's negative acceleration.

Those results may not always be accurate, if for example the mouse isn't capable of tracking the surface accurately during rapid moves.

 

[willpower101]

Mainly I want to be able to change the acceleration at the bottom of the curve, when you are moving slowly. Namely to speed it up. I'm ok with the mouse speed at 75% until I do a small movement like from the address bar to the search bar at the top of your browser. The mouse moves like molasses over that little inch or two.