Mice... let's talk about them.

[JohnnyMaverik]

For years now I've been using what is by all standards a very crap mouse. It's a wired lazer mouse, about 6/7 years old, I nicked it from school when I was 16 and have never replaced it. It's small, light, cheep plastic, but I liked it. My mate gave me a Microsoft mouse, couple of programmable buttons, nothing special, probably worth around 15 quid, by all accounts much better than the one I've been using. But it was big, chunky, heavy and I couldn't get used to it and quickly switched back to my old Mitsai faithful.

Yesterday I went into PC world to laugh at over priced hardware, and ended up buying a Cyborg RAT 7 Contagion. I've read the reviews, tried it out before at trade shows all be it briefly, and I just thought sod it, I have the money, I probably should buy a new one, and this is meant to be one of the best.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not regretting it, it was expensive but I can afford it and it hasn't made any significant dents. After a couple of hours I worked it all out, got the drivers installed and opened up the programming software, and promptly closed it again. Got it set up the way I like it, took a few weights out to make it close to the weight I'm used to, made it small, again like I'm used to and plus I have small hands anyway, even replaced some of the panelling with some cushioned spares that came with it.

It's really nice, but I'm scared of it, because I don't want to break it or mess with the settings too much, and It doesn't make me feel better at games. It's smoother, noticeably more sensitive although getting it to play nice with pre-set mouse sensitivity in games has proven to be a slight pain in the arse especially when most of them are set up for my old mouse with high sensitivity (7 in TF2 which I know is unusual since most people stick to 3/4, I'm now down to 3 for the new mouse), but I'm doing no better than I was.

Now taking the extra buttons out of the equation, which I can see will come in very handy for key bindings and even some macro stuff if I feel inclined to try and get my head around setting all that up for RTS', how important is the quality of your mouse? From what I'm seeing, having gone from crap to one of the best, not all that important, but I feel like I must be missing something.

/Rant out, would love to hear some thoughts on the subject and advice over how, if possible, I can get more from my mouse.

[Heliocentric]

Set a thumb button to shift, hijack the mouse wheel, set main gun to wheel click (for shooters but squad selection works too) set mouse wheel up to a side arm (or squad 2) and down to the knife or another common weapon(or squad 3) , another button for grenades or some other quicker function why time pressure matters.

Some games are fussy about what they let you configure I found the square brackets a good choice for mouse wheel left and right as they are rarely default and easy to accidentally do.

[JohnnyMaverik]

That's true, I guess in TF2 I should really change weapon switched to the two thumb buttons instead of just using wheel scroll or the numbers (always messing that up by either scrolling one too many or hitting the wrong number). Plus in games like half life setting to switch to grenades to the mouse wheel click would make it a million times quicker. I guess I should really play with it a bit and see what it's capable of instead of treating it as some kind of "make me aim better" machine which I don't think it is really.

Edit: Plus it's much nicer to look at that my old mouse, which I guess is a plus. Definitely guna try and keep the nerd grime off it.

[Bobtree]

I have a friend who wears out a mouse every couple years because he uses right-click for "move forward." My mice, comparatively, last forever, AND I will out-strafe him with WSAD because I can run backwards and shoot. The Logitech mx500 came out in 2002, so it's 10 years old now. Time spent messing with mouse drivers and configuring extra bindings is a tragic waste. I have 5 mouse buttons and a wheel that work everywhere, and an IBM model M keyboard from 1984 that's built like a tank.

The Cyborg Rat series look very silly TBH. It may improve your success with fetishists, but probably not at gaming.

[JohnnyMaverik]

The Cyborg Rat series look very silly TBH. It may improve your success with fetishists, but probably not at gaming.

To be honest the way my love life has been going I'd be fine with that.

Kind of agree with you though, I mean binding move forward to the right mouse button aside, which is ridiculous, rebindable buttons are nice, but not uncommon on cheaper mice, and after that, what are you really paying for? Something which glows in the dark (thankfully mine doesn't, but I'd never buy one of the Razer gaming mice for that very reason because that'd get on my tits) and slightly smoother cursor movement. The adjustability is nice as well although again, cheaper mice might not be adjustable but then you can just buy one that actually fits your hand, there's plenty out there and I'm damn sure everyone can find one that's the right size, weight, has a couple of extra buttons and costs much less than 50-80 quid (mine was 70).

[FriendlyFire]

Yeah, I couldn't grab a RAT mouse because I find them really ugly. I grabbed a G700 instead after my trusty old G7 died. Couldn't be happier with it; I use the buttons on the side for day-to-day tasks and some games truly benefit (latest being Guild Wars 2, where I mapped F1 through F4 on the side buttons) from it.

While no, I don't think mice like these are critical to game properly, I do think that skimping on one of two peripherals you use to interact with your computer while spending thousands for modest speed bumps on your CPU or GPU is a bit paradoxical. You'll notice the feel of a good mouse much more than you'll see the difference between that GTX580 and that GTX680.

[JohnnyMaverik]

To be honest I actually quite like the way the RAT looks. Obviously the styling is mostly for functionality, as in it's hardly styled, and at first glance it looks ridiculous, but it's really comfortable and feels like you're holding a little transformer. Each to their own I guess.

Agree on the peripherals part though. I mean I'm a laptop gamer simply because I needed something portable, but it's not a cheep laptop, saved up for a year and bought a Toshiba Qosmio for £1100 (I'm a 3D modeller so I needed something hefty), so what's 70 for a mouse really. Although I will say that 70 is steep, gaming mice might have their uses but there were others there for 30-50, including the model down from mine the RAT 5, which was exactly the same bar being 5200 DPI instead of 6200 (doubt the difference is noticeable), 40 quid. Probably would have been the smart purchase.

[Mistabashi]

A decent mouse is definitely worthwhile, it's just that most of the expensive 'gamer' mice are a bit over-priced - underneath the flashing LEDs and tacky plastic it's the same mouse you'd get for much cheaper if it wasn't marketed at 'gamers', albeit possibly with a couple extra buttons. Regardless of what mouse you choose though, it'll always take a while to get used to it, so if you feel it performs the same as your old one you might notice that change over time.

My best advice though is not to under-estimate the importance of the surface you're putting it on. A decent mouse mat can make a huge diffference, again there's plenty of 'gamer' branded ones that are ridiculously expensive but you can pick up decent ones for ~£10 that will work much better than your average cheapo pad or (*gasp*) using the desk. Having a smooth, consistent surface with the right amount of traction makes a big difference to how accurately you can control the thing, especially if you're like me and like a fairly high sensititvity.

[slick_101]

on the mouse mat front, don't buy into any of the BS marketing about nano etched super elastic military grade stuff. I've got a Steal Series mouse mat which I picked up for £10 and it has served me and my Roccat Kone really well for just over 2 years.

Going back to the topic in hand. AS you've been used to your mouse for such a long time you're hands aren't going to be comfortable with a new mouse so you've just gotta give it chance. As you are using the RAT. my suggestion would be to change your grip when using the mouse, put your middle finger on the scroll. This means that you can use your pinkie rest properly. Which many of my friends that own the Rat 7 as well as the RAT 9 have really suggested as I too have been looking into getting an upgrade from my Kone, due to grippy stuff coming off

[JohnnyMaverik]

Luckily I got a free mouse mat with the mouse, was using an old notebook before (yea I know, just lazy).

[Heliocentric]

Luckily I got a free mouse mat with the mouse, was using an old notebook before (yea I know, just lazy).

the best mouse pad is a sweat band and a toughened glass desk. You'll be needing frosted glass, rough side up.

[Sparkasaurusmex]

7 in TF2 which I know is unusual since most people stick to 3/4, I'm now down to 3 for the new mouse), but I'm doing no better than I was.

Put it back on 7. You'll do poorly for a bit, but you will get used to it and then notice improvement.

[JohnnyMaverik]

I honestly couldn't play it on 7. One slight movement and I'd pretty much done a 180. I might try jacking it up to 4 or so.

[Carra]

Having those extra mouse buttons helps with gaming.

I set the middle button to reload and the big thumb button to jump for most games. The small mouse button is ideal to use as ctrl or shift for mmorpgs where you need 24 buttons, you only need 12 + mouse ctrl button.

For TF2, using the up/down buttons to switch weapons works. Better yet is to simply map them to your keyboard.

If you're going to be spending €60 for a mouse, you might as well spend another €10 on a mousepad. I have one now and it's quite a bit smoother.

PS: using the right mouse button to move forward is how it was done in the good old days of Doom. These days it makes little sense anymore.

[verticuous]

Razer's hardware is very good. I've bought Razer Orochi and Deathadder and none have problems. The clicking feeling is amazing as well.

[shaydeeadi]

Just had a random and weird scare with my Roccat Kone+. I restarted my computer and it deleted the profiles to the point I had to hardware reset using an old mouse to make it work again, since you can't tab around the editor. Was strange, great mouse aside from that, silly announcer accent and all.

[What.]

I bought a Logitech g9x with Diablo 3. I have large hands and I use the mouse with my fingertips (my palm never touches the mouse's back) and it's an excellent fit for clawers.

The onboard profiles and easy profile switching is just an awesome, awesome feature. I can have 7 keys remapped to various buttons on the mouse (or macros, if you're that way inclined), and all of them are easy to reach and identify. The software makes it easy.

The mouse is a bit too heavy because I pick it up and reposition it pretty much constantly, but I've kind of gotten used to it now.

Initially I got a g700 (which I returned and replaced with the g9x) but it was ridiculously heavy, extremely big and the wireless was a joke. If I had the cable plugged in, it made the mouse even more cumbersome because the cable itself is very stiff and I constantly felt it exert it's own force on my movements. The buttons were very nice though.

[mickygor]

I consider the difference between a cheap mouse and an expensive mouse to be the difference between a joypad and a mouse. It's not going to improve your skill level at all, you've gotta do that. It's gonna raise the skill cap.

I've also got the RAT 7, but then money is no object to me - I bought it because it fits my current build's aesthetic. The biggest difference for me is that mouse2 is now my ring finger as opposed to my middle finger, which rests on mouse3 now. Takes a while to get used to, and my mates on LoL were moaning so bad because I dragged our ELO down a bit while I adjusted, but it's definitely worth doing. It's also the comfiest mouse I've ever used.

[Rii]

Yesterday I went into PC world to laugh at over priced hardware, and ended up buying a Cyborg RAT 7 Contagion.

I lol'd.

My only contribution to this topic is that the Logitech G700 is a cheap piece of shite.

[djbriandamage]

I bought the RAT7 Contagion and I'm sorry I did. The body is amazingly comfortable but it's way more sensitive than I'll ever need, and one of the thumb buttons is mushy and doesn't click right so it's not a reliable input mechanism. It was like that out of the box.

The thing skates across my mouse pad like Wayne Gretzky, though, and it looks like a storm trooper's jock cup. So it's not all bad.