Doh, M$ Optical Intellimouse Explorer not good for games

[Creole]

maaan, i wanted the corded version but I picked the cordless mouse and it doesn't react that good in games. It pretty damn cool though, didn't pay that much for it 4 so, daa well. I'm geeting my butt kicked in SOF2 and CS, this sucks. My logitech optical was better 4 gaming. A day after I ordered it, I read a review saying they didn't recommend it 4 gaming, don't you hate when that sh*t happens.

[[Corporal Dan]]

Hahaha

*points and laughs*

*pets Boomslang lovingly*

[Smokey]

I would never recommend a cordless mouse for gaming, just for the wieght alone. With two batteries I just dont like it, but yes that mouse sure is a nice looking mouse, go get the corded version ;)

[saturnotaku]

Don't just get the corded version, get the Special Edition of the Intellimouse Optical. It looks cool and has the best tracking of any optical mouse I've used. It's suhweeeet. :D

[stephman]

Logitech's new MX series of mice are supposedly more responsive.
Go to there website and checkout the
MX700 cordless optical
MX500 corded version
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?page=products/productlist&crid=19&countryid=19&languageid=1

Here's a review for the cordless MX700:
http://www.earthv.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=703

Review for corded MX500:
http://gear.ign.com/articles/371/371925p1.html

The specs on these look pretty good, but I can't give you any first hand experience with them because I don't have one...yet.
I may go out and buy(try) one out in a day or two.

Hope this helps!

[styles-T]

anybody know whats a good optical with a HIGH dpi..I had a boomslang and the control was great..I just hate ball mice now..

[Gator]

optictal ownz ut, but ya cordless is definetly not a good diea, ur bound to lose a signal right at that key moment when ur fragging

[john19055]

I have never had any problems with my cordless Explorer Logitech 5 button but it is the one with the ball.I wanted to up grade to a better mouse but I bought the best cordless optical microsoft had to offer and took it back and tried the Logitech version,but in playing games I would always get slight pauses,like when I would stop and change directions and the slight pauses in a fast action game most of the time ment my quick death.Ever Optical I have tried all have these slight pauses,even though I thought Microsoft Explorer was the best out of the bunch, I return it and kept my old trusty cordless 5 button Logitech with the ball.

[[Corporal Dan]]

Ball mice are good.

I like them

And i wouldn't replace my boomslang with anything, ever.

[SnakeEyes]

Based on my experiences:

The original Logitech cordless ball mouse 3 button scroller (the Egg:p): This was the only cordless mouse that I've ever been able to play UT with. At the time I had never used an optical mouse, so the only prior mice were corded ball-mice. This one was a wee bit slower on response than the corded models when I was using it, but not enough to bother me. One other issue, one that seems to plague Logitech mice in general, is that Logitech's drivers seem to have issues with allowing the scrollwheel to work properly in games. Worse, though the problem can be overcome, the solution varies from system to system, and at times, from one OS install to the next. One install might find the mouse wheel working perfectly, while the next requires changing some settings concerning MS Office Scrolling.., and the next actually requires a registry entry / killing EM_EXEC.EXE. This one has never gone away, with any Logitech driver that I've ever used. (4 years since I first saw it to the latest driver rev.)

MS Intellimouse Explorer Optical (corded): I bought this mouse as a replacement for the logitech cordless (above), when I started to get irritated at having to clean the mouse more and more frequently (once it gets unresponsive the first time, each successive cleaning seemed to be needed sooner and sooner..). The Explorer itself seemed fine, though extremely rapid movements caused the mouse to think it had only moved less than 1/2", and using it on solid / reflective surfaces or surfaces with repetitive patterns seemed to confuse it. The results of the these two observations along with the fixes that I've since been using (totally eliminating the issues) were that rapid 360's in UT were almost impossible, until I increased my mouse sensitivity in the game, but after that change the mouse no longer lost tracking, and 2)with the mentioned surfaces in use, I often found myself suddenly staring at the floor and/or doing a ballet pirhouette in the game as the mouse got 'confused', but changing the surface to a cloth pad with a nice MaxPayne image on it fixed that one for good. The biggest issue I had with this mouse, and the reason I returned it for exchange, was that it just was a bit too big, and definitely uncomfortable.

MS Intellimouse Optical: I exchanged the Explorer for this mouse, and even got a refund of a few $$. Interestingly enough, both are 5-button scrollers. It's just that the layout of buttons is a bit different (the non-Explorer model is more ambidextrous) and the Optical is a bit smaller. It was perfect for my needs, once I decided that I could live with only 4 buttons for in my games. Why only 4, since it had 5? Well, since the buttons are arranged in such a way as to make it equally useful to lefties as to righties, I found that the 5th button was usually hit by accident as I was doing some mad right-clicking in the game (UT Alt-Fire), and with ANYTHING bound to it, I normally didn't like the consequences. No biggie, though a 5th binding for stuff would've been nice. (To be fair, I had similar issues with the Explorer's 5th button, the larger of the two in the thumb area, mainly because I nearly always ended up clicking BOTH of those buttons any time I tried to click one of them.) I've owned 4 different Intellimouse Opticals so far, and all have been great. (BTW, the same issues listed for the Explorer, above, apply to all opticals I've tried so far. There's one exception coming up though..)

Logitech Cordless Optical: The main reason I originally bought the cordless logitech (above) was that I was getting tired of having a mouse cable wrap itself around the nearest available object and restrict my movement in games. Unfortunately, at the time I bought the Explorer (also above), there were no cordless mice that were also optical, and at the point I bought the Explorer, I judged the dirty ball issues (aka "I can't move." BLAM. You were killed by.. syndrome) to be a bigger nuisance than the sometimes tanglesome cord. With the announcement of the Logitech Cordless Optical, I watched stores carefully (FINALLY! A cordless AND an optical!!). Too bad the first thing I discovered once I got it home was that cordless and optical just don't mix at all. Why? The nifty power-saving modes that allow the mouse to have decent lifespans with a set of batteries also cause it to power down the LED almost the very instant you stop moving it, and then back up when you move again. The process IS NOT instantaneous though, and results in noticable unresponsive pauses during gaming. Worse, something about the combination of technologies more than doubles the mouse lag issue over the original logitech cordless. Interestingly enough, the both mice seem to lag worse with later Logitech drivers (making even the original cordless inadequate for gaming now, imo). Too bad, because the mouse was the most comfortable I've ever had. Still, it got returned within a few hours of my first use. For a while, I went back to my MS Intellimouse Optical.

Logitech Mouseman Dual Optical: Other than the problem with scrollwheels / games, the best mouse I've used yet. Has the ergonomics of the Logitech Cordless Optical, higher dpi sensor(s), 2 of those sensors and LEDs!! (w00t, no more rapid movements screwing up the mouse), and 4 buttons that all actually are placed in good locations so that I don't accidently smack em when playing. Life is good. Seriously, this mouse is currently my favorite, and I'd actually call it perfect if Logitech could ever get a clue and just make the drivers work (specifically meaning the scrollwheel stuff here- everything else DOES work). They should reverse engineer some MS Intellimouse software and figure out how to write the drivers properly. Because I get 3 buttons and a scrollwheel just using MS's generic drivers with this mouse. All I really need beyond that is access to the 4th button in the drivers, and if MS ever does Windows drivers with support for that, I'll ditch Logitech's altogether.

In any case, optical mice, so long as thet're not cordless, actually are more responsive than the ball-mice I've used, and have the added benefit of not getting dirty and causing loss of movement control in the middle of the big match. Accuracy is overall better than the ball-mice too. (I haven't used a Boomslang, though, and it could be even better, based on reports I've seen. But the shape would kill my hands..)

[LORD-eX-Bu]

Its time to replace my Logitech Marble. So I went to google gear and ordered the MS Intellimouse Optical(the new one, the ambidextruous one, I guess that is the special edition) and it shoul be here on monday. It is supposed to scan like 1500 times a second or something, anyways, its a corded one and I hope it works good.:D

[[Corporal Dan]]

*sigh*

Best. Mouse. Ever.

www.razerzone.com

i cant believe you ppl like that optical crap.

[SnakeEyes]

Sorry Corporal Dan, but these crappy optical mice have come a long way from when they first hit the market.

BTW guys, from reading recent reviews, the new Logitech MX series rock. One even compared it to his previous favorite mouse- the dual optical (which is what I use right now), and said it was even better, despite only having one LED and sensor combo on it vs. the DO's 2. It looks like I'm adding a new mouse to my next upgrade. The fact that it's got 8 buttons total is a plus, of course (though he says that all 8 can't be assigned in games at the moment).

A mouse is something I can actually afford to buy and take back if it doesn't meet my expectations, and I don't usually have to spend hours or days to decide whether I like it or whether it's working the way I like it to- ie. things like mouse lag or jumpiness in my games or on the desktop normally jump right out at me.

[Creole]

I ordered the Logitech MX300 yesterday. From the reviews, it looks like the MX's are really good. I wish I would have know this before.

[druga runda]

Mnd my MS explorer optical drains batteries as if they were those mini watch ones :mad:

no really, a pair a month almost. :confused:

Logitech cordless ballmouse lasted me with one battery the whole year...

[StealthHawk]

so you guys would say that your standard optical mouse is actually better for gaming than a standard ball mouse?

let's not get into the discussion of whether or not optical mice are as good as say a Boomsland, just a regular ball mouse.

[CainSyris]

I read the review posted above and kept thinking, "Why is he comparing a state of the art Logitech mouse against a year old Microsoft mouse?" I mean, seriously, that ambidexturous (sp?) mouse is the one I've been using for about a year or more and he's like, "This mouse is laggy and so Microsoft mice all suck. Buy Logitech. Worship Logitech. Logitech is my god!"

Bah. You want a real review, he should be comparing the new MS mice to the new Logitech mice, not the year old MS mice to the new Logitech mice. He could at least pull out an Intellimouse 3.0 corded and test it if he wants to test real responsiveness.

And yes, I do happen to have the ambi-mouse Optical (by MS) and the Intellimouse 3.0. I was using the ambi-mouse simply because it was smaller than the ungainly Intellimouse Explorer 1.0 until at last they released the sleek and superior in every way Intellimouse 3.0.

I cannot imagine a finer mouse than the Intellimouse 3.0 and I should add that neither of mice have died yet. I suppose the only way to improve this mouse is

1) Bluetooth enabled
2) recharger stand with *good* rechargeable batteries built in
3) wireless

I've heard that Microsoft is to release a new wave of peripherals based around Bluetooth soon (if they are not out already), so that's what interests me. Logitech mice have features which depend upon software which is bloated and takes up too much memory for what little they actually do. Microsoft mice just work, even without the Intellisoftware and before you say it, yes I know MS makes the OS. Which is why I like their mice for controlling said interface. ;)

Now as for new features, revolutionary new features, I can only think of a few, I suppose. But these aren't exactly "around the corner," as you might say. It could have motorized wheels and play games for me, while doing warcries through a small speaker built into the base. It could even self-click. That way, when I'm thirsty, it could play the games FOR me whilst I go to the store. I could get back and find that my Intellimouse Explorer 4.0 is actually a better Unreal Tourny 2003 player than me.

"BOO-YAH! Light's out!"

Or

(To borrow a line from a recent X-Box Game)

"You want a piece of me? Here, have the whole damn pie!"

I could attach the mic input of my sound card to the mouse's output jack and let others think that my mouse is really me. You could call it, "Intellicurse 1.0." A new feature, exclusive to MS. "Intellicurse 1.0 gives you the opportunity to curse your opponents in new and interesting ways iwthout actually having to move your mouth or think. This new technology, exclusive to Microsoft Intellimouse series mice, allows you to be the awesome jibba-jabber that you've always knew you could be, but now with the awesome MS voice of your choice. The Intellicurse technology gives you three exciting voices to choose from, which more on the way. Are you the California girl slayer? "Get out of my slay-ground!" The manaical villain? "How I ache to smash you out of existence! To DRIVE your cursed face from memory forever!" Or the reluctant hero? "Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." Buy a new Intellimouse Series 4.0 mouse, complete with Intellicurse 1.0 technology, today from a retailer near you. And remember... we care. Microsoft. Where do you want to frag today?"

[The Baron]

Logitech Wheel Mouse Optical Special Edition... double the DPI of standard Logitech mouses, and it's red. 3 buttons, good shape, etc. al.

I swear by it. :)

[SnakeEyes]

LOL@CainSyris. Dude, take a valium.

And yes, I consider both the opticals I use routinely to be better than the ball mice I've owned. (Those being namely, the same ambidextrous Intellimoose 5 button that Cain mentioned, as well as my newer Dual Optical). The drivers for Logitech do usually, as I mentioned, cause some headaches until you've figured out the proper installation and settings that THIS particular install wants from the same version driver on the same version OS with the same software. Other than that (or once you manage to experiment your way past that), it's great.

BTW, whether you liked that article or not (it IS personal opinion, ;), after all. The feel of the mouse is guaranteed to be), I found out something new from it. Two actually. The first is that the new MX mice are at least on par with my Dual Optical (and despite what CainSyris thinks, it's an excellent mouse if you don't need to plug the blender into it), also supporting extra buttons (more is better in most online FPS, especially the way I bind my weapons. I like to 'group' my weapons in UT, so that I can pick weapons from each group more easily on the fly, and since I don't use the standard WASD keys, but instead use the arrows, the mouse buttons are more convenient, leaving me to use the kb for movement things mostly). The more bindable buttons, the more specific my groups can be. For instance, I have instant hit weapons on one button, area damage weapons on another, scroll up gets me a certain mix of instant hit, scroll down gets a different mix, and I still get alt-fire on the right button and primary fire on the main button. With a few additional buttons I'll probably have close-in weapons (instant hit and area), as well as mid-long range weapons on the additional buttons.

The second thing the article alerted me to was that Logitech has newer drivers out than I've been using. I downloaded them and installed them, and Eureka. They seem to have fixed my issues with the scrollwheel in games completely. Since I haven't had the need to reinstall WinXPPro lately, I don't know if they're gonna be as quirky from install-to-install as the prior driver revisions though, and that's the only reason I leave my qualifier about the drivers and getting different results on each install in my posts (like above).