kad: How to make your Wireless mouse go ultra-fast

How to make my mouse go ultra-fast ?

The new Apple Wireless Mouse is a very cool peripheral and brings you a state-of-the-art tracking system for accurate tracking and smooth movements.

By using the « Keyboard and Mouse » preferences pane, you can change the tracking speed, also known as « Mouse Scaling ». In order to do so, just click on the « Mouse » tab and use the slider.

iBook and PowerBook users should note that the trackpad setting will not affect the mouse and that they need to setup the mouse separately : indeed, these two input devices react differently to movement and having one centralized setting wouldn't allow you to customize your computer's behavior to the same extent.

Some users, however, like their mouse to go very fast, sometimes even faster than the maximum value ! Why ? That's a matter of taste !

To force-accelerate their mouse, they can download a few third-party utilities. However, users who are not comfortable with modifying a system component directly or to replace it with a third-party one may want to try to perform these steps first.

Note : The Apple engineers do their absolute best to provide you with easy-to-use, effective applications and under no circumstances will you need to perform these steps. The Wireless Mouse tracking speed should be high enough to please all users. The following information is provided for experienced users who want to force-accelerate their mouse. Although it should be less intrusive than third-party solutions, please note that you use it at your own risk.

I - Why is this method different ?

This method alters the preferences file in which the mouse tracking speed values are stored. Therefore, it does not change the Mac OS X components responsible for mouse tracking in themselves.

Would something go wrong, you should be able to log in as another user and to delete the faulty preferences files.

II - Are there any drawbacks ?

Force-accelerating your tracking speed may result in a slightly less smooth cursor movement on your screen. However, unless you choose extremely high values, you should not experience issues with your mouse.

Although we did not notice such issues in our tests, please, note that some applications may not like this non-standard mouse setting and experience difficulties.

III - Is this easily reversible ?

Going back to the default speeds supported by Apple - and the ones we would recommend - should be as easy as using the « Mouse and Keyboard » preferences pane again.

IV - How do I do it ?

To force-accelerate your mouse, follow these steps :

1. Save your work and quit all your applications
2. Open the « Terminal » application, located in your « Utilities » folder
3. At the prompt, type :
   <center>defaults write -globalDomain com.apple.mouse.scaling -float 6</center>
   

   Important note : For best results, the value that you choose should stay between 4 and 8. Greater values are more likely to cause inaccurate tracking

4. Enter return
5. Log out and in again
6. Do not use the « Keyboard and Mouse » control pane again to change your mouse tracking speed. Note that the slider position will be inaccurate : this is expected behavior since the interface hasn't been designed for such high values.

V - How do I go back ?

To go back to recommended speeds, simply use the speed slider available through the « Keyboard and Mouse » preferences pane.

Note : Information about third-party products is provided for information purposes only, and does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. These steps are provided for information purposes only. We make no representations regarding their effectiveness or safety. Note that such a configuration isn't supported by Apple.