OS X High DPI Mouse Behaviour - Experts please look here
Hi, I have spent the last 2 days reading up about the Mac OS X mouse behaviour and acceleration curves.
Here's the issue: For high dpi mice, the default OS X curve is completely off. This means most new mice can't be used with OS X, unless you install drivers. Microsoft provides software for it's mice, and in that instance it changes the acceleration curve to be milder. Logitech and Razer's support for their mice in OS X is lacklustre to say the least. Then there is 3rd party drivers (USB Overdrive, Steermouse, etc.) which cost $20, and doesn't work as well as a normal driver should.
Now, there is a fix - disable the acceleration completely:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
(replace mouse with trackpad to do the same for that)
This only works with high DPI mice, because it effectively also sets the mouse movement speed to the lowest setting, which when changed to any other setting overrides the plist setting you just changed. So you need a high DPI mouse to be able to still use it at the slow setting (the mighty mouse for example crawls at that speed).
However, this still leaves one problem, and hence the reason I am here. Jittery, jumpy cursor movement, at slow speeds. This seems to affect only the laser/infrared sensor mice out there, and NOT the standard optical mouse. At slow speeds, the mouse jumps around, typically 4 px or so, up or down or sideways. This goes away with a slight increase in mouse movement. To clarify slow speed, think the speed you would be using for retouching photos, and thus the worst possible time to be dealing with jerky movement.
A nice demonstration of this is available here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/913009228831/inc /-1
In order to be clear, it is aparent that this behaviour is unique to OS X (the same mice exhibiting the problem, do not have the same slow movement jitter on Windows PC's, nor Boot Camp setups); It is not hardware problems (this is happening to mice with various hardware specs); It is not tracking problems, mouse pads, dirty laser sensors (the same setup running windows exhibits no problems).
Finally, my questions: Why do the mice exhibit this behaviour? Is there still some slight acceleration, whereby the software is getting confused by the slow movement? Is there any coder here with more information or knowledge re the apple hid driver?
Let's get some discussion going. The mouse is, after all, a pretty important part of your setup.
Here's the issue: For high dpi mice, the default OS X curve is completely off. This means most new mice can't be used with OS X, unless you install drivers. Microsoft provides software for it's mice, and in that instance it changes the acceleration curve to be milder. Logitech and Razer's support for their mice in OS X is lacklustre to say the least. Then there is 3rd party drivers (USB Overdrive, Steermouse, etc.) which cost $20, and doesn't work as well as a normal driver should.
Now, there is a fix - disable the acceleration completely:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
(replace mouse with trackpad to do the same for that)
This only works with high DPI mice, because it effectively also sets the mouse movement speed to the lowest setting, which when changed to any other setting overrides the plist setting you just changed. So you need a high DPI mouse to be able to still use it at the slow setting (the mighty mouse for example crawls at that speed).
However, this still leaves one problem, and hence the reason I am here. Jittery, jumpy cursor movement, at slow speeds. This seems to affect only the laser/infrared sensor mice out there, and NOT the standard optical mouse. At slow speeds, the mouse jumps around, typically 4 px or so, up or down or sideways. This goes away with a slight increase in mouse movement. To clarify slow speed, think the speed you would be using for retouching photos, and thus the worst possible time to be dealing with jerky movement.
A nice demonstration of this is available here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/913009228831/inc /-1
In order to be clear, it is aparent that this behaviour is unique to OS X (the same mice exhibiting the problem, do not have the same slow movement jitter on Windows PC's, nor Boot Camp setups); It is not hardware problems (this is happening to mice with various hardware specs); It is not tracking problems, mouse pads, dirty laser sensors (the same setup running windows exhibits no problems).
Finally, my questions: Why do the mice exhibit this behaviour? Is there still some slight acceleration, whereby the software is getting confused by the slow movement? Is there any coder here with more information or knowledge re the apple hid driver?
Let's get some discussion going. The mouse is, after all, a pretty important part of your setup.
iMac 20" 2.0GHz 2GB Aluminium, Mac OS X (10.4.10), iPod nano 1G 2GB with iPod Universal Dock | Apple IIe