From Rollers To Diodes
Immacolata
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2140Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2140Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Tales of an optical mouse marine</div> I finally had to let my Boomslang 2000 go to rest. Not that it was broken. Between the 3 Boomslang 2000s I own, two of them sent as replacements, there is always enough spare parts to keep at least one of them running. However lovely the boomslang was, it really wasn't based on a very durable design. Or business model, it seems.
In the end it wasn't the repairs that got me down. It was the maintenance. A high precision mouse like the boomslang 2000 requires constant maintenance, like a Formula One car. Roller clearning, roller lubricating. Ball cleaning. Pad feed cleaning. Mat cleaning. Sigh. I really began to notice how I suffered in Natural Selection as marine. I had this small dead zone, where the force of my hand movement where too little to get the ball to overcome initial tension in the roller bearings - even when well lubricated. Or just the ball not having enough of a friction on my desktop mat surface. This resulted in a slightly jerky or jumpy movement as my ball finally got the roller to turn. And it made continuous training of jumping skulks quite difficult. It was time for a change, but how could I ever find mouse love like the Boomslang?
I loathe the freaky, so-called ergonomical mice of Logitech and Microsoft. Twisted beyond recognition and laden with more buttons than a keyboard. I also am wary of wireless mice - I've heard strange and dark tales of gamers going grey haired or entirely bald from frustration with "spazzing out" that their mice give them in games. Also with optical mice. But someone told me that Logitech had made a snazzy new revision of their old work horse, the Pilot. And lo and behold, birthday arrived so what was more natural to wish for than a Logitech MX 300?
It's good. Doesnt have the ultra-fine sensitivity of the 2000 DPI boomslang, i have to jack up the movement bar all the way to the right and put on low acceleration. On my boomslang this would have mad me do like 8 360 degree rotation in the game if I moved the mouse but half an inch. But the MX300 it's accurate in movement due to no ball friction. I can now easier train targets on the move in the game, and I have found out that super-sensitivity isnt the end-all be all of good skills. A nice medium speed makes aiming better but reaction time slower, so for a game like NS I believe aiming is a lot better to focus on since you dont have Rocket Launchers etc.
I havent experienced any "spazzing out" with it either. The 800 DPI MX-optical engine seems to have solved most if not all problems related to gaming. So I am told with users of the bigger MX500 and the deluxe wireless MX700. They all share the same optical engine, so in this old 3½ button mouse - symmetrically shaped thank you very much - I get just as good a mouse than a MX700. I must endure the cord but that's not harming me. The buttons are less cool, but overall, the transition from the Boomslang 2000 (may she rest in peace) to the MX300 has been great.
I recommend the MX300 for Natural-Selection gaming at least. I paid €40 for mine + VAT.
In the end it wasn't the repairs that got me down. It was the maintenance. A high precision mouse like the boomslang 2000 requires constant maintenance, like a Formula One car. Roller clearning, roller lubricating. Ball cleaning. Pad feed cleaning. Mat cleaning. Sigh. I really began to notice how I suffered in Natural Selection as marine. I had this small dead zone, where the force of my hand movement where too little to get the ball to overcome initial tension in the roller bearings - even when well lubricated. Or just the ball not having enough of a friction on my desktop mat surface. This resulted in a slightly jerky or jumpy movement as my ball finally got the roller to turn. And it made continuous training of jumping skulks quite difficult. It was time for a change, but how could I ever find mouse love like the Boomslang?
I loathe the freaky, so-called ergonomical mice of Logitech and Microsoft. Twisted beyond recognition and laden with more buttons than a keyboard. I also am wary of wireless mice - I've heard strange and dark tales of gamers going grey haired or entirely bald from frustration with "spazzing out" that their mice give them in games. Also with optical mice. But someone told me that Logitech had made a snazzy new revision of their old work horse, the Pilot. And lo and behold, birthday arrived so what was more natural to wish for than a Logitech MX 300?
It's good. Doesnt have the ultra-fine sensitivity of the 2000 DPI boomslang, i have to jack up the movement bar all the way to the right and put on low acceleration. On my boomslang this would have mad me do like 8 360 degree rotation in the game if I moved the mouse but half an inch. But the MX300 it's accurate in movement due to no ball friction. I can now easier train targets on the move in the game, and I have found out that super-sensitivity isnt the end-all be all of good skills. A nice medium speed makes aiming better but reaction time slower, so for a game like NS I believe aiming is a lot better to focus on since you dont have Rocket Launchers etc.
I havent experienced any "spazzing out" with it either. The 800 DPI MX-optical engine seems to have solved most if not all problems related to gaming. So I am told with users of the bigger MX500 and the deluxe wireless MX700. They all share the same optical engine, so in this old 3½ button mouse - symmetrically shaped thank you very much - I get just as good a mouse than a MX700. I must endure the cord but that's not harming me. The buttons are less cool, but overall, the transition from the Boomslang 2000 (may she rest in peace) to the MX300 has been great.
I recommend the MX300 for Natural-Selection gaming at least. I paid €40 for mine + VAT.
Comments
But its already discontinued :( :( :(
I have 3.000000 sensitivity...
i know, i'm a freak!
My only gripe is that my low sensitivity (I've always been a sniper in FPS) causes me to have to raise the optical mouse to move more than 90 degrees quickly (aka, mouspad correction) and that will toggle my right mouse button when I "slam" the mouse back down onto the pad. Very annoying in NS, as the right mouse toggles a MENU which is harder to aim through than the marine muzzle flash. I'll have to unbind it one of these days.
Still, it does the job...not as well as i hope it could though.
And Ive gone through 3 other opticals w/o ever having one spaz; the 1st and 2nd gen MS mouse, and the Logitech Dual Optical. Even with the first gen MS optical, I could never go back to a rollermouse. Optical4Evar!
I luv my Logitech <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
best mouse made by man... period.
I don't understand the fascination with the Boomslang. I don't need, nor do I want, 2000 DPI sensitivity. As you said, your mouse is extremely sensitive to movement. I have my mouse sensitivity turned down low, because I don't want my minute movements to cause my view to go crazy. It's like one of us having a Pentium 4 in 1989. "I CAN PUMP OUT 100 FRAMES PER SECOND! WILLY BEAMISH HAS NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD!" It's kinda pointless having all that sensitivity, when you have to turn it down low, isn't it? I got my optical mouse because I didn't want to clean the old ball mouse anymore. My mouse, which never needs cleaning, was $40. The Boomslang, which needs cleaning, is $100. Why bother?
And don't even get me started on trackball mice. If that isn't the leading cause of thumb gangrene, I don't know what is...
and my keyboard is the Logitech Internet Navigator Special Edition, also nice - altough the the "special" functions on the F-jeys just don't want to be disables all the time, it set itselfs on when i reset my comp - it doesn't do this to a friend i know who has the same keyboard. - that's the only downsiade of it.
iFeel rocks.
Thats all I really have to say about it. Mines so old, it looks like the button is about to wear through and its just now showing signs of damage (spazing mainly). I estimate it to be about ... 4 or 5 years old. But, I'm bad at estimations, so .. /me shrugs <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
got it more or less when it first came out.
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And don't even get me started on trackball mice. If that isn't the leading cause of thumb gangrene, I don't know what is...
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My best friend uses a trackball for FPS games ..
best damn player I've ever seen, so, they can't be all that bad .. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Track balls are god like.
It takes ALOT of getting used to, but once you have it down. Hehe perfect acuracy
Got one a LONG time ago (when it was still bassed off of rollers) the new logitech optical crackballs are sooooo sweet
yes you still have to 'clean it', it takes about 1 sec to do you rub your finger on 3 ball bearings, the gunk comes off and you pop the ball back in, no worries (can do this when I die and finish before I spawn). The Optical part tends to give AMAZING sensitivity. Never deal with dead zones, never deal with 'mouse corrections' never move you thumb over 1 inch
now then, who has the better reaction, some one who has to move 1 inch or some one who has to move 5, I will stick with the 1 inch <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
How do you see finer detail in an image? You zoom in. Let's say you have a straight line segment. It's currently one inch long. Now, zoom in. It now looks 5 inches long. While before, you could only make out the quarter inch marks on the line segment, you now can see the 16th's of each inch, since it's zoomed so closely.
That's similar to what it seems like to have an overly sensitive mouse. If you can do a 180 by moving your mouse one inch, you lose all fine accuracy, since it requires you to move your finger in minute amounts to aim.
simply put your thumb is a much more precise instrament then your wrist/arm is.
the proof however lies in the pudding, snipper rifles. It really is scary how acuarate some of us gett with track balls ;D
Again, it takes ALOT of getting used to so, untill you have spent the time to get it right, don't diss what you don't know ;D
I wonder how trackball aiming compares to optical mouse aiming.
And yes, too high sensitivity is kind of wasted. The boomslang's 2000 dpi were more of a theoretical marketing value. The 1000 dpi one was fine indeed.
It seems that Razer has made a new deal with some european electronics company. I hope we will see a good opical mouse from them, I like the design a lot - but I am done with a ball mouse.