A quality gaming mouse that won't force me to use braindead drivers?

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

So annoyed was I with my latest mouse purchase, I wrote the following to
sucessfully request a return:

> G'day again XXXX.
>
> Cheers for putting up with my frustrated venting on the phone just now. As
> I said - I'd just had to deal with the crappiness of the driver software
> as recently as an hour ago when I'd been briefly without my internet
> connection, rebooted from WinXp into OS X on my Mac and yep - the drivers
> wouldn't load past the login to their cloud sharing service, preventing me
> from being able to switch profiles for the mouse. So I was pretty irate a
> wee while before I phoned you, heh.
>
> Anyway, my issues with the Razer DeathAdder 2013 Gaming Mouse
> <http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/PC-Games/Razer-DeathAdder-2013-Gaming-
> Mouse/21009892/> are:
>
> 1) The 'Synapse 2.0' drivers won't allow an offline mode and accessibility
> to already created profiles, let alone new profile creation, if one starts
> up their computer without an internet connection being present. Somewhat
> ironically an internet connection seems to be a prerequisite for later
> enabling of the offilne mode (this leaves aside how bloody stupid it is
> for a mouse to even _need_ an offline mode, or _any_ internet
> functionality at all).
>
> 2) It's such an over-engineered overly complex mouse, the sensor requires
> recalibration for different surfaces. This is fine, though irritating, for
> moving between surfaces I frequently use. But it's a major PITA when I'm
> traveling and just want to use a random surface somewhere, and I've jerky
> tracking because I need to create yet another surface calibration profile
> I'll probably only ever need once. It was such a PITA at first I actually
> thought the mouse hardware was faulty and opened a support ticket with
> Raxzer. But then I worked out it was the mouse sensor needing calibration
> to the nth degree for every damn surface under the sun.
>
> 3) The drivers don't recognise some older apps for automatic switching of
> profiles based on which app has focus. This feature also seems somewhat
> buggy in both OS X and WinXP for apps it does recognise, e.g. I'll tab
> between apps and switching of profiles randomly fails.
>
> 4) The command selection for button configuration is seriously lacking. To
> give but one of many examples - with other third party drivers and other
> standard USB mice I can have stuff like 'click-mouse wheel up' be 'Page
> Up'. I can't do that with the Synapse 2.0 drivers. Of course I could use
> the third party universal drivers I have and use for other devices, but
> then I'm unable to access surface sensor configuration which, as I explain
> above, is necessary.
>
> 5) If the Mac version of the Synapse 2.0 updater fails to successfully
> connect to the Razer servers to check if there's a driver update, they
> hang the driver menulet and driver config software stalls until I use
> Terminal or Activity Monitor (or the like) to force quit the RzUpdater
> process, whereupon the driver menulet and config software becomes becomes
> accessible again. Where was the testing on Razer's part, I ask ya?
>
> 6) The Synapse 2.0 drivers have crashed a few times since I've been
> running them in OS X. In WinXP they seem stable, though still very poorly
> designed. Starting them up again in OS X after a crash is no problem, but
> release quality mouse drivers simply shouldn't ever crash. Or not more
> than once in a blue moon, that's for sure. But these crash once a week on
> average. It's not huge in terms of trouble caused to me, but it's another
> example of sloppiness on Razer's part.
>
> In short - the hardware is way over engineered; the software is poorly
> thought out, poorly designed, buggy, and features I've had from other
> drivers since the late 90's are absent.
>
> My system is a Mid-2007 24" 2.8GHz iMac, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
> 256MB VRAM, running OS X 10.6.8 and WinXp Pro.

So now I'm after a five button (or at least three button - left, right,
wheel-click; but a couple extra buttons on the side for the thumb are
handy to have) mouse with a scroll wheel (_not_ scroll ball or touch
surface) that is:

- Suitable for gaming at home and on the go, i.e. comfy, fits medium to
large right hands, glides smoothly over desk, doesn't require special
mousepads, smooth tracking, selectable DPI settings.

- Will work ok with USB Overdrive v10.4.8 (I prefer USO as it's features
are way better than any first party drivers I've ever seen), i.e.
doesn't do something braindead like default to the lowest hardware DPI
setting, or have some super crazy high DPI (that USBO can't slow down
enough even with it's software DPI settings) if first party drivers are
not running. So long as the mouse doesn't default to something dumb if
first party drivers aren't running, that's fine.

- Has WinXP drivers that don't completely reek. I wish I could be more
positive about WinXP mouse drivers, but the years have taught me to
expect less when it comes to Windows mouse drivers vs the excellent USB
Overdrive for Mac. I'd love to be wrong about this, of course, as I game
in Windows quite a lot lately.

- Does _NOT_ require it's own drivers to be running in order to have DPI
set to whatever I want. Hardware toggles on the mouse for DPI would be
excellent, or onboard memory able to be set by first running first party
drivers, and then using third party drivers for better
features/non-braindead design.

Basically I do not want to be tied to always running lame first party
drivers with stupid features and bad design. I don't mind having to run
first party drivers once to setup the mouse. I _do_ mind then being tied
to always running said first party drivers, unless of course they
actually don't suck, and match USBO's feature set. But I've never seen
first party drivers that didn't suck like mad.

TIA for any advice and recommendations you can provide :-)

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet

--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

In article <1l25hmj.rtztllehh303N%jam...@wizardling.geek.nz>,

The Logitech G500 might do the trick. Corded, no drivers needed, and
the gaming adjustments are built into the mouse. You can also adjust
the weight so that you don't overshoot or undershoot on fast motions.
--
I will not see posts from Google because I must filter them as spam

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

Kevin McMurtrie <mcmu...@pixelmemory.us> wrote:

[snip]

> The Logitech G500 might do the trick. Corded, no drivers needed, and
> the gaming adjustments are built into the mouse. You can also adjust
> the weight so that you don't overshoot or undershoot on fast motions.

Yeah, I like the look of that. Looks a little bigger than I'm used to
for a mouse, but I've bigger hands so that ought to be ok. Cheers Kevin
for the recommendation!

[Xocyll]

jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>So annoyed was I with my latest mouse purchase, I wrote the following to
>sucessfully request a return:
>
>> G'day again XXXX.
>>
>> Cheers for putting up with my frustrated venting on the phone just now. As
>> I said - I'd just had to deal with the crappiness of the driver software
>> as recently as an hour ago when I'd been briefly without my internet
>> connection, rebooted from WinXp into OS X on my Mac and yep - the drivers
>> wouldn't load past the login to their cloud sharing service, preventing me
>> from being able to switch profiles for the mouse. So I was pretty irate a
>> wee while before I phoned you, heh.
>>
>> Anyway, my issues with the Razer DeathAdder 2013 Gaming Mouse
>> <http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/PC-Games/Razer-DeathAdder-2013-Gaming-
>> Mouse/21009892/> are:
>>
>> 1) The 'Synapse 2.0' drivers won't allow an offline mode and accessibility
>> to already created profiles, let alone new profile creation, if one starts
>> up their computer without an internet connection being present. Somewhat
>> ironically an internet connection seems to be a prerequisite for later
>> enabling of the offilne mode (this leaves aside how bloody stupid it is
>> for a mouse to even _need_ an offline mode, or _any_ internet
>> functionality at all).

This is apparently them catering to their core audience, who are
supposedly a majority of the purchasers, professional gamers who are
always on the road and wear out mice with such regularity they need
instant global access to their custom settings.
Has razor never heard of a USB thumb drive?

>> 2) It's such an over-engineered overly complex mouse, the sensor requires
>> recalibration for different surfaces. This is fine, though irritating, for
>> moving between surfaces I frequently use. But it's a major PITA when I'm
>> traveling and just want to use a random surface somewhere, and I've jerky
>> tracking because I need to create yet another surface calibration profile
>> I'll probably only ever need once. It was such a PITA at first I actually
>> thought the mouse hardware was faulty and opened a support ticket with
>> Raxzer. But then I worked out it was the mouse sensor needing calibration
>> to the nth degree for every damn surface under the sun.

Yeah my Taipan is similarly twitchy.

Every so often it just seems to spaz out because the mouse mat in
ancient and not perfectly smooth.

>> 3) The drivers don't recognise some older apps for automatic switching of
>> profiles based on which app has focus. This feature also seems somewhat
>> buggy in both OS X and WinXP for apps it does recognise, e.g. I'll tab
>> between apps and switching of profiles randomly fails.
>>
>> 4) The command selection for button configuration is seriously lacking. To
>> give but one of many examples - with other third party drivers and other
>> standard USB mice I can have stuff like 'click-mouse wheel up' be 'Page
>> Up'. I can't do that with the Synapse 2.0 drivers. Of course I could use
>> the third party universal drivers I have and use for other devices, but
>> then I'm unable to access surface sensor configuration which, as I explain
>> above, is necessary.
>>
>> 5) If the Mac version of the Synapse 2.0 updater fails to successfully
>> connect to the Razer servers to check if there's a driver update, they
>> hang the driver menulet and driver config software stalls until I use
>> Terminal or Activity Monitor (or the like) to force quit the RzUpdater
>> process, whereupon the driver menulet and config software becomes becomes
>> accessible again. Where was the testing on Razer's part, I ask ya?

I guess the pro gamers are happy and the obviously don't give a fuck
about normal users.

>> 6) The Synapse 2.0 drivers have crashed a few times since I've been
>> running them in OS X. In WinXP they seem stable, though still very poorly
>> designed. Starting them up again in OS X after a crash is no problem, but
>> release quality mouse drivers simply shouldn't ever crash. Or not more
>> than once in a blue moon, that's for sure. But these crash once a week on
>> average. It's not huge in terms of trouble caused to me, but it's another
>> example of sloppiness on Razer's part.

To be fair this might not be entirely razor's fault.

With older logitech mice there was a program you could run (EM_EXEC)
that would let you map the mouse buttons to keyboard keys - quite handy
for old games that didn't recognize more than 2 mouse keys natively.

With the same exact driver, from the same exact archive, I went from it
never ever failing to it failing at least once a week. Silently at that
- the program would just end and you'd lose all the mappings without
warning.

I've had the razor mouse lose function in Skyrim, but usually after I've
been mucking about editing a texture and have been tabbing in and out of
it many times - it still works outside the game.

>> In short - the hardware is way over engineered; the software is poorly
>> thought out, poorly designed, buggy, and features I've had from other
>> drivers since the late 90's are absent.
>>
>> My system is a Mid-2007 24" 2.8GHz iMac, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
>> 256MB VRAM, running OS X 10.6.8 and WinXp Pro.
>
>So now I'm after a five button (or at least three button - left, right,
>wheel-click; but a couple extra buttons on the side for the thumb are
>handy to have) mouse with a scroll wheel (_not_ scroll ball or touch
>surface) that is:

There's a company called Steel Series that has some multi button mice
which look like they could maybe be what you want.
No idea what their drivers are like or their compatibility as I've never
used one - but it's something you could check out

I did a bit of research before I bought my Taipan, but I was looking for
a replacement for my logitech mx-310 which is an ambidextrous mouse with
one thumb button and one on the other side instead of the 2 thumb
buttons of later logitech offerings. The Taipan was the closest fit.

The Taipan mostly fills the gap, and I can start the razor config thing
in offline mode when I reboot and shut it off afterwards.
Why they couldn't just stick my setting in the damn mouse and be done
with it... I guess that's not what professional gamers do or something.

I _won't_ be buying another Razor product unless they pull a 180 and go
back to offline config software and on-the-mouse storage of the
settings, which I doubt they'll do since it would show that everything
they've said about razor 2.0 was a lie.

Good luck in your search

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

[Ting Hsu]

On Apr 30, 1:57 am, jami...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet)
wrote:

> - Does _NOT_ require it's own drivers to be running in order to have DPI
> set to whatever I want. Hardware toggles on the mouse for DPI would be
> excellent, or onboard memory able to be set by first running first party
> drivers, and then using third party drivers for better
> features/non-braindead design.

Problems with drivers is what drove me to use driverless SteelSeries
mice (steelseries.com), specifically the Sensei model (the Xai and
Ikari models are also driverless).

The Sensei mouse does come with software, but the software is only
there to program the mouse. Once programmed to your specifications,
you don't need the software anymore, and your mouse will keep its
settings, even when used on a different computer.
--
// T.Hsu

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

The crazy thing is their old mice had internal storage for profiles, and
while the config software and button options were piss poor compared to
USB Overdrive's, it worked well enough. Must be some kind of obession
with every bloody thing under the sun running 'in the cloud'. What next?
My fucking fridge won't operate it's chiller unless it's connected to
the internet?

> >> 2) It's such an over-engineered overly complex mouse, the sensor requires
> >> recalibration for different surfaces. This is fine, though irritating, for
> >> moving between surfaces I frequently use. But it's a major PITA when I'm
> >> traveling and just want to use a random surface somewhere, and I've jerky
> >> tracking because I need to create yet another surface calibration profile
> >> I'll probably only ever need once. It was such a PITA at first I actually
> >> thought the mouse hardware was faulty and opened a support ticket with
> >> Raxzer. But then I worked out it was the mouse sensor needing calibration
> >> to the nth degree for every damn surface under the sun.
>
> Yeah my Taipan is similarly twitchy.
>
> Every so often it just seems to spaz out because the mouse mat in
> ancient and not perfectly smooth.

Yep, that's just plain dumb when my 13 year old MS Intellimouse can
reliably track on nearly any surface with no config necessary - it 'just
works' (likewise virtually any other mouse under the sun I've ever
used), yet a so-called modern advanced mouse throws a fit unless it's
sensor is recalibrated.

> >> 3) The drivers don't recognise some older apps for automatic switching of
> >> profiles based on which app has focus. This feature also seems somewhat
> >> buggy in both OS X and WinXP for apps it does recognise, e.g. I'll tab
> >> between apps and switching of profiles randomly fails.
> >>
> >> 4) The command selection for button configuration is seriously lacking. To
> >> give but one of many examples - with other third party drivers and other
> >> standard USB mice I can have stuff like 'click-mouse wheel up' be 'Page
> >> Up'. I can't do that with the Synapse 2.0 drivers. Of course I could use
> >> the third party universal drivers I have and use for other devices, but
> >> then I'm unable to access surface sensor configuration which, as I explain
> >> above, is necessary.
> >>
> >> 5) If the Mac version of the Synapse 2.0 updater fails to successfully
> >> connect to the Razer servers to check if there's a driver update, they
> >> hang the driver menulet and driver config software stalls until I use
> >> Terminal or Activity Monitor (or the like) to force quit the RzUpdater
> >> process, whereupon the driver menulet and config software becomes becomes
> >> accessible again. Where was the testing on Razer's part, I ask ya?
>
> I guess the pro gamers are happy and the obviously don't give a fuck
> about normal users.

I have to say it shows :-D

> >> 6) The Synapse 2.0 drivers have crashed a few times since I've been
> >> running them in OS X. In WinXP they seem stable, though still very poorly
> >> designed. Starting them up again in OS X after a crash is no problem, but
> >> release quality mouse drivers simply shouldn't ever crash. Or not more
> >> than once in a blue moon, that's for sure. But these crash once a week on
> >> average. It's not huge in terms of trouble caused to me, but it's another
> >> example of sloppiness on Razer's part.
>
> To be fair this might not be entirely razor's fault.
>
> With older logitech mice there was a program you could run (EM_EXEC)
> that would let you map the mouse buttons to keyboard keys - quite handy
> for old games that didn't recognize more than 2 mouse keys natively.
>
> With the same exact driver, from the same exact archive, I went from it
> never ever failing to it failing at least once a week. Silently at that
> - the program would just end and you'd lose all the mappings without
> warning.
>
> I've had the razor mouse lose function in Skyrim, but usually after I've
> been mucking about editing a texture and have been tabbing in and out of
> it many times - it still works outside the game.

Granted it could be on my end, but I reinstalled the shitty effing cloud
drivers twice with no difference. Still - they're freaking mouse
drivers, eh? They should just work, or the mouse shouldn't be so
overengineered and rely on custom driver features that it won't work
with the system's drivers or third party ones like USBO.

It'll be a hell of a long time till I trust Razer again. I like to
punish companies for bad products that waste my time and money, by
avoiding them in the future if possible. Not because I'm trying to be a
dick, but because I see it as the only way they'll learn. Sure as hell
companies nowadays don't seem to care about customer feedback, only
their bottom line.

I liked my old Razer DeathAdder from five years ago (quality hardware,
comfy design, just the right size for my hands), but even it's
non-effing-cloud drivers were lacking compared to USBO's. Still, I
didn't care that the software was lacking in options. I just threw the
Razer drivers away and went merrily on my way with USBO.

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

Just pre-ordered the Logitech G500s FPS Laser Gaming Mouse
<http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/Logitech-G500s-FPS-Laser-Gaming-Mous
e/21303930/>. I was wary of the G500 due to issues with buttons wearing
out and shorting. But the G500s promises to have fixed those issues, and
as with the earlier model it has no need for custom drivers, and has a
hardware DPI toggle.

With any luck I'll have a good experience with this mouse once it
reaches me on the 10th. Though it wouldn't take much to exceed my shitty
month with the Razer DeathAdder 2013 Gaming Mouse, heh :-)

Cheers,

[~misfit~]

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
> Just pre-ordered the Logitech G500s FPS Laser Gaming Mouse
> <http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/Logitech-G500s-FPS-Laser-Gaming-Mous
> e/21303930/>. I was wary of the G500 due to issues with buttons
> wearing out and shorting. But the G500s promises to have fixed those
> issues, and as with the earlier model it has no need for custom
> drivers, and has a hardware DPI toggle.
>
> With any luck I'll have a good experience with this mouse once it
> reaches me on the 10th. Though it wouldn't take much to exceed my
> shitty month with the Razer DeathAdder 2013 Gaming Mouse, heh :-)

Best of luck Jamie. I've been considering a 'gaming mouse' since I started
playing Path of Exile - tres annoying to have eight attack options but not
be a touch-typist - dying while looking at keyboard.

However my one and only experience with one was >5 years ago at a friend's
place and I kept inadvertantly pushing the side buttons when gripping /
moving the mouse. I guess it'd be different if I owned it and was used to
it.

I didn't see XP support listed with that mouse on that page but you say it
will run driverless so all good.

Best.
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

[Xocyll]

Yeah that's why I didn't do more research on Razor, I'd heard good
things about their mice before - just my luck to buy one "shortly" after
they added the cloud umbilical - although thankfully long enough after
that the outcry had forced them to provide an offline more.

> What next?
>My fucking fridge won't operate it's chiller unless it's connected to
>the internet?

Oh no, the usual deal is you keep "basic functionality" without whatever
cloud enabled whatsit running, so the chiller will run, but only at it's
lowest setting and you can forget about the ice maker entirely.

I'm just waiting for them to introduce a cloud linked toaster - "save
your preferred settings to the cloud" "make your perfect toast on any
CloudToast(TM) enabled toaster in the world" and similar such nonsense.
Of course it'll crash often, won't work at all without an internet
connection (since it'll have to load it's basic drivers from it) and
have a lengthy boot up time.
Oh yeah it would have internal scanners to determine what you put in the
toaster and load the appropriate settings from the cloud, because of
course you couldn't possibly want your bagel toasted to the same degree
as regular bread could you? They have to have separate saved profiles.

Booting toaster. CloudToast has detected that there's a new update
available ... downloading ... Installing ... rebooting.
Bagel detected, downloading bagel profile. Start.

Sure beats a lever or dial to set and a push down lever to start the
toaster eh? Sometimes I think the Luddites had a point.

>> >> 2) It's such an over-engineered overly complex mouse, the sensor requires
>> >> recalibration for different surfaces. This is fine, though irritating, for
>> >> moving between surfaces I frequently use. But it's a major PITA when I'm
>> >> traveling and just want to use a random surface somewhere, and I've jerky
>> >> tracking because I need to create yet another surface calibration profile
>> >> I'll probably only ever need once. It was such a PITA at first I actually
>> >> thought the mouse hardware was faulty and opened a support ticket with
>> >> Raxzer. But then I worked out it was the mouse sensor needing calibration
>> >> to the nth degree for every damn surface under the sun.
>>
>> Yeah my Taipan is similarly twitchy.
>>
>> Every so often it just seems to spaz out because the mouse mat in
>> ancient and not perfectly smooth.
>
>Yep, that's just plain dumb when my 13 year old MS Intellimouse can
>reliably track on nearly any surface with no config necessary - it 'just
>works' (likewise virtually any other mouse under the sun I've ever
>used), yet a so-called modern advanced mouse throws a fit unless it's
>sensor is recalibrated.

Yeah there is such a thing as too advanced.
I'm reminded of stories of the early M-16, which really didn't like the
dirt and muck of a combat environment - not exactly what you want from a
combat rifle. Compared to the AK-47 which apparently will still work ok
after it's been abused for years and never cleaned.
Ok sure, it's not as precise, but how much precision do you need for
one, and isn't it more important that it at least shoots instead of
jams?

For me the mouse has to
A. work
B. retain it's settings
C. be precise
D. be ultra precise

And I can live without option D completely, but it's apparently option A
for Razor ahead of actually working.
I guess they figure that if it's not ultra precise there's no point in
it working. It would "degrade the user experience" or some other such
marketeer bullshit buzzword speak.

>> >> 3) The drivers don't recognise some older apps for automatic switching of
>> >> profiles based on which app has focus. This feature also seems somewhat
>> >> buggy in both OS X and WinXP for apps it does recognise, e.g. I'll tab
>> >> between apps and switching of profiles randomly fails.
>> >>
>> >> 4) The command selection for button configuration is seriously lacking. To
>> >> give but one of many examples - with other third party drivers and other
>> >> standard USB mice I can have stuff like 'click-mouse wheel up' be 'Page
>> >> Up'. I can't do that with the Synapse 2.0 drivers. Of course I could use
>> >> the third party universal drivers I have and use for other devices, but
>> >> then I'm unable to access surface sensor configuration which, as I explain
>> >> above, is necessary.
>> >>
>> >> 5) If the Mac version of the Synapse 2.0 updater fails to successfully
>> >> connect to the Razer servers to check if there's a driver update, they
>> >> hang the driver menulet and driver config software stalls until I use
>> >> Terminal or Activity Monitor (or the like) to force quit the RzUpdater
>> >> process, whereupon the driver menulet and config software becomes becomes
>> >> accessible again. Where was the testing on Razer's part, I ask ya?
>>
>> I guess the pro gamers are happy and the obviously don't give a fuck
>> about normal users.
>
>I have to say it shows :-D

And they lied about releasing the old synapse 1 series drivers.
Either lied or carefully made sure to release only model specific
drivers for some of the older mice, so anything newer has to use synapse
2.0.

>> >> 6) The Synapse 2.0 drivers have crashed a few times since I've been
>> >> running them in OS X. In WinXP they seem stable, though still very poorly
>> >> designed. Starting them up again in OS X after a crash is no problem, but
>> >> release quality mouse drivers simply shouldn't ever crash. Or not more
>> >> than once in a blue moon, that's for sure. But these crash once a week on
>> >> average. It's not huge in terms of trouble caused to me, but it's another
>> >> example of sloppiness on Razer's part.
>>
>> To be fair this might not be entirely razor's fault.
>>
>> With older logitech mice there was a program you could run (EM_EXEC)
>> that would let you map the mouse buttons to keyboard keys - quite handy
>> for old games that didn't recognize more than 2 mouse keys natively.
>>
>> With the same exact driver, from the same exact archive, I went from it
>> never ever failing to it failing at least once a week. Silently at that
>> - the program would just end and you'd lose all the mappings without
>> warning.
>>
>> I've had the razor mouse lose function in Skyrim, but usually after I've
>> been mucking about editing a texture and have been tabbing in and out of
>> it many times - it still works outside the game.
>
>Granted it could be on my end, but I reinstalled the shitty effing cloud
>drivers twice with no difference. Still - they're freaking mouse
>drivers, eh? They should just work, or the mouse shouldn't be so
>overengineered and rely on custom driver features that it won't work
>with the system's drivers or third party ones like USBO.

Bad drivers have been around as long as drivers have.
You'd think that an $80 mouse would guarantee properly working drivers
though.
I guess those super ultra elite pro gamers require this stuff.
Boy they sure must blow through a lot of mice per year if they are the
majority of purchasers, not the hundreds of thousands of
non-professional gamers who go through a mouse every 5 years or so.

I'm the same way - Screw me and I will hold a grudge until the Heat
Death of the universe. Forgive and Forget is for people, never
corporations.

IE NovaLogic put out the game Tachyon: The Fringe in 2000 and lied about
the system requirements. I haven't bought another product from them and
never will.

>I liked my old Razer DeathAdder from five years ago (quality hardware,
>comfy design, just the right size for my hands), but even it's
>non-effing-cloud drivers were lacking compared to USBO's. Still, I
>didn't care that the software was lacking in options. I just threw the
>Razer drivers away and went merrily on my way with USBO.

I think my next one may be a Steel Series, I really like what I've been
reading about them - especially the driverless part on some of their
mice (not the ones labeled as "Raw".)

Sad thing is it costs about the same as the Taipan I bought and is
available in the same local computer store I purchased the Taipan at.
If only I'd done some more research about Razor and heard about Synapse
2.0 before I made my purchase I would have gone with a Sensei.
All the features and more and no fucking cloud.

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:

> jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) looked up from reading the
> entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
> say:

[snip]

> >It'll be a hell of a long time till I trust Razer again. I like to
> >punish companies for bad products that waste my time and money, by
> >avoiding them in the future if possible. Not because I'm trying to be a
> >dick, but because I see it as the only way they'll learn. Sure as hell
> >companies nowadays don't seem to care about customer feedback, only
> >their bottom line.
>
> I'm the same way - Screw me and I will hold a grudge until the Heat
> Death of the universe. Forgive and Forget is for people, never
> corporations.
>
> IE NovaLogic put out the game Tachyon: The Fringe in 2000 and lied about
> the system requirements. I haven't bought another product from them and
> never will.

I feel that way about Maxis/EA nowadays, only it took me a little longer
to learn my lesson. I loved Sim City and Sim City 2000 even more. Then I
bought SC3K for the Mac and suffered bugs and what I wish was the worst
support of a website and addon downloads for the Mac version, but sadly
I have actually seen worse. Later I bought SC4K and same deal - bugs and
website and downloads for Mac poorly maintained compared to the Windows
version. Onwards to Spore which aside from being a grand disappointment
as a game in almost every respect, again suffered crappy Mac support for
Mac web resources, downloads and a Spore for Mac xpac store that stopped
working in short order.

It was then I realised I was in an abusive relationship, and I held off
purchasing the new fifth iteration of Sim City. Instead I read the
reviews and imagine my 'surprise' when I discovered it was buggy, cities
are now more like towns in terms of size, and just like Diablo III -
requires an always on internet connection even for single player (should
be called Sim Cloud Town or something). Thankfully I finally had the
sense to avoid getting screwed that time.

I still play SC2K in DOSBox, and I expect I'll still be doing so another
ten years from now. Certainly Maxis/EA will never ever get a cent of my
money so I can experience the joys of playing a single player game in
the cloud. No fucking way.

As for Razer - I had no emotional attachment to their mice like I have
for Sim City and SC2K. They only had to burn me _once_ for me to walk
away. For that matter - if I ever do profess an emotional attachment to
a mouse - just shoot me right there and then. It's not the mousing I
love. It's the games the mouse allows me to play. I never did buy into
the whole 'Cult of Razer' marketing silliness. Guess that's yet another
sign I'll never be a leet pro-gamer :-D Well, that and my 0.6 second
average life span in Quake matches.

[Xocyll]

I never even played 3k much less later iterations - it all started to
seem so derivative.

>It was then I realised I was in an abusive relationship, and I held off
>purchasing the new fifth iteration of Sim City. Instead I read the
>reviews and imagine my 'surprise' when I discovered it was buggy, cities
>are now more like towns in terms of size, and just like Diablo III -
>requires an always on internet connection even for single player (should
>be called Sim Cloud Town or something). Thankfully I finally had the
>sense to avoid getting screwed that time.

Yeah that's pretty much it, as long as you take it they'll keep on
abusing you.

>I still play SC2K in DOSBox, and I expect I'll still be doing so another
>ten years from now. Certainly Maxis/EA will never ever get a cent of my
>money so I can experience the joys of playing a single player game in
>the cloud. No fucking way.

Haven't played those in ages, but one of these days I will set up dos
box and give em a ago (the last time I looked into it was some years
back and dos box had a lot of issues and quirks then so I didn't
bother.)

>As for Razer - I had no emotional attachment to their mice like I have
>for Sim City and SC2K. They only had to burn me _once_ for me to walk
>away. For that matter - if I ever do profess an emotional attachment to
>a mouse - just shoot me right there and then. It's not the mousing I
>love. It's the games the mouse allows me to play. I never did buy into
>the whole 'Cult of Razer' marketing silliness. Guess that's yet another
>sign I'll never be a leet pro-gamer :-D Well, that and my 0.6 second
>average life span in Quake matches.

I actually did have an emotional connection to the MX-310, which as far
as I'm concerned was the perfect mouse when it was released (the only
ambidextrous one at the time I think, certainly with thumb and ring
finger buttons), so of course Logitech axed it (much the way Braun axed
the perfect electric razor I had.)
Perfect size, perfect shape, you could claw grip it and move it easily
without accidentally pressing the side buttons, but easily press one or
both of them when you wanted to.
I'd still be using one if you could still buy them locally - does
everything the Razor Taipan does (that I need) for less than half the
price.
Unfortunately the switches under the primary buttons wear out and it
starts not taking the presses. Cheap plastic wears down I think so it
can't make a clean contact.

I feel similarly about the 3M Precise Mousing Surface, which is as far
as I'm concerned the only real mousepad there is.
If only you could still buy them locally - Amazon wants $12 for them +
$8 shipping - for something that is pretty damn ultra light.

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:

> jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) looked up from reading the
> entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
> say:
[snip]

> >I still play SC2K in DOSBox, and I expect I'll still be doing so another
> >ten years from now. Certainly Maxis/EA will never ever get a cent of my
> >money so I can experience the joys of playing a single player game in
> >the cloud. No fucking way.
>
> Haven't played those in ages, but one of these days I will set up dos
> box and give em a ago (the last time I looked into it was some years
> back and dos box had a lot of issues and quirks then so I didn't
> bother.)

Well you're in for a treat nowadays. DOSBox has gotten extremely good,
and with a good graphical frontend app (if you like to avoid manual
setup and management of DOS apps) it's no more hassle than installing
and running a modern app. I use Boxer as my frontend in OSX, but haven't
tried Windows frontends, though I see plenty out there. The DOSBox site
has a list.

Yeah I might've been going a tad overboard, heh. Truth be told I do have
a fondness for my MS Intellimouse - it just keeps on mousing, and was my
first optical mouse purchase. Plus I still remember the very first
boxy-shaped mouse I ever used - it was an Apple IIgs mouse. That was a
revelation!

[ImperiusDamian]

On 2013-04-30 20:04, Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
>
> Yep, that's just plain dumb when my 13 year old MS Intellimouse can
> reliably track on nearly any surface with no config necessary - it 'just
> works' (likewise virtually any other mouse under the sun I've ever
> used), yet a so-called modern advanced mouse throws a fit unless it's
> sensor is recalibrated.
>

This is why I stick with Microsoft mice. The basic MS mice just work and
last for ever.

[TaliesinSoft]

On 2013-05-02 06:51:08 +0000, Michelle Steiner said:

[initially commenting on Microsoft mice]

> They work great, but I've had them fail about more often than Apple's Apple
> Mouse, both the wired and wireless models. My Magic Mouse never failed,
> but I retired it when I switched to a Magic Trackpad, which is still going
> strong after 33 months of use.

I am an early adopter of Apple's Magic Trackpad and have completely
stopped using a mouse, the last of which was the Apple Magic Mouse.
I've become quite accustomed to the various gestures of which only a
few are available on the Magic Mouse. Admittedly I'm not a gamer so
having a mouse with a multiplicity of buttons is irrelevant to me.

--
James Leo Ryan - Austin, Texas

[Xocyll]

jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
>
>> jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) looked up from reading the
>> entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
>> say:
>[snip]
>> >I still play SC2K in DOSBox, and I expect I'll still be doing so another
>> >ten years from now. Certainly Maxis/EA will never ever get a cent of my
>> >money so I can experience the joys of playing a single player game in
>> >the cloud. No fucking way.
>>
>> Haven't played those in ages, but one of these days I will set up dos
>> box and give em a ago (the last time I looked into it was some years
>> back and dos box had a lot of issues and quirks then so I didn't
>> bother.)
>
>Well you're in for a treat nowadays. DOSBox has gotten extremely good,
>and with a good graphical frontend app (if you like to avoid manual
>setup and management of DOS apps) it's no more hassle than installing
>and running a modern app. I use Boxer as my frontend in OSX, but haven't
>tried Windows frontends, though I see plenty out there. The DOSBox site
>has a list.

Good to hear. Maybe I can revisit some old favorites like Master of
Magic.

>Yeah I might've been going a tad overboard, heh. Truth be told I do have
>a fondness for my MS Intellimouse - it just keeps on mousing, and was my
>first optical mouse purchase. Plus I still remember the very first
>boxy-shaped mouse I ever used - it was an Apple IIgs mouse. That was a
>revelation!

I think my first optical was just some generic no-name.

But the MX-310, just did everything right, 6 buttons, mapping software
so you could use it in older games. Once you've reloaded via thumb
button, pressing r just seems so very, very wrong (and inconvenient),
slap the use key on the ring finger button and there's most of what you
need in a FPS all on the mouse. It was literally a game changer.

The 3M PMS I got when I was still using a ball mouse, and the
de-crudding effect it had was incredible (it has these tiny little
valleys crud fell into instead of sticking to the ball and jamming up
the mouse and this while all of 2 mm thick) it was also ultra thin and
stayed in place - felt like having no mouse pad at all - best mouse pad
ever.

Unfortunately it is now in rather bad shade, they stopped selling them
locally and all the other replacements I've tried have been crap, so I
keep using it, torn and holed and taped down as it is.

Guess I'm going to have to order one online and pay the extortionate
shipping.

[JF Mezei]

On 13-05-02 02:51, Michelle Steiner wrote:

> Mouse, both the wired and wireless models. My Magic Mouse never failed,
> but I retired it when I switched to a Magic Trackpad, which is still going
> strong after 33 months of use.

The mighty mouse ws a dismal failure fo rme. I liked the mouse when it
worked, but my fingers's chemistry was just not compatible with it.

The magic mouse is realiable in terms of longevity. HUGE improvement
over the mighty mouse.


But for unresponsible applications like when Firefox is redrawing a page
after having received additional CSS information (or some image/advert
causes content to be reflewed), scrolling does not work. At that point,
you don't know whether the finger movement has been received and is
queued for execution or whether the mouse didn't register your finger
movements.

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 02 May 2013 12:59:48 -0400, JF Mezei
<jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

>On 13-05-02 02:51, Michelle Steiner wrote:
>
>> Mouse, both the wired and wireless models. My Magic Mouse never failed,
>> but I retired it when I switched to a Magic Trackpad, which is still going
>> strong after 33 months of use.
>
>The mighty mouse ws a dismal failure fo rme. I liked the mouse when it
>worked, but my fingers's chemistry was just not compatible with it.

And cleaning the ball only sometimes worked. But it had one huge
advantage over the magic mouse - it had a tail. I dislike having to
use batteries.

>The magic mouse is realiable in terms of longevity. HUGE improvement
>over the mighty mouse.
>
>
>But for unresponsible applications like when Firefox is redrawing a page
>after having received additional CSS information (or some image/advert
>causes content to be reflewed), scrolling does not work. At that point,
>you don't know whether the finger movement has been received and is
>queued for execution or whether the mouse didn't register your finger
>movements.

I do an on-line jig saw puzzle daily. Lots of times I try to pick up
a piece, and my magic mouse is confused by my thumb.

Apple mouses just don't work correctly.

--
Anybody who agrees with one side all of the time or disagrees with the
other side all of the time is equally guilty of letting others do
their thinking for them.

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 02 May 2013 21:37:36 -0700, Michelle Steiner
<mich...@michelle.org> wrote:

>In article <0966o85t58le5coon...@4ax.com>,

> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>
>> >The mighty mouse ws a dismal failure fo rme. I liked the mouse when it
>> >worked, but my fingers's chemistry was just not compatible with it.
>>
>> And cleaning the ball only sometimes worked. But it had one huge
>> advantage over the magic mouse - it had a tail.
>

>It came in both wired and Bluetooth versions; the BT version was
>discontinued when the Magic Mouse was introduced.

Yep, as long as I could get a wired version, I don't care what choice
someone else makes. But I like having a choice.

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 02 May 2013 21:37:36 -0700, Michelle Steiner
> <mich...@michelle.org> wrote:
>
> >In article <0966o85t58le5coon...@4ax.com>,
> > Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> >
> >> >The mighty mouse ws a dismal failure fo rme. I liked the mouse when it
> >> >worked, but my fingers's chemistry was just not compatible with it.
> >>
> >> And cleaning the ball only sometimes worked. But it had one huge
> >> advantage over the magic mouse - it had a tail.
> >
> >It came in both wired and Bluetooth versions; the BT version was
> >discontinued when the Magic Mouse was introduced.
>
> Yep, as long as I could get a wired version, I don't care what choice
> someone else makes. But I like having a choice.

Aye, I've zero interest in wireless mice and keyboards. As for the
mighty mouse - that was a truly horrible product. The scrollball
constantly stopped working due to crud, and you couldn't lift the mouse
while clicking. Really bad design - form over function.

[Polarhound]

I use the MX518 myself. Corded, 5 button, DPI adjustments are done on
the fly with buttons above and below the scroll wheel and the molded
design fits my medium-large hand very well.