mouse lag

douchebagatron

<div class="IPBDescription">in most video games</div>I get mouse lag. bad. in most games. It doesnt happen in halflife or halflife2 based games, but in most others, heres a list.

dead space
far cry
far cry 2
minimal in cod4, but noticeable
theres been others, but those are some of the more recent games ive tried

vsync is off, my framerates are never bad, theres just a massive delay on mouse movement.

its just a cheapo optic logitech mouse, connected through usb. my mouse ps2 port has been bad for years, but i think i had the issue with farcry before that.

any ideas on how to fix?

DiscoZombie

I have the same issue, most noticeably in Dead Space. I think it may not be a 'bug' but rather a 'feature'... I think they're trying to emulate xbox controls, where your aim speed slowly ramps up the farther you move the mouse, so that it's 'easier' to fine tune your aim, when in reality it kind of just makes it harder and less consistent to aim -_-

but maybe you actually do have an issue - I do not know. check your mouse settings, make sure Mouse Acceleration is disabled. maybe that's what it is. or maybe it's just a framerate issue that looks like a mouse issue, and your PC can't keep up with your speedy movements. just throwing some guesses out there...

douchebagatron

the deadspace issue i think is actually a widespread bug, ive seen a couple things on it.

im positive that mouse acceleration is not the problem because it is definitely a lag, not an acceleration. i can move the mouse about 5 inches and then immediately stop it before the mouse on screen, and only in these games, reacts. and when it does react it will move the same amount as i moved the mouse, and at the same speed.

douchebagatron

ive read that reducing the number of max pre-rendered frames will fix this lag.

which poses another problem: i run vista x64, and ati tray tools doesnt seem to agree with that, and i cant figure out how to edit the max pre-rendered frames otherwise.

edit: got ati tray tools working, set flip-queue, which is the ati equivalent to max pre-rendered frames, to 0 and saw a little improvement. very little. still looking for any other advice?

Flayra

This is a big pet peeve of mine. I will do everything in my power to make sure this never happens in our games!

Abra

<!--quoteo(post=1691710:date=Oct 29 2008, 03:27 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Flayra @ Oct 29 2008, 03:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691710"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a big pet peeve of mine. I will do everything in my power to make sure this never happens in our games!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

What is this light in our lair? "Flây-rar"?

Good to see you browsing OT, I really should clean up my language.

EXCELLENT work on the NS2 engine!

douchebagatron

also noticed that there is a keyboard lag in these same games. best buy geek squad was no help.

locallyunscene

<!--quoteo(post=1691726:date=Oct 29 2008, 12:21 PM:name=6john)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(6john @ Oct 29 2008, 12:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691726"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->also noticed that there is a keyboard lag in these same games. best buy geek squad was no help.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would make a snarky comment about Geek Squad, but I worked in a retail store electronics dept. once. The fact that they have to actually touch and fix the computers of the people I just talked to scares me.

sherpa

I get this in Quake 2 but Q1 and 3 are fine.

Just the way the engine is made I guess?

douchebagatron

i got some improvement by tweaking my settings in far cry 2, but not as good as i would like.

CommunistWithAGun

<!--quoteo(post=1691710:date=Oct 29 2008, 08:27 AM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Flayra @ Oct 29 2008, 08:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691710"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a big pet peeve of mine. I will do everything in my power to make sure this never happens in our games!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


You are probably already aware of this, but if not, I'll teach you how to sell many, many copies of a video game.

Make the controls fluid, natural feeling, and smooth
Make it easily accessible, no draconian protection
Make it finely tuned so its perfectly fun first, perfectly balanced a close second.
Make it easy to learn, difficult to master

A millionaire is you.

Seriously, if NS2 retains as little as half of the value its little brother had, but with the polish I know you plan to add, it will be a smash success.

edit;
Oh yeah. Try to get it on steam. Steam has the only DRM I will tolerate. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />

TychoCelchuuu

<!--quoteo(post=1691770:date=Oct 29 2008, 07:51 PM:name=CommunistWithAGun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(CommunistWithAGun @ Oct 29 2008, 07:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691770"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You are probably already aware of this, but if not, I'll teach you how to sell many, many copies of a video game.

Make the controls fluid, natural feeling, and smooth
Make it easily accessible, no draconian protection
Make it finely tuned so its perfectly fun first, perfectly balanced a close second.
Make it easy to learn, difficult to master

A millionaire is you.

Seriously, if NS2 retains as little as half of the value its little brother had, but with the polish I know you plan to add, it will be a smash success.

edit;
Oh yeah. Try to get it on steam. Steam has the only DRM I will tolerate. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You just described games like Sacrifice, and Darwinia that did not make anyone millionaires.

douchebagatron

thanks for the threadjack flayra

Kouji_San

<!--quoteo(post=1691770:date=Oct 30 2008, 01:51 AM:name=CommunistWithAGun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(CommunistWithAGun @ Oct 30 2008, 01:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691770"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seriously, if NS2 retains as little as half of the value its <b>BIG</b> brother had<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

NS is older, so i'd say it is the big brother (perhaps even dad/grandpa in software terms <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />)


Is this mouselag related perhaps to console development as most of these games/engines described are console based games ported to PC...

I never heard of such a thing on goldSRC/source engines though (mousefilter off ofcourse) and have yet to encounter it myself on Unreal engines...

sherpa

<!--quoteo(post=1691770:date=Oct 30 2008, 12:51 AM:name=CommunistWithAGun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(CommunistWithAGun @ Oct 30 2008, 12:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691770"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You are probably already aware of this, but if not, I'll teach you how to sell many, many copies of a video game.

Make the controls fluid, natural feeling, and smooth
Make it easily accessible, no draconian protection
Make it finely tuned so its perfectly fun first, perfectly balanced a close second.
Make it easy to learn, difficult to master

A millionaire is you.

Seriously, if NS2 retains as little as half of the value its little brother had, but with the polish I know you plan to add, it will be a smash success.

edit;
Oh yeah. Try to get it on steam. Steam has the only DRM I will tolerate. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Erm those are the things you do to please the competitive players who represent (random stat incoming) 1% of the community.

You don't see EA advertising a game saying "No DRM, fluid feeling, perfect balance" it's more "big explosions, 7th game in the series, 4 new weapons".

If I were a developer I'd say to hell with appeasing the hardcore players- there aren't enough of them to make it profitable and they're probably the most likely group to pirate a game.

lolfighter

Note that he put "perfectly fun" BEFORE "perfectly balanced."

Kouji_San

Note that there are "two" not "one" conversations in this topic.


Also isn't fun defined by balance <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />

locallyunscene

Well I'd say poor balance can make things less fun(either too easy or too hard), but a perfectly balanced game isn't necessarily fun.

Comprox

Mouse lag is a weird thing, I once experienced it for a few weeks in HL based games (including NS) a few years ago. I don't remember what I did to fix it, but I don't think it's so much engine based as some other factors.

Rob

I'm gonna make the biggest, most blindest guess I can here and say that mouse/keyboard lag issues on these games would be caused by several layers of input massaging they put into the system to cross platform it more easily combined with the specific nature of your hardware and some kinda deadlock in threading. Basically, your mouse commands are getting buffered somewhere, but the game isn't clearing that buffer fast enough because some other thread has it locked (maybe the thread/process that's pouring commands into the buffer in the first place)

That problem could be compounded by any drivers that refuse to play nice with the game code. I think the only thing you could do is try to find all the stops along the chain (driver, OS, toolkit(DirectX, etc), game) and change each one. Course, that's a huge pain in the but that you won't really get much kudos for if you finally figure out a combo that works. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

CommunistWithAGun

<!--quoteo(post=1691799:date=Oct 30 2008, 08:02 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Oct 30 2008, 08:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691799"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Note that he put "perfectly fun" BEFORE "perfectly balanced."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Thanks, I'm sure he read it the way he wanted anyway though.

Browser_ICE

I have been using a wireless mouse for months now. Althought I have replaced the batteries last week (expireing date in 2010). I did noticed that for a couple of days, I started getting mouse lag while playing NS. It not severe but does affect game response.

The cause is not the batteries as they are brand new and good for the next 2 years (energizers).

I have extream high speed cable (that's what they call it) and rarely have any problems with it.

I did get a Windows XP this week but cannot remember if it was before or after the lag.

As for NS, I think there was an update at the beginning of the week.

So if anyone is having mouse lag in NS, it could be because of system/hl1 updates <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />

douchebagatron

you might want to try adjusting your wireless receiver so its closer to your mouse. if your computer is kinda slow, then you might want to turn off background processes, and turn off VSync (I dont even know if HL1 games have this though) in the video options menu.

w0dk4

Personally, in most cases turning OFF vsync (desperate solution: force always off in video driver) somewhat solved my mouse lag problems in pretty much any game.