The Wargamer

[insert obligatory cat/cheese joke here]

Despite being one of the most critical aspects of a computer, from the humble office desktop to the highest end gaming rig, the poor old mouse is usually the last to ever get a look in when it comes time to upgrade or replace hardware and peripherals. I suppose the old maxim about the more useful something is, the more we take it for granted rings true here. The mouse is, after all, one of the two key input devices for the computer, and while it can be foregone for menial office work (though it is a great convenience, unless you want to learn 1001 keyboard shortcuts), it is absolutely essential to professionals and gamers, who rely upon its precision to accomplish their tasks.

And yet, the mouse remains the forsaken peripheral, and May God Have Mercy upon its attendant accessories such as the mere mouse mats. However, the right choice in mouse can mean the difference between frustration and accomplishment, frags and kills. Because of this, I’m going to take a look at what makes a mouse tick, what it means to you, the user, and finally, I’m going to take a look at a particularly specialised mouse from Logitech, aimed at the gamers among us.

Get With The Optical Revolution

Mice have been around as long as the Graphical User Interface, and since their inception they have become the universal controller of choice around the world and the differing computing solutions. However, that is not to say that the mouse has not evolved a long way since its first inception; in the past we have all used tracker ball based mice, but today optical mice are becoming the standard, and for some good reasons.

For one, optical mice are far more reliable than mechanical mice that use a roller ball to track movement. I can’t recall how many times I had to take the ball out and clear dirt off the rollers to stop it impeding the movement of the mouse. Roller ball based mice, being a moving, mechanical piece of technology, are far more susceptible to breakdowns and failures, and so the cost of ownership with replacements for roller ball mice can be quite high when compared to optical mice, which are marginally more expensive to purchase in the first place, but which have a lot longer lifespan on the mousemat… or even just on the desk, as they can be operated on pretty much any surface.

Optical mice are also a lot more accurate, which is a feature that will attract many gamers and professionals. Wireless optical mice also provide much greater flexibility to many users, though as we’ll see below not every solution suits every customer.

The Right Mouse For The Right Err… Computer…?

Figuring out which mouse suits your needs is a question of taste and usage; obviously a high-end, gamer-centric mouse that can track 1600DPI (that’s Dots per Inch, to you and me… basically how far the cursor will move per inch of movement of the mouse) before quickly switching down to 400DPI to better get a precision sniper shot in, and which comes with more programmable buttons than the space shuttle will cost a shade more than a wireless mouse aimed at the home office user who might fire up a forgiving turn-based strategy game during the evenings for a bit of leisure.

There are a few considerations to make in this equation. For example, a wireless mouse can provide great flexibility when it comes to where one can control the computer from (on the desk, up the wall, the cat…), but sometimes the signal strength can degrade and cause blips in coverage, freezing the cursor or lagging it. This won’t cause much more than a slight bit of annoyance to a home office user, but to a halfway serious gamer or professional this can cause much pain and suffering, from an unlucky death to a mis-cropped photograph leaving the bride looking somewhat like one of id’s Doom 3 creations.

Another consideration is, as I mentioned, the flexibility of the mouse; how many programmable buttons are there? Can sensitivity be adjusted on the fly? How smoothly does it fly across the table? Asking these questions will mean the difference between buying a top end, gamer centric mouse and an off the shelf, bog standard piece of kit that comes with two buttons and a mousewheel.