Poll: Mouse acceleration

[SquidSponge]

VITAL EDIT:
Poll is glitching, options are:
1) Prefer NO acceleration and can't tolerate it
2) Prefer NO acceleration but can tolerate it
3) Indifferent (no preference, can use either)
4) Prefer acceleration but can tolerate absence
5) Prefer acceleration and can't tolerate absence
6) Obligatory "other" option (please elaborate in post)

Story:
So I saw Carrier Command: Gaea Mission at a bargain price in a Steam flash sale today, and I'd had my eye on it for a while. But I decided with 5h left, it was worth looking for a demo first. So one quick download later I fired it up, had to turn down the graphics (my poor, abused GPU is struggling to keep up these days) and hit the "go" button.

It quickly launched me from the carrier in a shiny tank, dropped me on the shore and gave me an objective to take. But when I set off, what is this? My turret jumps around like a monkey on crack if I move turret more than a few degrees at a time? OK, I have an adjustable-DPI mouse. Hmm, that's different, but it's still not right. Fine, I'll adjust sensitivity in the menu. Oh but wait, that barely helps either - could this be... The dreaded... Oh no... Mouse acceleration?

Yes, my friends, mouse acceleration is in full force in this game. And a quick google search reveals many complaints but no solutions; it seems that it is mandatory, no option to turn off, and as far as I can tell it's effectively impossible to mod out (certainly with my limited skill in that area). So Bohemia Interactive Software, if you're reading this, you just lost (at least) one sale. If I can't control your game, I can't justify buying it (the tank control is just horrible, and don't even get me started on the sodding VTOLs).

To the point:
I hate mouse acceleration. Hate, hate, hate it. With a fiery passion that'd make Lucifer himself blush, then offer me a contract re: fuel for the Pits. I find it utterly impossible to control, and no matter how much I practice (in those games that force it) I just cannot seem to get it, and the idea of mouse acceleration strikes me as absurd, and an initial thought was that there's a very special hell for the person who invented this abomination. Then my rationality gland kicked in, and I recalled a conversation I've had with most of my gamer buddies at some point (we're unanimously against, BTW), so I got to wondering about the wider community's opinions. Devs keep using it, so I presume there's someone out there who doesn't think it's a bloody stupid idea. So what do you think, Escapists?

TL;DR:
What is your preference/stance on mouse acceleration?

 

[Crises^]

Here you go http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/763/cpl-mouse-fix/

Quite popular in the counter strike scene to use this to remove mouse acceleration.
Haven't used this in a few years since I played css but I presume it still works.

 

[DoPo]

Here you go http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/763/cpl-mouse-fix/

Quite popular in the counter strike scene to use this to remove mouse acceleration.
Haven't used this in a few years since I played css but I presume it still works.

I'll second that. Well, I'm using something else (can't remember the name of it) but it essentially does the same, it removes any mouse acceleration options from the registry, so even if it was forced on, it won't work. Unless, the game itself has mouse acceleration for some reason (usually the game just uses the in-built Windows one).

OT: Well, I'll put it as mildly as I can, mouse acceleration can go die in a fire and I'll feel sorry for the fire. It's a horrid abomination that I can only work with if I'm using a touchpad, even then, I'd rather swipe a couple more times than turn it on, to be honest.

Recently, I started playing HL2 again. And as with any other game, I immediately flipped to the options to tinker with stuff when I encountered something I haven't seen before, since it must have been brought in with a recent update of the Source engine. The option read "Raw input" and was under "Mouse" in the options. When I read what it did I decided that, like, EVERY game should have that now. No excuse. Raw input bypasses the Windows Control Panel settings and...well, uses the raw input of the mouse. No acceleration, smoothing or adjustments.

 

[Lilani]

I just bought Fallout 3 and Fallout NV in the Steam Sales, and in F3 my mouse was doing really funky things. I couldn't decide if it was accelerating or decelerating. On the main menu the mouse flew around way too fast for my liking, so before I even started the game I lowered the speed to minimum. Then, when the game started, that turned out to be WAY too slow when controlling my character. So I sped it back up a bit, and now in-game it's tolerable but going around the menus is a bit of a bother.

Apart from that, I suppose haven't really developed a huge opinion on mouse acceleration, one way or another. I tend to have to tweak it for every game, and I tend to have it on the lower end of the sensitivity spectrum, but I've never thought about wanting a "raw input" option. I guess it's because I've never really experienced that in a game, and because I tend to want something different for every game. I tend to want my mouse sensitivity a little higher in a game like TF2 where my character is moving quickly and I need to make tight turns, whereas in a game like Mass Effect I need precision more than I need the ability to turn on a dime.

 

[shrekfan246]

Mouse acceleration is stupid and any developer that implements it should get out of the PC scene.

Okay, that's a little extreme, but seriously, mouse acceleration is one of the biggest 'little things' that is almost always going to be a problem. I can live with a bit of auto-aim even when I'm using the mouse, just because I've got pretty twitchy hands and can't always keep the crosshair completely steady (and generally find it rather difficult to "lead" enemies while aiming), but I don't think I've ever found a situation where I thought mouse acceleration bettered my experience of the game.

To be completely fair, there are plenty of instances where it's so minimal that I don't even notice, but I'm always thankful for games that have the option to turn it down/off or don't even use it in the first place.

For the sake of argument I'm going to include mouse smoothing under the same blanket.

Developers? Don't use them. Please. For the sanity of people who will be playing your game on the PC. Or at the very least, give extensive options for tweaking/turning them off.

 

[DoPo]

For the sake of argument I'm going to include mouse smoothing under the same blanket.

It has its uses...I suppose. It's good if you have an older style ball mouse, then you'd need mouse smoothing. But otherwise, not really. And yeah, it NEEDS a turn off option, it's a really limited use thing, that shouldn't be forced on.

 

[DSK-]

I turn it off because it messes with my mouse settings. Thank you MarkC's fix!

Captcha: tickled ivories. OH VICAR!

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Acceleration off, smoothing off, Y-axis inverted, aim-assist off (because I'm not a console gamer). All of the above, or game gets uninstalled sharpish.

 

[viranimus]

Personally I will map any PCs games controls to a controller via xpadder, so in order to get even a remotely usable mouse speed off of an analog stick essentially requires quite a bit of acceleration.

Otherwise in the 1% of games where controller mapping is basically impossibly pointless (Im looking at you NWN2) I never really find much desire or hindrance by whatever the default mouse speed is set at.

 

[Tanakh]

Why would anyone want acceleration when using a mouse to play? I can't see any advantage to it.

Mildly related: This days i am doing Ous! ( http://osu.ppy.sh/ ) on my days off to improve mouse control.

 

[Woodsey]

No acceleration and no smoothing - and no forgiveness for any developer that forces the fucking things. No one in the history of the universe has ever asked for them.

 

[Bad Jim]

But when I set off, what is this? My turret jumps around like a monkey on crack if I move turret more than a few degrees at a time?

Mouse acceleration should allow you to do pirouettes with fast movements and aim accurately with slow movements. If it's so sensitive that even a gnat's cough spins you 360 degrees then your problem isn't really mouse acceleration, it's that your mouse sensitivity is too damn high.

Sure, mouse acceleration generates higher numbers and turning it off can often make an unplayable game playable, but the fault in this case is lazy programming, not a fundamental problem with mouse acceleration. It should be properly scaled.

Windows uses it by default. Try jerking your pointer halfway across the screen and slowly moving it back. Unless you turned it off you will have to move your mouse a lot more on the return journey. Do you have trouble with the Windows pointer? Probably not.

The main reason to avoid it in games is that without it you can move the mouse and shoot on a reflex, but you can't move the mouse a certain distance at a certain speed . If you have a good mouse you can be fast and precise without mouse acceleration, but with it you can be fast or precise but not both at the same time.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'm actually not 100% sure what Mouse Acceleration even is....

When I clicked here, i thought you meant smoothing, which needs to die in a fire, but then I saw people mentioning that AND acceleration.

Can someone elaborate just a tad?

EDIT: Huh. Not sure I've ever encountered it. Thanks for the answers though.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Haha, most people I know absolutely hate it, and I understand why: if you're not used to it the cursor ends up in different places

Personally, I have gotten used to it because I bought this Razor mouse some years back that apparently had it on by default. I never really took much note of it and just adapted, so now I'm used to it.

I can do it either way, but I can't say that I've been negatively affected by having it on. I have a rather steady hand and it can be cool to quickly jump your cursor somewhere with a small movement of the wrist.

I'm actually not 100% sure what Mouse Acceleration even is....

When I clicked here, i thought you meant smoothing, which needs to die in a fire, but then I saw people mentioning that AND acceleration.

Can someone elaborate just a tad?

It means that your cursor speeds up to match the speed you're moving your mouse with.

 

[Bad Jim]

I'm actually not 100% sure what Mouse Acceleration even is....

When I clicked here, i thought you meant smoothing, which needs to die in a fire, but then I saw people mentioning that AND acceleration.

Can someone elaborate just a tad?

The faster you move your mouse, the higher your mouse sensitivity. If you don't have much desk space, you might find that there is no fixed setting for mouse sensitivity that lets you turn around easily while still being able to aim accurately. Mouse acceleration addresses that problem, but at the cost of making it harder to be fast and accurate at the same time.

 

[LAGG]

I'm actually not 100% sure what Mouse Acceleration even is....

When I clicked here, i thought you meant smoothing, which needs to die in a fire, but then I saw people mentioning that AND acceleration.

Can someone elaborate just a tad?

EDIT: Huh. Not sure I've ever encountered it. Thanks for the answers though.

If you move you mouse 1 cm it turns your screen 1 degree, but if you more 2 cm it turns your screen 5 degrees. That's mouse acceleration.
It happens because it dynamically changes your effective sensitivity based on how fast you move your mouse.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

There should be no such thing as Mouse Acceleration in PC games because we don't need it.

If you want to increase the speed of your mouse just use the sensitivity option. And if that isn't enough, just raise the DPI.

In any case, every time when I didn't check mouse acceleration off in my games I had the feeling that I cannot shoot accurately. I cannot tolerate it, especially in games that are ported awfully and don't even give us an option to turn that thing off.

 

[SquidSponge]

Well I'd like to thank everyone for the responses, (especially for that there fix, I'll check that out in a few mins). That curve on the poll pretty much confirms what I thought all along - I guess there really are a few people out there who prefer it, but the overwhelming majority agree that it needs to be an ugly roadbump that stays firmly in gaming's past as a bold idea, and a lesson learned. So I guess the ideal solution is "default off, option for on". With that fix I kinda regret not getting Carrier Command on 75% off now, but then it supposedly has major pathfinding bugs, and maybe it'll come up on sale again sometime.

And re: calibration of mouse acceleration, I'll actually concede that point. I guess I'm so thoroughly used to Windows' acceleration that I no longer notice it, implying that it can be worked around with practice. But then, since my ~1.5 decades with Windows will never be matched by any one game, I maintain think it's far better to do without acceleration.

On a related note, mouse smoothing is something that I myself subconsciously lumped in with mouse acceleration - I guess it is technically different, but I don't think it's unfair to assume a similar reaction to both.

@Bad Jim:
I apologise for my hyperbolic phrasing, I wasn't actually doing pirouettes per se, but when accounting not only for the shell's gravitational drop but also leading it due to its speed (and occasional changes in direction), I really needed my cursor to be where I expected to end up - which it really wasn't. Like I said, I played with sensitivity, but the aim simply moved wrong.

@DoPo:
Raw input option in all games? F*ck yeah, I'm gonna get right behind that and plant roots.

(also, I edited OP to include the omitted part about the inventor's special hell. Though it just got slightly less special, 'cuz the inventor of mouse smoothing can join the bugger there)

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Acceleration off, smoothing off, Y-axis inverted, aim-assist off (because I'm not a console gamer). All of the above, or game gets uninstalled sharpish.

Console gamers hate aim-assist too. I can aim just fine with a controller with no aim-assist. The worst thing is that you normally can't turn off aim-assist; it only makes it harder to aim.

 

[Bonk4licious]

Acceleration off, smoothing off, Y-axis inverted, aim-assist off (because I'm not a console gamer). All of the above, or game gets uninstalled sharpish.

Console gamers hate aim-assist too. I can aim just fine with a controller with no aim-assist. The worst thing is that you normally can't turn off aim-assist; it only makes it harder to aim.

Sometimes it's OK in singleplayer but usually the biggest problem is it sticks to the target and then you can't easily aim away, without releasing sights if someone else is nearby, making it absolutely horrendous in multiplayer. I can't use it really on either controller or mouse without just rage quitting.