SMOOTHMOUSE MAC MAC OS X
SMOOTHMOUSE MAC MAC OSX
SMOOTHMOUSE MAC BLUETOOTH
SMOOTHMOUSE MAC WINDOWS

If there existed lag on the software side of Mac OSX that affects mouse precision, then how does a Wacom tablet manage perfect 1 to 1 movement (which, for anybody who hasn’t used a Wacom on a Mac, it IS one to one, and Wacom itself frequently shows off its products using Macs). Ok, not sure why this hasn’t been brought up, but seem to be a few flaws in the blog’s argument about lag, namely:ġ) Wacom Intuos Tablets.

SMOOTHMOUSE MAC WINDOWS

WRT to switching to linux or windows – it’s possible the defaults for that OS have the mouse acceleration set faster than (IMHO) the slow mac default speed.

SMOOTHMOUSE MAC BLUETOOTH

Maybe you’re using a bluetooth mouse which is adding additional transmission lag, or you’re not accounting for the acceleration algorithm used for mouse movement. We’re able to perceive changes at very fast speeds (say, 200fps) but at that rates we’re only able to see extremely high contrast changes in images.Īt 32mS you’re talking around 3 frames of video, so that should basically be imperceptible. If my assumption is correct, of course.įirst off, where did your timings come from? How did you calculate this delta and land on the 32mS number?Īs someone who spends an incredible amount of time dealing with audio and video work (on macs, primarily), I have to say that while you may have discovered an apparent ‘lag’ in the mouse motion, going as far as to say that it renders the system useless for “design and gaming” is pretty specious to say the least.Īround 7-10mS is the threshold for people identifying differences in audio. Note: if you have access to a display with a faster refresh rate than 60Hz, you will notice less mouse lag if you use that display. If this is true, selecting text (like the observation above) will result in the selection lagging after the mouse cursor. With active sprites, the GPU draws them on top of the displayed frame without having to manually draw them into the back buffer. Regarding Windows: I suspect Windows uses a different, ancient technique to draw the mouse cursor: sprites. All games and design apps use double buffering (or in some cases, triple buffering), otherwise incomplete frames would be shown.

SMOOTHMOUSE MAC MAC OS X

Your statement “Yes, Mac OS X is less suited for gaming and design.” is false. The mouse itself does not lag, but merely the graphical representation of it.Ģ. If the assumption is correct, this leads to the following conclusions:ġ. After the next vsync, the back buffer is drawn. A new frame is drawn onto the back buffer, with the new mouse position. You move the mouse just after this is done. Here’s what I think is happening in the worst case:ġ. I’m assuming Mac OS X uses double buffering for graphics. Observation: when I quickly select text using the mouse, there is no lag between the mouse cursor and the selection of text. No, you can’t do anything about it other than switch to Windows or Linux.ģ2ms… that sounds like the time taken to display two screen frames at 60 Hz.Lag gives “floating” feeling which is often confused with acceleration.Yes, Mac OS X (any version) is less suited for gaming and design.I’ve also heard that they are supposedly working on a solution. The problem has been confirmed by an Apple engineer. The problem is as well closely related to the cursor jumping issue that has alone been fixed in Lion thanks to all our bug reports. You can supposedly avoid the issue by disabling QuartzExtreme. The problem is caused by a bug somewhere at the windowserver level of Mac OS X, and not by a mouse driver. It still exists in Snow Leopard and Lion.

The problem I’m talking about affects all mouse and touchpads since at least Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. In ControllerMate, for instance, you can manually draw your own acceleration curve.īut it’s all pretty much useless as long as mouse movement is literally retarded, because it takes a lot of time for your brain to get used to it. The truth is, in Mac OS X you can change acceleration to whatever you want using many programs and techniques. I mentioned acceleration because a lot of people often confuse it with lag. The lag of a Mac OS X cursor is at least twice bigger than Windows’ cursor and yes, a human eye can surely notice that. * * * SmoothMouse, the long-awaited fix for mouse problems in OS X, has been released.įurther discussion about mouse lag continues on the SmoothMouse Forum.īy that I mean a delay between receiving movement data from the mouse device and rendering the on-screen cursor. The main problem of mouse movement in Mac OS X is not acceleration - it’s lag.

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