It’s actually kind of odd that possibly the cheapest piece of kit in your build is the one you rely upon the most, but that’s the nature of the machine interface that has evolved around the PC. CPUs and video cards are still the big drivers of what your PC can do, but they’re out of the way. Your mouse, though, is front and centre, and if you’ve ever used a friend’s PC, or sat down to a strange system at a convention, the time it takes to get used to a new mouse can be catastrophic – using one that is actively bad, or at the least not designed for how you game, can be even worse.
But what makes a good mouse, when it’s such a deeply personal computing peripheral? Well, to help you make the right choice, there are some basic things to look for.
MOUSE TECH
To start with, it doesn’t hurt to know how your mouse works, and the most important part of your mouse is its tracking mechanism. Once upon mechanical or ball mouse, with a little rubber ball that interacted with two wired up rollers, where the king of the hill, but these days they’re pretty much obsolete – and thank the gaming Gods, too, because cleaning them was both a hassle, and kind of gross!
Now, you’ve got two dominant tracking mechanisms – optical, which is admittedly going out of style, and laser.
Optical trackers have no moving parts, which is a plus on the reliability side, and track movement via the reflected pattern of an LED light. As it moves across a surface, the changing light is converted into tracking data, and your cursor – or gun-sight – moves across the screen.
Laser mice use a laser instead of an LED, but the principle is the same. However, the more coherent laser beam offer much more accurate tracking, delivering not only precision, but also smoother motion. Unsurprisingly, laser mice are far and away the better option for gamers. You can still occasionally find dual LED/Laser mice, and Logitech even has a dual laser mouse. But, if you stick with a laser sensor, it’s hard to go wrong.
Gaming mouse generally come with a range of DPI measurements, or ‘dots per inch’, which measures the mouse’s sensitivity. As a rule, the higher the better, but some games – like MOBAs and RTS titles such as a StarCraft, really benefit more from a high DPI.
THE BUTTON, THE BUTTON, WHO’S GOT THE BUTTON?
The next most important thing to consider is what kind of button arrangement you require, which generally comes down to what kind of games you’ll be playing. A lot mouse manufacturers have a general split between button-heavy MMO mice, and simpler, but faster-responding, mice designed for shooters. Games like StarCraft and MOBAs often fall under the latter type, as well.
Dedicated mice for dedicated games may sound cool, but the truth is that most of us play a wide range of games. We might log onto Warcraft for a dungeon raid on Saturday afternoon, but spend a fifteen minutes each morning with World of Warsh ips (also, it seems we have a passion for ‘World of…” games).
You could have different mice for each game, but for the average gamer, we’d recommend something that your classic left and right buttons, a button on the scroll wheel, and that’s it. Side-buttons can be useful, but depending on your grip, they can also get in the way – and you don’t want random mouse-clicks in the middle of a serious online beat-down.
If you are a one-game guy, or you’re looking for a solution to pro-level gaming, by all means specialise.
ERGONOMICS
Here’s a topic where there is no catch-all answer. Just like our hands are all individual, the perfect mouse for one gamer could be hell for another. If you’re serious about mice, we’d recommend getting hands-on time with anything you’re looking at buying. Consider how you grip your mouse – do you rest your palm and hand over it, or only grasp it in claw grip? Do you like to pick up your mouse and scoot it back and forth, or are you fond of large, expansive gestures? The answer to these questions inform everything from placement of rubber grips, to size, even to the smoothness of the mice’s silicon feet.
There is almost certainly a perfect mouse out there for you, but finding it will take a little more reading the latest benchmarks.