Mouse Acceleration for Gaming: Should You Use It?
Reading Time: 4 minutesYou might shudder when you hear the term ‘mouse acceleration’. But, is it really that bad? Should you give mouse acceleration a try? Let’s find out.
Mouse acceleration is a great tool that most gamers are missing out on because of the stigma associated with it. However, Quake pros that use acceleration are always winning tournaments.
The advantage that mouse acceleration gives you is real, even if you’re not going pro. But, is it something you should use? Let’s find out.
How Does Mouse Acceleration for Gaming Work?
Mouse acceleration in gaming works by accelerating your mouse the faster you move it in a predictable way. The graph above is an example of an acceleration curve in Raw Accel. You’re also able to customize your acceleration curve in programs like Povohat’s Intercept Accel and Custom Curve.
Windows’ Enhance Pointer Precision is not a good form of mouse acceleration for gaming because of its unpredictability. We suggest you check out how to turn off mouse acceleration for Windows 10.
The flat part of the graph shows that there is no acceleration for up to 20 counts/ms of mouse movement. This is called the offset, this allows you to have a consistent sensitivity for slow and precise movements. As the curve starts to ramp up, your sensitivity goes up as well. This allows you to make large and quick movements like a 180-degree turn without compromising your low-sensitivity precision.
Mouse acceleration has had a bad reputation for most of FPS gaming’s early history. Check how mouse acceleration is making a comeback as people are rediscovering it and how it’s actually good for gaming.
Examples of Common Mouse Acceleration Curves for Gaming
Here are a few of the most common acceleration curves that are pretty easy to read. Check these curves out and you might even recall certain situations in your games where the increased sensitivity would’ve been useful.
Note: These settings are for Raw Accel, as you can freely move the points around in Custom Curve, but we will still show examples for both. Check out how to configure Raw Accel if you want to try these acceleration curves for yourself.
Linear
Linear is the simplest mouse acceleration type, however, it could prove to be a little difficult to use without an offset as your sensitivity changes with every movement. Adding an offset is very necessary as a consistent sensitivity has its advantages for precision.
Linear is quite predictable, but the transition may not be as smooth as with the other acceleration types. Custom Curve can make the transition smoother yet have perfect linearity by just using more points on the bottom of the curve.
Natural
Natural can be quite jarring with higher acceleration settings, but you can smoothen this out by lowering the Decay Rate in Raw Accel. The increased early acceleration rate is quite advantageous as your sensitivity is increased more and sooner but the decay prevents you from overshooting too easily.
These examples of good mouse acceleration curves are meant to show you their practicality in shooters. This is also to show you that it is possible to have no acceleration until a certain mouse movement speed that you’d want the acceleration to kick in.
Should You Use Mouse Acceleration for Gaming?
There are practically no downsides to mouse acceleration for gaming. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Even the transition period and learning curve aren’t as daunting as you may think.
If you’re worried about the transition period, there almost is none. You can just set your offset to stay at 1x multiplier for slow and medium-speed mouse movements, and you’ll experience no acceleration at all. You’ll only need to practice your fast and large turns, but your regular aim won’t be affected at all.
Mouse acceleration also allows your wrist to stay in a comfortable position, especially after a big turn. No more bending your wrist weirdly just to aim at an enemy right at the edge of your screen.
The one hassle when it comes to mouse acceleration is that you’d need to download the software and put your settings in all over again if you decide to play somewhere else. It’ll also add another dimension to your sensitivity if you’re one to obsess over these things.
We suggest giving mouse acceleration a try. Pick linear or natural, set an offset, target sensitivity, and maximum sensitivity cap, and then use a modest curve. You only need to practice your big swipes and switching between far targets to get used to your acceleration curve as you’re already familiar with the sensitivity inside the offset.
The worst that could happen is you stay within your offset and experience no acceleration at all. It won’t even mess with your muscle memory.
Never Run Out of Mouse Space With Mouse Acceleration
Mouse acceleration may have gotten a bad rep over the years, but gamers are now starting to see how useful it is. It’s a small time investment to give it a try, but mouse acceleration could improve the one thing that matters: how much you enjoy gaming.
If you struggle with mouse pad space or want to be able to react to flanking enemies without hitting your keyboard with your mouse, mouse acceleration will help with that.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/mouse-acceleration-for-gaming-should-you-use-it/
Ref: makeuseof
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