Logitech MX1000 Laser club

[ElementalDragon]

the time between when the laser shuts off after taking it off your surface, and the laser turning back on when it touches the surface is very, VERY small. The only way you would notice that delay is if you pick the mouse up enough for the laser to turn off and then SMACK the mouse back down to the surface and try to move it instantly, which one shouldn't do in the first place with an $80 MOUSE! I mean come on, if you're get killed cause you had to lift your mouse up to move it and that FRACTION of a second was all it took for the guy to kill you, then even if it responded instantly you still would have more than likely died. If you're that worried about having to lift your mouse so you can turn enough in a First Person shooter, there's 2 things you can do to EASILY solve that problem. either a) up your sensitivity a bit to make you turn faster with less mouse movement, or b) don't use a mousing surface. use your desk, works just as good as a mouse pad did with a normal optic mouse. I play Counter-Strike Source with my MX1000 quite often, and i don't remember lifting the mouse ONCE while playing, except for maybe after i already died to position it more comfortably. If your friend is that worried about the fraction of a second delay, then he's WAY too much of a gamer, or hates to get killed.

 

[LordOfLA]

The laser turns on and off in a nanoseconds, if you can see that then you are superhuman.

Whats more likely is windwos shutting down the usb port to save power, or lag in the game itself

 

[ElementalDragon]

well... i talk to some people in Half-Life that say they can't play a game under 60fps cause they see the monitor refresh when it's lower than that. :-/ i'm perfectly fine with like 25-30fps, though i do get around 50 in CS Source and the same with the Video Stress Test for HL2.

 

[Al Udall]

some tweaking needed

Bought my MX1000 here in CA at Fry's for $75 (eBay has it for $59 on some good days, but there were some battery failure rumours, so extra $16 is about the right price for no-hassle 30-days long up-to-5 times replaces)

I don't do any gaming, at least of an action kind. What I really do is a lot of precision cursor pointing for digi-photography retouch & touch-ups, other art work on 2048x1536x70Hz Sony calibrated 0.194mm/trixel pro CRT monitor. It translates into 131dpi very fine-grained display, or even 152dpi when on my Dell Inspiron UXGA laptop.

MX1000 really shines in this demanding environment, and outperforms any competition, including even graphic tablets' pro 1200dpi mice in the >$150 price department.

That being said, there's some points.

1. Logitech manual should stress more the necessity of eradicating any traces of previous mice drivers from your system. My cleaning up routine included using regedit, to be on the safe side. In Win98, there's still generic old (1999) Microsoft's VMOUSE.VXD and it should be present (or I don't know how to replace it with whatever Logitech may offer -- if any), so there's excessive blinking present on some mouseover objects, and possibly some other debilitating features may linger.

2. USB 1.1 support in Win98 is a sad, silly joke, so I use PS/2 port instead which is fine with sample rate (by ps2rate utility) of 125Hz (mouserate displays anywhere between 100 and 501Hz, but fixing the samplerate on 200Hz didn't work with my old ASUS mobo) Need to switch to WinXP/new mobo, as it's only there there's a possibility to go to ~400Hz of samplerate, plus order a 300 or even 400 for a sample buffer. This is what determines a true 1200dpi lightning-fast pointing device.
Must be a real champ for gaming, too, no Razor can ever touch it.

3. Need a newer than 20.11.459.00 build SetPoint soft/drivers: to make Back/Forward buttons work for all my IE/Opera/Firefox browsers, it took "Keyboard assignments" of "alt+left", "alt+right". There's also no freedom of assignment for tilting a scrollwheel -- I'd prefer it be "Back/Forward", I just don't do much of sideways scrolling. OK, maybe will test "CruiseUp/CruiseDown" as available forward/back assignments, as per yet.

4. Mechanical issues:
a. I'd prefer lighter buttonclick efforts, anyone knows about successful modding (weakening the springs, cutting the springy cover, etc.) for these?
b.Positioning of back/forward/appswitch on upper left side (over my thumb) is not of my liking, I'd prefer old Logitech MouseMan's bottom-of-the-groove position.
c. It's true that enhanced optical precision makes MX1000 more indifferent for quality of mousepads, but I made my experiments with many sorts of those: leather, fabricks, high-grade plastics, rubber-plastic composites, and metals. The best so far, IMHO, are fine-brushed/anodized aluminum sheets of ~2mm thickness, though you'd need to stick some high-grade (very slippery) teflon stickers on your mouse's feet, as them are quite scratchable low-class China plastics. In any case, the more slippery surface demands lighter efforts for clicks, or pointer "slips" may occur. So, again, has anyone any experience in modding button switch springs on Logitech mice?

Thank you.

 

[ElementalDragon]

Glad you like your mouse, Al Udall, and glad to be the first to say Welcome to OSNN.net. It is probably the best mouse on the market. And i too agree that it could use a new set of drivers and SetPoint software, though the current one isn't bad. The only web browser app i know of that i tried where you would have had to change the key assignment for back and forward is Firefox. i didn't try Opera, and i know it works with the defaults set for IE, cause i use IE. But it does make it more handy for different button customizations, since u can bind a button to a keystroke, which is pretty sweet.

About the modifications, i wouldn't mind knowing where to find stuff like that. one guy at the local computer show said there's a pretty big list of mods that people did to their MX1000, but i haven't found a single mod anywhere.

 

[Al Udall]

Well, thank you EleDra for a prompt answer. As for button customizations at present SetPoint version, it's inadequate. The most blatant example is lack of any customization for scrollwheel side tilts. Moreover, I couldn't make it work on it's primary function at all, let alone switch from sideways scroll to, say, back/forward.
Time to write an email to Logitech. Actually I live like in 20 mi distance from their HQ here in Fremont, CA, so wish I could also talk to some driver developer guy there, not just PR/marketoid robots.
I couldn't google out any websites/forums dealing with MX1000 mods, either. Just the occasional stuff to overclock sample rate/regedit in your WinXP when browsing Usenet groups, that's abot all. Will be looking for more though. Please keep me posted/post here if you'd find something. Also, they say main button spring/click force didn't change since MX5xx, or even MX3xx, so there must be some earlier mods there somewhere, for those guys like me who're into tenderness/precision in handling your mouse, and/or switched from MS IntelliMouse Explorer.

will be keeping looking

 

[FishBoy]

welcome to osnn al udall

 

[ElementalDragon]

yeah.... but those mods would be for a completely different style mouse. before the MX1000, a LOT of people loved the MX510 for gaming. there's a lot more to dig through with the MX1000 to get to where those springs are..... that and the fact that the MX1000 is an $80 mouse, and if you mess something up, good luck trying to get a replacement for it.

As for the side tilt, as far as i know no mouse has side tilt scroll wheel customization. at least not from what i've heard anyway. and i rarely ever even use that. seems too much of a hassle to me.

P.S. If you don't wanna type out my whole name, jus call me ED. EleDra jus don't seem right. lol. Or just Dragon, but more preferrably ED

 

[Al Udall]

sorry ED, EleDra won't be mentioned again, lol.
On a more sober note, Windows 98SE registry mentions 10 buttons to map/remap functions to, with buttons #9 and #10 most probably being left-tilt and right-tilt. But I don't understand one thing: in my registry, these declared some meaningful and distinct values, just like all the other buttons, why don't they work? Alright, will try to remap them to "back/forward", only could someone tell me what numbers "regular" back and forward buttons may be? I assume, on a 5-button mice they are #4 and #5, right?

Forgot one more thing: for MS Explorer mice there were nice "ballistic" scroll modes available, that is, not just plain acceleration, but sort of slower, inertial startup of a scroll, and similar "smooth-braking" movement when scroll nears its target. Logitech guys really need this feature be available, plus adjustable, at least for its flagship rodent. Somehow I think it might be even useful in games where scrolls may correspond to your head/weapon up and down movements, and tilts go for left/right scans by those.
didn't find MXxxx button spring mods so far, but still looking. What I found is some ppl are frustrated over MX1000's either inability, or ability to track when lifted. My solution to this problem would be again: instead of buying some $39 smallish SuperIceMat get yourself a 50 cent worth of etched/anodized/finebrushed 2mm aluminum plate of 12"x16" or bigger, that's it.
And cushion your elbow with a gel pad, too, to lift your hand off the surface.

 

[Al Udall]

Just discovered these nifty remapping utilities for all you gamers out there: http://www.logigamer.com/ . There's even beta for MX1000, haven't tried it yet, but you're welcome to do so, lol.

 

[Mainframeguy]

Hi Al Uda - noticed in all your surfaces you have never mantioned glass of any kind? I happen to be a fan of the icemat - although I guess for you its smallish size would rule it out?

 

[ElementalDragon]

think i'ma give it a whirl. nice find, Al.

 

[Al Udall]

re: glass and plastics as mats

The small problem with ordinary transparent glass is that it's transparent, even for infrared MX1000 uses, so it's like holding your mouse levitated 3-4 mm up over reflecting underlying surface (e.g., your table) -- not rendering precise tracking because that surface is not in focus. Then, highly reflective polished w/out any scratches mirror-like chrome/nickel surfaces don't do well either because there's virtually no pattern/texture for mouse's sensor to catch on, and plain glass mirrors are again, obviously not the best surfaces: levitating again not in focus, plus no texture/patter to refer to. Though you might greatly improve the precision on matted glass (not highly polished milky variety). Naturally, easiness of sliding improves on glass, but beware of strong springs on buttons/wheel clicks: your mouse may "slip".
So, the ideal conditions for mousepad's surface are contradicting somewhat: a harder, "grained" surface lets you slide effortlessly and precisely without "sticks" at starting or finishing points, but it may cause your MX1000 slip when clicking at finishing point. That's why I was asking for leads/links to buttons' springs weaking mods. Other way around, fabric coated rubber cheapo mats have no "slipping" problem, but they "stick" at stop points, and need much bigger arm effort for whooshing your mouse around. A middle path is as usual in between these extremities: expensive composites of plastic covered metal sheets, like that IceMats, or whatever Ratz-something, you name it, with obligatory teflon pads for mice feet. Or it can be my favorite fine-brushed (matte, not-mirror-like) aluminum 2.5-3 mm thick sheet: it's hard enough to offer a good easy sliding, yet it soft and yieldy to have some "stickiness" at end points for presice clicks. My other favorite is fine grained and brushed (plus sand-papered a bit) hard polypropilene 5 mm thick plate. My experience with both my favourite surfaces is that at least subjectively I gained even more in smoothiness of cursor movements, as my mouse seems to "like" them.

To put it again, "bad" surfaces (mirror-like ones with no structure to catch on, and transparent ones with out-of-focus picture) put a big strain on your MX1000, so it either becomes jerky mostly because it floods your port/CPU/GPU/sample buffer with false information.

One more thing: try to avoid not only dusty/dirty, but also painted/printed/inked/stained surfaces: the MX1000's optics precision is very (20 times, as they say) high, so you don't want dust/dirt and microparticles of paint collect on the sensor's lens. Use canned compressed cleaning air periodically, and cotton swabs with alcohol to eliminate greasy/smoggy residue

 

[ElementalDragon]

well, IceMat is a frosted piece of glass, thus it's textured, and annoying to move the mouse on without teflon feet (from what i read in a review). i'm actually thinkin about getting one, but probably the first generation transparent one, since it's like..... 10-15 bucks cheaper or more.

 

[Al Udall]

transparent one?

well, then finely sand it, use mouserate utility to check where to stop matting it. $10-$15 less pricey you say? I can approve your purchase if it means $1 to $3 for a mat. If it's not the case, as I suspect, you'd better off with visiting your favourite hardware store and ask for 10x15" samples of their decorative paneling of brushed metal, hard plastics, matted glass -- these can be had for free.

 

[Abbadon2001]

Battery Life

Well i just put my mx1000 on to recharge for the first time. It was first charged on saturday the 22nd, and first used on sunday the 23rd - and since then its been on pretty much 24/7 seeing as my pc rarely goes off. How does this measure up to everyone else? I could have switched it off i guess on the bottom of the mouse but i wasnt sure if i would have probs getting my pc out of standby if i did this?

Any comments?

 

[ElementalDragon]

seems quite right. when they say it lasts 21 days on a full charge, i don't think that's counting if you constantly use your computer. and about getting your computer out of standby, can't your keyboard also do that even if turning the mouse back on didn't work?

edit: Al, ur wish came true. new SetPoint 2.14 drivers. didn't try them yet, so i can't post about new features or anything. get them HERE

 

[Al Udall]

New SetPoint for MX1000

OK, installed 2.14. Found nothing in it that I was looking for, that is still:
-- no SnapToDefaultButton support;
-- no direct support for "Back/Forward" in Firefox;
-- no ballistic smooth scrolling;
-- no sideways scrolling in Win98SE (does it work in WinXP, I wonder?Is it remappable -- to, say, Back/Forward?)

Again, I'm looking for anyone, just anyone who happened to open his/her MX1000 (say, to replace failed battery). Please post here, or email me, what clicking springs of main buttons look like, and any ideas on weaking them to comfortable levels of click-effort. That is if you've seen them.
For you battery-changers, there's 4 screws: 2 under the label (palpable, with some pressure) and 2 under hind feet (don't be scared to lose the original feet pads, they are badly formed/scratched cheapo plastics anyway, you'd better file them flat and cover them with teflon stickers out of your gaming mat package, or cut these out of some high-grade teflon tape.

 

[ElementalDragon]

dude.... it ALWAYS had snap to default button. you just didn't look. if you actually looked in the Help portion for something you are unsure of, you would have found out that it's called Smart Move. here it is right from the help file.

Check the Enabled box if you wish to use Smart Move. If you choose Smart Move, the pointer automatically jumps to the active button each time you open a new window or dialog. This can save you time in moving the pointer to the button you want to select. Please note that Smart Move is not available under Windows 98.

side scrolling does work in XP, but you don't often have to use it since most websites are formatted in a method that you don't HAVE to scroll side to side. the direct support for back and forward in firefox isn't Logitech's problem. if it works in IE, then you know the feature works. it's more than likely something with Firefox. I know i've already used firefox, and i couldn't minimize a page, cause every time i maximized it, the screen would jump up and down (approximately 2-3 lines) very rapidly, to the point of practically causing epilepsy with prolonged exposure. and what exactly do you mean by "ballistic smooths scrolling"?

 

[Al Udall]

"ballistic" smooth scrolling

OK, no "snap" in Win98SE, I see. MS IM Explorer has it though.
Ballistic smooth scrolling is an extra Mozilla feature I had like a year ago in my Linux box, and in that old Win98SE box too. It works like this: you jerk the scrolling wheel, and it starts not so fast, then accelerates, goes steady, then decelerates and brakes and stops nicely at the target of scrolling, so the scrolling text is quite readable and much more pleasant to watch moving and notice something in the middle of that particular scroll. Definitely not a rocket science to add this feature: source code is available (GPLed, I think.) For a gamer, it might be very useful to add more reality to actions like, say, scrolling to lift your head/weapon, or tilting the scrollwheel for side scans/straffes, or whatever. It acts just like adding controlled physical gravity to the motion.
But first check your screen's framerate first, it better be 85Hz and up. Actually, no good plain "smooth" scrolling is workable below 80-85Hz, let alone "ballistic" scrolling. The feature was highly adjustable, and I remember turning it on to the max when at the end of a scroll my text actually bounced back a little.

But enough about poetry, anyone opened the MX1000, at last? Please post your impressions, especially on weakening the main click springs. Thank you.