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The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

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Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#81

Post by arandomJohn »

cheald wrote: post #42

This is really interesting to me, because one of the key differences in the "feel" between iOS and Android is the touch "dead-zone"; Android's is larger, iOS' is nearly non-existent, and this often serves to make Android feel less responsive than iOS. It's very curious that something like this could slip through into OS X given Apple's fanatical attention to detail, and the fact that they're aware of what that delay…

That is interesting to me. I've developed an iOS game that uses precises touch/swipe gestures to control movement. In iOS 3.2 Apple changed the infrastructure for touch events such that there is a huge (100ms) lag for a swipe event. This made my game perform terribly in certain situations. I filed a bug with Apple and even spoke to an Apple engineer. I was told that the lag is there for system level gesture recognition and there is nothing to fix.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#82

Post by jibbit »

There seems to be some confusion here.. some people are referring to the System cursor (which is not drawn by the CPU/GPU at all) and some people are referring to in-game cursors (i.e. the system cursor is hidden, the mouse position is updated and a custom cursor is drawn as part go the game loop).

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#83

Post by cmagahern »

bni wrote: post #6

Newish Mac user here. The "feel" of mouse cursor movement is one of the few areas were Windows is superior. Years ago something like this was a big issue in Linux/X.org aswell but recently it has been fixed, atleast it feels like it for me. I have noticed this "lag" with my magic mouse. Until now I have assumed there is something wrong with the hardware in it. Or that the bluetooth connection was breaking up. When I…

The differing mouse "feel" that you're describing is most likely a result of the different mouse acceleration curve that OS X uses. (Mentioned in the article) I've noticed this too but I was able to resolve it by changing the mouse acceleration curve using this tool: http://triq.net/articles/mouse-acceleration-preference-pane-... Now I think it feels just as nice as Windows.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#84

Post by jjcm »

Anyone who games at all can confirm this. There's a reason why no competitive starcraft player plays on OSX, despite it being available on that system. The lag is immediately noticeable. The acceleration curves are fixable and fine, but the input delay has led to enough frustration personally that I ended up installing windows on my MBP for gaming. It's a shame, I really like OSX as a platform, but these tiny hurdles stop hoards of gamers from touching it.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#85

Post by drivebyacct2 »

gnaffle wrote: post #2

I've always had this problem, and as a result I really can't use an external mouse with OSX. I've never had a problem with using the trackpads. Like one of the commenters mentioned, using synergy from a Linux PC solves the problem for me. For a period, I actually resorted to running a Parallels instance of Linux with the external mouse attached to it, and setting up synergy to share the mouse pointer with OSX. I'd li…

Touchpad support in Linux is a crapshoot and the uni-button, multitouch touchpads are even worse. If you poke around the Ubuntu forums there is a rewrite of the touchpad driver that works better for Macs. Then you just have to deal with the atrocious battery life compared to OS X (though that has to do with MBP's lovely implementation of EFI and the graphics switching).

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#86

Post by [deleted] »

gnaffle wrote: post #2

I've always had this problem, and as a result I really can't use an external mouse with OSX. I've never had a problem with using the trackpads. Like one of the commenters mentioned, using synergy from a Linux PC solves the problem for me. For a period, I actually resorted to running a Parallels instance of Linux with the external mouse attached to it, and setting up synergy to share the mouse pointer with OSX. I'd li…

[deleted]

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#87

Post by sliverstorm »

Gravityloss wrote: post #75
eykanal wrote: post #10

Longtime Mac user here... for what it's worth, I don't know what the OP is referring to. I use both Mac and Windows regularly (home vs work), and I don't see a noticeable difference. Maybe I've just gotten used to it. Definitely isn't a problem for me.

Windows and Linux (Ubuntu Gnome or whatnot) have a much much much more responsive mouse input for me than Mac OS X. Maybe some people don't notice this, but for those who do, it's very annoying. It's inconceivable to me how somebody doesn't notice it, especially if OS X is supposed to be for graphic designers who use the mouse a lot. Maybe they all have Wacom or some such tablets. It's much harder to hit any buttons…

Yea, I pretty much cannot stand OSX for exactly this reason.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#88

Post by schiffern »

MarkMc wrote: post #63
bni wrote: post #6

Newish Mac user here. The "feel" of mouse cursor movement is one of the few areas were Windows is superior. Years ago something like this was a big issue in Linux/X.org aswell but recently it has been fixed, atleast it feels like it for me. I have noticed this "lag" with my magic mouse. Until now I have assumed there is something wrong with the hardware in it. Or that the bluetooth connection was breaking up. When I…

Yes! This was my biggest gripe when switching from Windows - the mouse 'feel' is, well, wrong. I played around with the mouse settings, downloaded software to change the acceleration curve - nothing worked! I'm now used to the mouse behaviour on OS X, but every time I have to switch back to Windows to do some testing I realise what I'm missing. The mouse is such a crucial part of the experience it's odd that Apple ha…

Weirdly I had the exact opposite experience. There is simply no way that I've found to get Mac-like acceleration on Windows.

I've hated every Windows/Linux touchpad I've used, but I love the Mac trackpad. I am not a gamer, though.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#89

Post by glhaynes »

arandomJohn wrote: post #81
cheald wrote: post #42

This is really interesting to me, because one of the key differences in the "feel" between iOS and Android is the touch "dead-zone"; Android's is larger, iOS' is nearly non-existent, and this often serves to make Android feel less responsive than iOS. It's very curious that something like this could slip through into OS X given Apple's fanatical attention to detail, and the fact that they're aware of what that delay…

That is interesting to me. I've developed an iOS game that uses precises touch/swipe gestures to control movement. In iOS 3.2 Apple changed the infrastructure for touch events such that there is a huge (100ms) lag for a swipe event. This made my game perform terribly in certain situations. I filed a bug with Apple and even spoke to an Apple engineer. I was told that the lag is there for system level gesture recogniti…

Are you using UIGestureRecognizers or UITouch events?
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