[Mouse] Polling Rate for Gaming Mouse?

[Mixolydian]

Hello everybody,

I have the Razer Deathadder mouse, and in Razer Synapse I notice that I can adjust the polling rate. The three options are 100hz, 500hz, and 1000hz. I currently have it set to 500hz, but I'm wondering what does this really do exactly? Should I turn it up to 1000hz, and what benefits will this provide me? I can also adjust the DPI, which currently I have set to 1800. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!!

 

[Random User]

Hello Mixolydian

Polling is basically the processor repeatedly querying the device. So a polling rate of 100hz, 500hz or 1000hz is how many times per second the processor queries your mouse. So if you increase your polling rate from 500hz to 1000hz, it is doubling the number of times per second that data is being collected from the mouse, which would effectively increase the accuracy of your movements. This however increases the amount of processing power required to poll the mouse as well.

The dots per inch (or DPI) of the mouse is how many steps the mouse reads over the distance of one inch. Increasing this will cause the mouse to register more steps over the same distance, and the cursor will move further across the screen.

I myself own a Razer Imperator mouse and have it set at 500hz as this seems to work best for me, the cursor seems much smoother than if I turn it up higher. I have my dpi set on 4000 just down to personala preference, I'm used to not having to move the mouse very far to get the cursor to move further across the screen.

Hope this helps!
Random User

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input/output
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polling_(computer_science)