Windows 8.1 May Cause Mouse Lag in Some Games

A post on Reddit reveals that many PC gamers are experiencing mouse lag issues with some titles after upgrading to Windows 8.1. This lag reportedly stems from a change in handling DPI for multiple monitors, and affects a number of PC games including Deus Ex: Human Revolution, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, Metro 2033 and several Call of Duty titles.

According to the post, changes in the DPI framework have caused games that don't use Raw Input or DirectInput to suffer large amounts of mouse lag. The lag also seems to affect PC gamers that use high DPI mice and high polling-rate mice more than users who use basic hardware. The problem may also affect players with mice that have on-board memory.

"Something about Window's relationship with your mouse has been altered (specifically, the Multi DPI improvement for multiple monitors) and this causes those games that don't read raw mouse data to become close-to unplayable," the post reads. "I stumbled upon this issue because it affects two games I'm trying to play through right now."

For now, a way to possibly fix the mouse issue is to right-click on the EXE of the game in question, go to Properties, go to the Compatibility tab, and check "run this program in compatibility mode for" and select "Windows 8." Also check "disable scaling of high DPI settings" and check "run this program as an administrator." This method may or may not solve the problem.

"It is real lag," states Mark Cranness, the creator of the MarkC mouse fix. "[It] affects games that don't use Raw Input (or DirectInput, which is more-or-less the same thing) for reading the mouse. When I first saw this lag in 8.1, I improved the debug detail of the recording tool a lot, to see if that might help explain what was happening. The improvements clearly showed lag between mouse movement happening and Windows updating the pointer position. Seeing that it IS a problem is as far as I've gone so far in diagnosing it."

He also said that the EXE fix mentioned above doesn't affect his recording tool: the software still shows lag. So far Microsoft has not responded to the reports, so stay tuned.

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  • danwat1234
    Does anybody know if Explorer.exe in Windows 8.1 supports file paths longer than 255 characters? NTFS does, a lot of software that runs in windows does, but Explorer.exe doesn't in Windows 8.0 and earlier. So, with deeply nested folders and files I have to use TotalCommander to copy files.

    Is Windows 8.1 different?
    Reply
  • southernshark
    Another reason not to get W8 as if I needed more.
    Reply
  • DBGT_87
    fine for me if its lagging only on COD
    Reply
  • pyromanicadeluxe
    Who cares, no one that takes themselves seriously would be running windows 8 anyway. Derrr
    Reply
  • bak0n
    8.1 Also makes SSD drive caching fail on many systems.
    Reply
  • sirskeetsalot2013
    I don't have any mouse lag issues on my lovely windows 8.

    anyone who Praises 7 like Pyromanica needs to step off his high horse, and drink some Ajax water. Derrr.
    Reply
  • tical2399
    All the more I play my games with the 360 controller so i dom't have to deal with this kinda crap. I like the updates W 8.1 put in place so far so good here.
    Reply
  • chumly
    Windows Wait.
    Reply
  • althaz
    I have been playing Human Revolution the last couple of days (since updating to 8.1) with zero increase in mouse lag. So I suspect this might be an issue only for a small percentage of people.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    11772978 said:
    Who cares, no one that takes themselves seriously would be running windows 8 anyway. Derrr

    And anyone who considers themselves a computer enthusiast would be able to evolve to use 8/8.1 without any issues as that's the name of the game, change.

    If people expected Windows to stay looking like 7 for ever, they haven't been doing this long enough.

    11773371 said:
    I have been playing Human Revolution the last couple of days (since updating to 8.1) with zero increase in mouse lag. So I suspect this might be an issue only for a small percentage of people.

    I agree that it may also depend on the hardware as well. My friend updated to 8.1 using TechNet the same time I did and in TF2 he said he had to double his DPI and it still felt laggy.

    I had no issues with TF2 in the preview or official release of 8.1.

    He has a Razr Naga and a Razr keyboard, I have a G600 and a Corsair K90. It could even be driver related (for the mouse) as I know he has problems trying to use Logitech software/drivers for his Logitech G35 headset with his Razr software/drivers.

    So it may be that certain hardware needs drivers updated or maybe MS can fix it on their end.
    Reply