https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=500908
Bug ID: 500908
Summary: Mouse acceleration is problematic
Classification: Applications
Product: systemsettings
Version: 6.3.2
Platform: Other
OS: Linux
Status: REPORTED
Severity: normal
Priority: NOR
Component: kcm_mouse
Assignee: plasma-b...@kde.org
Reporter: es204904...@gmail.com
CC: duha.b...@gmail.com, natalie_clar...@yahoo.de
Target Milestone: ---
Recently I had to purchase a new mouse, because my old cheap one was destroyed,
and I tried 6 different models.
Since the new mice were more precise I quickly noticed that the acceleration is
completely unpredictable.
All the mice I have tested, including the old 800 dpi one I owned, seemed to
benefit from deactivating acceleration and, maybe increase pointer speed.
But here is when the big problem was exposed.
Acceleration was made default with Windows XP, because at the time optical mice
were highly imprecise. Between 400 and 800 dpi.
If you set the cursor speed fast, the mouse will be too imprecise to click
anywhere. If you set it slow, it would be too inconvenient to move through the
screen. Hence acceleration was introduced.
But 25 years later optics are extremely precise. Yet budget mice, without
adjustable dpi, assume that mouse acceleration is enabled by default on
Windows, and have a dpi that provides adequate speed for that.
Hence if you disable mouse acceleration those budged mice would be too slow to
be comfortable. But if you keep it enabled, or artificially increase cursor
speed through software, quality mice with adjustable dpi will lose precision.
Because that's the point of having a dpi button, to increase the mouse speed by
hardware so the animation is precise.
As result it is obvious to me that there is no good default mouse setting right
now, because the mouse will be either slow or imprecise.
The closest I got for being good for all mice has been to disable acceleration,
and setting cursor speed to 0.25. Yet the cursor loses precision and jumps on
the screen, noticeable if your mouse is high quality and the screen has high
frame-rate.
So probably at some point we will need to ignore budget mice all together.
Because higher resolutions, framerates and better mouse lens ask for adjustable
dpi through hardware. Rendering non adjustable dpi mice eventually obsolete.
What I don't have clear is how to make this transition smooth. In my own
distro, Zenned, I'm considering making it right now and optimizing for quality
mice.
Maybe an alternative would be making a custom acceleration curve, different
than the one provided by libinput, simulating those provided by gaming mice
like:
https://press.razer.com/product-news/razer-mouse-rotation-and-dynamic-sensitivity/
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