Modding the mouse

(Cerebrate) #1

Let’s talk about ideas on how to modifty the mouse.

I’ve been using my MX500 for about 18 months now; three of the feet has worn off, and since I’m planning on purchasing a Diamondback when I can afford it or the rumored equivalent from Logitech, I decided to cut off the last two feet and replace them with something I could find inside the house.

I know you can buy skatez, but I’m not gonna bother wasting any money on this as the mouse is so worn out anyway. Besides, it’s fun to come up with ideas and looking around the house for things that can be used.

First I broke a jewel case into pieces and glued them on, but the friction was too high (I’m not using a mousepad). I tried some small buttons; although they were smooth enough, they were too thich, so that the sensor didn’t hit the surface. A certain aim guide gave me the idea of using washers, but the mouse pointer would only paritally move, as I couldn’t find any that were thin enough. Eventually I got so desperate I even tried small coins, which I knew wouldn’t work. I went back to the plastic pieces as they were better than nothing. Literally.

Then a few days later I looked around on the Internet for some ideas, and I found a site suggesting aluminum tape. I couldn’t find any, so instead I used regular tape atop the plastic pieces, and it’s working surprisingly well; about as well as the orignial feet, I would say.

I took the tape off to replace them because they weren’t aligned so well, and the second time I put on an extra layer as I thought they might last longer, but for some reason it didn’t feel as smooth. It could be because the surface is now softer or it could be me and my imagination.

Anyone got some ideas or comments to share?

(ouroboro) #2

well, i use the same mouse. my feet are OK since i use teflon tape over them (havnt been for about a month though, maybe my feet are starting to wear). anyway, as far as modding it, i’ve just removed the weight from inside. for drivers i use the logitech ones, but only as a “drivers-only” install - no logitech control panel. this is much better than either the windows default drivers or the full logitech install, IMO. i’ve tried other drivers, Razer and Microsoft for example. but i’ve found this method to work best. then i tweak my registry to do various things with the mouse like remove any and all vestiges of accelleration, and fine tune stuff like resolution and sensitivity. also, i hex edit my USB driver to get 500 hz out of the mouse, rather than the default 125.

as for your feet problem, i once heard that someone had pretty favorable results by melting ball-bearings into the base of the mouse. not sure how you would go about doing it - the bearings would have to be pretty damned hot. perhaps hold them with pliers and heat them with a torch, then set them where the feet were, then press them into the plastic to embed them. getting them all at the proper depth would be difficult though i imagine.

if you were going to keep the mouse, i’d just buy new teflon feet, or “skates”. but since you’re not, i really can’t think of a better idea than what you’ve done. perhaps i’d sand the edges of the plastic shards to be sure they don’t catch on anything. you can buy teflon tape which truly does make a difference. but i doubt i’ll ever buy any online again. it’s just silly. these people sell regular teflon tape and label it as specific for mice, and charge $5 for a few inches, lol. just go to the hardware store and get a roll of teflon pipe tape like plumbers use to seal threads and make them water tight. that’s what i intend to do next time.

(Cerebrate) #3

Oh? Would you please shed some light on that?

Did you use 9.71.1 or what? I can’t remember any option to exclude the control panel when installing.

I executed the registry file from RaZiel, put mouse acceleration to ‘No’ in Logitech Control Center, and checking ‘No acceleration in games’. I hope that is enough, unless you know of anything else.

Yep, I did that too. Essential if you’re using low sensitivity, IMO.

I’ll do that. Thanks.

(ouroboro) #4

well, inside the mouse is a chunk of metal used to give the mouse some “heft”. but for long gaming sessions, that can cause fatigue. i’m not sure what it weighs, not a hell of a lot but still… just unscrew it and toss it in the desk drawer :slight_smile: (you will void your warranty by opening the mouse). can’t say i ever really felt fatigued with it in there, but it has to be better without it for making those snappy 180’s :wink:

with the logitech drivers, i found them a constant irritant, due to their overly complex game detection system, profiles, etc. i’d find my mouse going screwy with stuff like ventrillo, etc. accelleration coming and going when certain programs’ window was in focus… just constant bullshit. i got the mw_advanced thingamabob from logitech to further control stuff, then for a while i used a program called Logigamer for even more tweakage… in the end i found all that crap to be just a bunch of bloat. just annoying really. although for those of you who like the idea of bringing +centerview back to RTCW/ET, and you use a logitech mouse, Logigamer is your answer :wink: you can set it to decrease your mousespeedy to 1 when you launch ET, and reset it to normal when you close the game - essentially locking your crosshair at head level. something a dirty, slimy cheating bastard would do, IMO, but there you have it, the secret is out :disgust:

i’d rather have the peace of mind knowing my drivers are set to one setting for windows and everything else. which BTW i never thought i could stand not having a bit of accell. in windows, but it turns out i found the perfect balance. then again, i didn’t want to use the default windows drivers either (no way windows knows logitech hardware better than logitech does, right?). so i uninstalled mouseware, rebooted (which defaulted me back to the windows drivers), then updated the mouse drivers through the hardware manager using the actual logitech files i had extracted from the mouseware installer file. this installs the logitech drivers ONLY, no mouseware “shell”, as it were. the feel is different, because the speed settings are now handled by the default windows mouse control panel applet - but the foundation drivers are logitech’s. you do lose the ability to assign buttons to keystrokes, etc (at least from the applet, it can still be done manually via the registry), so if you like that convenience you won’t like this option. then, i specified my resolution and other things in the registry - here’s my settings, which may or may not work for you, but the important stuff will be the same:


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]
"ActiveWindowTracking"=dword:00000000
"DoubleClickHeight"="4"
"DoubleClickSpeed"="500"
"DoubleClickWidth"="4"
"MouseSensitivity"="10"
"MouseThreshold1"="0"
"SmoothMouseXCurve"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,a0,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,40,\
  01,00,00,00,00,00,00,80,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,05,00,00,00,00,00
"SmoothMouseYCurve"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,66,a6,02,00,00,00,00,00,cd,4c,\
  05,00,00,00,00,00,a0,99,0a,00,00,00,00,00,38,33,15,00,00,00,00,00
"MouseThreshold2"="0"
"SnapToDefaultButton"="0"
"SwapMouseButtons"="0"
"MouseTrails"="0"
"MouseSpeed"="0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LMouFlt2\Parameters\OpticalMouse12\0000]
"Acceleration"="Off"
"MappingButton1"="1000"
"MappingButton2"="0100"
"MappingButton3"="0010"
"MappingButton4"="0001"
"MappingButton5"="00001"
"MappingButton6"="000001"
"MappingButton7"="0000001"
"MappingButton8"="00000001"
"Orientation"="0"
"MouseSpeedY"="50"
"MouseSpeedX"="50"
"Resolution"="8"
"PositionButton1"="Left"
"PositionButton2"="Right"
"PositionButton3"="Middle"
"PositionButton4"="None"
"PositionButton5"="Left"
"PositionButton6"="Left"
"PositionButton7"="Left"
"PositionButton8"="Left"
"DoubleClick"="0010"
"ChordDelay"="0"
"DragLock"="0000"
"Disabler"="48"

you might have to apply the current control set settings to all individual control sets - check them after rebooting to see if “currnet control set” applied itself to them or not. what’s important there are SmoothMouseXCurve and SmoothMouseYCurve, as well as MouseThreshold1 and MouseThreshold2 in the windows mouse control panel. also, in the logitech-specific section, what matters is Acceleration and Resolution - which you see i’ve specified as 8 (800 dpi). with MouseSpeedX and MouseSpeedY at 50, and the windows applet MouseSensitivity at 10, i find mouse control in windows to be perfect at 1280x1024 res. and i didn’t really have to tweak my game sens much (if at all) to get it to feel like it did before the switch from mouseware. i used the latest ones, whatever version that is. again, mouseware isn’t installed - just the actual mouse drivers from the package. afaik raziel’s patch applies the same SmoothMouseXCurve and SmoothMouseYCurve settings (although i didn’t check to compare his to mine so i may be wrong), which essentially kills any accelleration applied by windows.

heh, after writing that book it would appear i fancy myself another raziel. believe me i don’t. it’s not like anything i’ve done to my mouse has made me a great player :stuck_out_tongue: but i do like the peace of mind from knowing exactly how my stuff is setup, so i can build my game settings and style upon a solid foundation.

i hope that gave you some ideas (and NOT the idea to use that centerview crap :angry:)

*edit: one more thing, happily i’ve found that my mouse buttons simply “work” in my games now, rather than having to go through a bunch of hocus-pocus like i did with “Mouseware Proper” (setting the middle button to apply an unused keystroke within mouseware, then binding the in-game function i wanted that button for to the key it was assigned to in windows… god what a bunch of dicking around that was)

(Bongoboy) #5

Crikey. I’m still using the arrow keys.

(Cerebrate) #6

Thanks for the information, ourboro.

I took out the metal piece from the mouse; definitely made it lighter. It makes it much easier to turn, but I feel I have to strain more to be presice on long distances now, as I aim with the arm instead of my wrist. I think I will replace the metal piece with something a bit lighter.

I downloaded Logigamer which now enables me to use the thumb button in ET. I know I can do this if I uninstall Mouseware, but then I can’t customize the other buttons to do things like minimizing and closing windows, which I like a lot.

I might do some tinkering with the register later some time.

Thanks again.

(Cerebrate) #7

As oppose to the WASD setup, or are you joking? I’m using YGHJ as it gives me more space on my desk for the mouse.

(Bongoboy) #8

I’m joking. Although the way I play, it wouldn’t be surprising.

I really ought to change to ESDF but I remain a WASD-monkey for the foreseeable future.

(eRRoLfLyNN) #9

freaks :moo:

(Fusen) #10

As oppose to the WASD setup, or are you joking? I’m using YGHJ as it gives me more space on my desk for the mouse.[/quote]

also think he meant using the arroys to look around seeing as this is what the thread it about not moving your character :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(Cerebrate) #11

As oppose to the WASD setup, or are you joking? I’m using YGHJ as it gives me more space on my desk for the mouse.[/quote]

also think he meant using the arroys to look around seeing as this is what the thread it about not moving your character ;P[/quote]
Doom/Heretic/Hexen/Duke Nukem 3D style. :drink: