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Are 32 milliseconds. The main problem of mouse movement in Mac OS X is not acceleration — it’s lag.

By that I mean a delay between receiving movement data from the mouse device and rendering the on-screen cursor. The lag of a Mac OS X cursor is at least twice bigger than Windows’ cursor and yes, a human eye can surely notice that. I mentioned acceleration because a lot of people often confuse it with lag. The truth is, in Mac OS X you can change acceleration to whatever you want using many programs and techniques. In, for instance, you can manually draw your own acceleration curve. But it’s all pretty much useless as long as mouse movement is literally retarded, because it takes a lot of time for your brain to get used to it.

The problem I’m talking about affects all mouse and touchpads since at least Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It still exists in Snow Leopard and Lion. The problem is caused by a bug somewhere at the windowserver level of Mac OS X, and not by a mouse driver. You can supposedly avoid the issue by disabling QuartzExtreme. The problem is as well closely related to the that has alone been fixed in Lion thanks to all our bug reports. The problem has been confirmed by an Apple engineer.

I’ve also heard that they are supposedly working on a solution. The timeframe is unknown though. More information to follow. Update To put it short:.

Yes, Mac OS X (any version) is less suited for gaming and design. Lag gives “floating” feeling which is often confused with acceleration. No, you can’t do anything about it other than switch to Windows or Linux. Thanks again, but CharlesB mentions a different issue which I. Moreover — we now know that Mac OS X (before Lion) equally disliked any mouse report rate — be it 125Hz, 500Hz or 1000Hz. With 125Hz most users just don’t notice cursor jumps, but it doesn’t mean they’re gone!

And in the above post I’m talking about cursor lag invoked by window-server of Mac OS X. I have a feeling that noone had described this problem before.

This is very sad because it’s a critical issue that affects every Mac user in the world, and makes their mouse experience much less pleasant than if they used any other modern operating system. It seems to me that the fact that the configuration synergy server on windows, client on mac shows no lag, kills all the arguments in this blog. I’m also annoyed with the mouse behaviour of mac os to the point that I can’t use a mouse on a mac.

In this configuration it’s clear it can’t be any kind of graphics lag, because what difference is there if mac os gets mouse coordinates from a mouse or over the lag from another machine. In this configuration, the mouse info gets send from the windows machine to the mac machine and is then shown. There is no lag for me in this configuration.

It’s gonna be interesting to see what happens if we use a mac machine as synergy server and move the mouse over to a windows machine. For those who don’t know synergy, it just sends keyboard and mouse information, it’s not something like vnc or anything. It’s not a remote desktop. Hi Andreas, I will provide more information in the future, a lot is being done towards that day. To put it short, initially it was my theory based primarily on strangeness revealed by a program that we wrote, and then — not long ago — it was confirmed by one of the engineering team leads at Apple in a private email correspondence with me. He also provided the exact value of 32ms, although I thought the lag was smaller.

I’m sure it’s possible to write a program which would prove the theory, but instead we chose to focus on finding ways to fix the actual issue. I filed a bug report #10175417 in September. It’s still open and I haven’t received any response, which is actually a good sign. If you’ve more questions, you’re welcome to email at We’re also in dire need of C programmers. I updated the post. Quick facts: — Yes, Mac OS X is less suited for gaming and design.

— Lag gives “floating” feeling which is often confused with acceleration. — No, you can’t do anything about it other than switch to Windows or Linux. We’re in need of C programmers interested in solving the problem. We already have a solid codebase but we encounter tons of bugs with Apple’s cursor movement API’s, and that is the reason why the fix takes so long to develop.

Right now we’re looking for someone willing to experiment and invent workarounds. If you know someone who could be interested, please email me at. My experience is different and yet the same. Specifically – the lag of the mouse is painfully obvious only when using a bluetooth mouse. My MacBook (2008) track pad and my bluetooth magic trackpad both are highly responsive feeling and precise. I have an older USB Microsoft optical mouse works great on my Mac Pro.

But the bluetooth mighty mouse I got with the Mac Pro was simply too laggy to use. I also thought it was an acceleration issue at first, but slowly realized that it was not something resolveable by altering acceleration curves. I thought maybe it was just that mouse. But I have tried other bluetooth mice, including my current Logitech bluetooth travel mouse, and they are all painfully laggy. If I bootcamp into Windows 7, the bluetooth mice work just perfectly fine, so I know it is OS X and not Windows. Ultra-lame issue.

I have a similar experience. When I was still using the Apple Magic Mouse, it drove me crazy for various reasons. Never paid too much attention to the lag because I simply concluded the magic mouse sucks in too many ways (which it does), so I bought a Magic Trackpad (it works better with my cramped workspace anyway). With the trackpad, response is simply perfect, I’d say its much better than using a mouse under linux or windows. I have no idea what the technical reasons behind this mouse lag are, but the Magic Trackpad shows it isn’t some fundamental issue with OS X input handling or bluetooth. When you say a lot of people don’t notice it, I guess you can count me in, because I honestly don’t know what I am looking for that 32ms delay.

Personally, I have bigger issue where after connecting to an external display (especially one that has much higher resolution than the 15″ Macbook pro), my mouse cursor would sometimes disappear. I would then have to move my fingers on the touchpad like a mad man, before it magically shows up again. Maybe that’s related to the lag? Or simply a case of cursor getting stuck in the bottom of the bigger resolution display. Furthermore, when I do connect the Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 6000 (it is a pretty good mouse by the way) to my iMac, I do notice an occasional lag or cursor stuck, but I blame it on nearby wireless interference to the signal from the mouse to its USB dongle. Maybe you can update the article with a short experiment for everyone to try it out to notice that 32ms lag?

32ms that sounds like the time taken to display two screen frames at 60 Hz. Observation: when I quickly select text using the mouse, there is no lag between the mouse cursor and the selection of text. I’m assuming Mac OS X uses double buffering for graphics.

Here’s what I think is happening in the worst case: 1. A frame is drawn onto the back buffer. (current time: 0ms) 2. You move the mouse just after this is done. (current time: 0ms) 3. After the next vsync, the back buffer is drawn.

(current time: 16ms) 4. A new frame is drawn onto the back buffer, with the new mouse position.

(current time: 16ms) 5. After the next vsync, the back buffer is drawn. (current time: 32ms) If the assumption is correct, this leads to the following conclusions: 1. The mouse itself does not lag, but merely the graphical representation of it. Your statement “Yes, Mac OS X is less suited for gaming and design.” is false. All games and design apps use double buffering (or in some cases, triple buffering), otherwise incomplete frames would be shown. Regarding Windows: I suspect Windows uses a different, ancient technique to draw the mouse cursor: sprites.

With active sprites, the GPU draws them on top of the displayed frame without having to manually draw them into the back buffer. If this is true, selecting text (like the observation above) will result in the selection lagging after the mouse cursor. Note: if you have access to a display with a faster refresh rate than 60Hz, you will notice less mouse lag if you use that display. If my assumption is correct, of course. Precisely correct. All graphics driven by Quartz (OS X’s native rendering engine) are double-buffered, which is why you don’t see the tearing artifacts you generally do in Windows when working with video.

That said, I believe the cursor drawing happens in hardware, outside of the Quartz pipeline, so maybe the anonymous Apple engineer believes it possible to work around the issue. But the putative 16ms difference between Windows and OS X is half the length of a NTSC frame, well within the threshold of persistence of vision, and no, it’s not noticeable without far more precise equipment than the human eye. The more likely reason why Windows users have “some sort of a gut feeling” that the mouse isn’t as snappy on OS X has to do with clicking: OS X sends click events slightly after mouse-up, not on mouse-down.

First off, where did your timings come from? How did you calculate this delta and land on the 32mS number?

As someone who spends an incredible amount of time dealing with audio and video work (on macs, primarily), I have to say that while you may have discovered an apparent ‘lag’ in the mouse motion, going as far as to say that it renders the system useless for “design and gaming” is pretty specious to say the least. Around 7-10mS is the threshold for people identifying differences in audio. The human eye is far slower. We’re able to perceive changes at very fast speeds (say, 200fps) but at that rates we’re only able to see extremely high contrast changes in images. At 32mS you’re talking around 3 frames of video, so that should basically be imperceptible.

Mac Mouse Problems : Steam For Mac Download

Maybe you’re using a bluetooth mouse which is adding additional transmission lag, or you’re not accounting for the acceleration algorithm used for mouse movement. WRT to switching to linux or windows – it’s possible the defaults for that OS have the mouse acceleration set faster than (IMHO) the slow mac default speed. Nope, not kidding. The mouse thing is very annoying (for me).

I constantly work on windows/linux machines and switching to mac is jarring. I was suspecting my KVM is at fault, but connecting directly has the same feel. Actually my problem still might be with acceleration (or rather deceleration): no matter what I tried with acceleration settings I couldn’t stop cursor from slowing down considerably at some threshold. Normally I can move mouse across 2 monitors from side to side in one movement. And the speed is not very different if I move fast or slow.

On mac I would be forced to lift the mouse (the horror!) to do some precision moves, because I run out of surface to navigate some 20 damn pixels! Moving cursor at average speeds felt just fine though. We fixed one of the major issues last week (caused by Apple’s buggy API). We’ve got to fix incompability with the latest Lion and we’ll release the alpha version. It will feature just one slider to control the sensivity. People who got used to non-linear acceleration curves will need to wait a bit more. We definitely would use any help, especially from: — Geeks.

People with IT/CS/math/physics background interested in getting smooth and bug-free mouse movement. Not necessarily programmers. People with some understanding of how the OS works.

People who won’t fear theorizing about all those bugs. — Objective C programmers who worked with Apple package manager, Sparkle and preference panes. Let’s be friends, I don’t bite!:-). Hrm I’ve played mac versions of Call of Duty, Starcraft II, and various other things, and while graphics performance on OSX is certainly lower than windows via bootcamp, I’ve never noticed any mouse skipping or lag issues. I used to be a hardcore quake 3 player back in the day, and while I wasn’t the best, I could most certainly tell the difference between playing on a LAN and with a 30ms internet conneciton lag, so I’m pretty confident I’d notice a lag as large as 32ms on mouse tracking! One note: While I’ve used mice from Apple, Microsoft and Logitech for gaming on the mac, I’ve.NEVER.

installed any custom mouse software. Are you sure this is not just something to do with crappy logitech custom drivers or something? I’m playing with it now. There’s no noticeable delay. I have noticed in the past how the first keypress in a while would get dropped, but that no longer appears to be a problem as I haven’t seen it in weeks. One thing I do notice is that when I move the mouse from being stationary, the mouse cursor updates do not update fast enough to provide the perception of smooth movement; I see (on this laptop) the cursor, then the cursor to the right by 1/2 inch, then another half inch to the right, and so on. Well that’s surprising.

I run an almost ideal setup for testing this: a new iMac, with a magic mouse. I also Boot Camp the thing into Windows, where I switch to a Logitech MX Revolution mouse, for Steam gaming. On the Mac side I do design work in the Adobe suite daily, Photoshop and a lot of video editing. If you are claiming there is a frame of difference between the two in responsiveness I sure as hell have never seen it. The way you word this post (the sweeping dismissal) makes it pretty clear you just found some vague, obscure talking point and feel like swinging it around for a bit. It’s your blog.

But I there are better things to pick on in OS X than this. Daedalus, is it possible that some mouses do NOT have this problem?

I consider myself extremely picky on mouses, I’m a designer, I was a heavy FPS player, I was a long-time Windows user, now 5 years on Mac OS, and I’m also switching between Windows and Mac and I just can’t notice the lag. The cursor in Windows seems smoother (feels like it flows on on a higher frame-rate) but I always assumed it’s related to a different driver configuration and sensitivity under Windows which I was never able to match with my Mac OS settings. Is this the problem? I’m using Logitech MX1000 mouses since they were released, I think 2006. Hi, Im used to linux and windows and bought my first mac yesterday.

After an hour on the magic mouse (where I actially didn’t notice much problem) I ditched it because of a sore hand (its a mysterie to me how people can actually do real work with this crappy mouse?) and missing middle key in Blender. I connected my logitech m705 marathon and 10 minuttes later my first impression of Apple was ruined and i was Googling about usb overdrive and whatever. I will probably return the imac again because of this – its simply hard for me to hit small details such as single pixels or the window frame buttons.

Compared to how well touch and inertial movements is handled by Apple products, I had the impression that these things were 1st priorities but apperently not. Hi, I’ m here at my MBpro 17 with logitech wired mouse attached (but same story with magic mouse) and I can literally move the mouse very very slowly phisically and have it not moving at all on the screen. I think the problem is that the first micro movements are always not received by the Maca lag in fact as Dae correctly explainedIts 2 years since I have the mac and alternating its use and win xp its clear the difference in both systems: but you HAVE to try Win to understand the problem: and if many people around the world are experiencing this weird thing.mmhh.I dont think its a conspiracy.just a different mouse behaviour that makes me (and others) use PS on Win instead on a Mac.

Misery loves company, so I’d just like to pitch in my word of support for fixing this issue. To echo so many of you, doing any kind of precise mousing in OSX is misery. I’ve been through over a dozen different mice since switching to Mac, and of course, nothing has helped. Thank you guys so much for working on this, I’m checking this blog post frequently to see what happens. I would absolutely pay money for any sort of patch you guys come up with, if that is any incentive.:) It’s just a shame that a company Apple that’s home to so many incredible engineers and products can ship out their flagship operating system with a bug this critical and annoying. The thing is that NO Apple Fan Boy will ever complain since they will never confirm that they spent a lot of money for a system that is less good working that a cheap Windows PC.

The only thing on OSX which is superior to Windows is that it is a little but more visually fine tuned. Some years ago I saved all my money to finally be able to escape the buggy non working windows world. I bought an Apple G5. At the beginning I was so happy and I ignored the first crashes But if they get complemented with annoying Hardware issues it was enough for me to sell it. In the Studio (Music) I am now using a Windows PC since it is just more reliable than any Mac I ever had. I still have a MBP tho, but I rarely use it.

I got a Mac Mini in october -11 and installed Starcraft 2 immediately. I set all the graphics and so on to the lowest. I tried a LOT of mouse fixing programs, but NEVER got rid of the annyoing delay, which is most noticable when you click precise and fast (unit selection and command execution). That clicking delay was dricing me so nuts that I bought Windows 7 and installed on my Mac. Now I’m thinking of getting a new computer (able to play games) but I’m straying away from iMac because of this issue. I REALLY hope there is a way to fix this, because I will happily buy a brand new iMac and play games on it if it is fixable.

(even though the frame rate is a bit lower). Thanks for your work on fixing this issue so far. Thanks for figuring this out Dae! After having worked on a macbook white for over a year I got back to the windows platform because of this issue. Contrary to what other people say, “getting used it” just did not happen for me.

And mind you, during that time I almost exclusively worked on a mac. Also booting in to windows (bootcamp) made the difference in mouse behavior very clear, even the crappy “mighty mouse” became very usable in combination with windows. I envy the people who claim to notice no difference at all, they are either lightning fast in adapting or just too slow to pick up on it. This is something that has bothered me for years and I can’t wait for your fix to come out.

I find that on a Mac, I can only stand to use either a wired mouse or a really good wireless mouse. I just got a Logitech Anywhere Mouse MX and it seems as usable as a wired mouse — my previous wired mouse was a Logitech G9. Before that I had a VX Revolution, and the lag really irritated me. The Bluetooth mice I’ve tried were even worse. The funny thing is that when I plug the same mice into a Windows XP machine sitting right next to the Mac, they feel totally different. The VX Revolution is great in Windows, and the Anywhere MX and G9 are even better. I run boot-camp.

I can guarantee there is lag on the OSX but not Windows 7. I have tried many many mice and different softwares but that FLOATING feeling is always there on the Mac side but not the Windows 7. I have been an avid fan of Mac since way back. Classic never did this. I do not remember early versions of OSX doing it but I may not been aware of it. But let me tell you it annoys the hell out of me now. I am glad others have noticed it too.

Now if Apple would just do something about it. I am going to link this blog on apples support forums in hopes it will be noticed.

Great to see I’m not alone with this annoying mouse lag! I have burned about 150 € in different mouses and mouse apps I can eliminate or alter the acceleration curve as I wish, but still the mouse feels “floating” and inaccurate. When I bootcamp to Windows 7 the mouse is snappy and accurate and I feel I need much less effort to really do something.

And yes, this has nothing to do with the acceleration curves as I don’t use any in either OS. This is the only reason I’m still thinking about returning to Windows. I would be extremely happy if this would be fixed, though I don’t have my hopes too high. Ok, not sure why this hasn’t been brought up, but seem to be a few flaws in the blog’s argument about lag, namely: 1) Wacom Intuos Tablets. If there existed lag on the software side of Mac OSX that affects mouse precision, then how does a Wacom tablet manage perfect 1 to 1 movement (which, for anybody who hasn’t used a Wacom on a Mac, it IS one to one, and Wacom itself frequently shows off its products using Macs).

I’ve also used Wacom tablets on Windows workstations as well, and they feel identical on both (thats the whole reason Wacom is the leader in tablets). 2) Check this out: Like many others who are here looking for an answer, I first started asking “wtf is up with the mouse movement” with regards to gaming, in particular Starcraft 2. I tried a few different “mouse fix” applications, nothing felt right (by right, I mean nothing felt like the mouse functionality I get playing SC2 on windows, even using the same mouse). Then I found this post, and gave this one a shot. And wow, its really, really good. Mouse movement feels the most “windows like” than ever before in my experience.

I can’t say for certain whether this IS the answer and DOES fix everything, and I’m not sure how to even approach methodically testing this (windows machine is a desktop, much higher resolution monitor, more mouse space, etc.), but give that download a shot. So yea, just my thoughts on this. The lag idea is interesting, but I’m not sure how that works when you throw the Wacom thing into the equation. In the end, maybe it really is a lack of full control over acceleration, and the only fixes have been to literally recreate an additional, inverse acceleration curve to cancel the first one? Just a thought.;).

Thanks for interest, but I don’t see your point here: then how does a Wacom tablet manage perfect 1 to 1 movement First of all, you can have a 1:1 movement (when 1 device unit movement gives 1 pixel on-screen movement) with a cursor which lags for hours. You’re controlling your mouse from the Moon or Mars with a shitty radio channel;-) Secondly, Wacoms normally require a 3rd party driver which may work on a userspace level (I don’t know, just guessing), pushing cursor movements without the help of HID subsystem and windowserver, thus avoiding the problem. Robert Randolph’s fix doesn’t fix the lag. In the last email letter to me, Robert seem to have agreed about existence of lag in the system. I’d like to repeat this once again: the problem has been confirmed by Apple.

Interesting, I know what you mean about lag still being present, even though its 1 to 1 movement. I can see where you’re coming from, and really, I can’t say for certain that Wacom tablets don’t exhibit some lag.

My only frame of reference is that I use one on both Windows and Mac platforms (the same tablet model), and the feel is identical, no mental readjustment to compensate for a feeling of “floaty-ness” or anything (which IS the feeling I have when I go from using a mouse on Windows vs. A mouse on Mac). Regarding the problem being confirmed by Apple: is there a link to the reply or post where this was discovered? Or was this an off-the-record kind of thing that occurred over the phone? If you have a link to the post or e-mail reply, that would rock. Regardless, I can believe it, if only for the “we’re working on a fix” ray of hope (a future of no “workarounds” or curve adjustment nonsense)!;D.

I am a designer/illustrator and have been using a Mac and a mouse to create artwork (primarily drawing with vectors in Adobe Illustrator) for more than 20 years. Ever since the switch to OSX, I have had issues with the precision of the cursor movement, particularly when attempting to stop the cursor at a specific point after moving it some distance across the screen. I was never aware of this odd behavior in all the time I worked on the previous versions of the Mac OS. I have tried a number of acceleration-curve utilities, but none of them seemed to help. Thanks for pursuing this problem, which has driven me crazy for years and years (to the point that I thought it was entirely in my imagination). I only hope that some sort of real solution can be figured out.

Also, glad to hear that a component of the OSX mouse issue was fixed in Lion (the skipping bug), but unfortunately, I’m stuck with Snow Leopard until I can afford a new computer. I have actually sustained an RSI as a result of this! Used Windows for decades in IT.

Switched to a mac about 13 months ago and doing spreadsheets / powerpoint / email all day, and the mouse movement difference, combined with some low budget microsoft mice has caused me constant lower arm pain! Very similar to golfer’s elbow. Using PCs for work and gaming (old time Quake III player) for years never anything wrong. The mouse movement / lag / acceleration curve what ever thing is now causing me pain to the point where it hurts to lift anything!

Wonder of Apple would fix this in the face of a class-action lawsuit. Hi, I just found this article and have been reading the comments as well. I’m not quite sure how to describe what I’m experiencing with my mice on Mac OS X, but the best word I can come up with (others have used this as well) is “floating”.

When I move the mouse, the cursor just doesn’t seem/feel right. It’s perfectly usable, but the cursor just feels like it’s floating. I recently bought the Logitech G500 which is wired and it has the floating feel as well. I tried it on a Windows PC and the cursor movement was absolutely perfect, it felt right. No floating feeling or anything.

The weird thing is I only noticed this because I had to replace a Logitech Performance Mouse MX and when I went to use the new one I immediately felt the floating cursor thing. I have no idea why I never noticed this before, and now that I have it’s really annoying. I saw in the comments that you guys are working on a fix. Any update regarding that? My office just switched from an old windows system to brand new iMacs with Lion installed.

I’ve been an AutoCAD/PC user for almost 20 years. Currently we are trying out AutoCAD mac on our new iMacs and I also have Parallels sets up to run AutoCAD 2012 through Windows 7 on the same iMac. I also have my old PC running XP pro, set up next to my new iMac with AutoCAD 2011 installed on it. In addition for about 5 years I have used an older iMac at home with Parallels and Windows XP installed. I’ve run AutoCAD on my home system off and on and have always experienced the strange mouse behavior. I always assumed it had something to do with my home set up. I bought a Razar mouse when I first set the iMac up thinking it had something to do with the mac mouse.

I made sure to use a wired mouse in case the issues resulted from the ‘weight’ of a battery operated wireless mouse. I bought a special gaming mouse pad with a high speed surface to try to speed things up. I set all of the tracking speeds to fastest in both OSx and /Parallels Windows.

Nothing worked. My office Microsoft mouse on a piece of cardboard on my office PC felt smoother and better. The minute I got my new setup running at my office (last week) I noticed the exact same mouse problem and for the first time realized that the sluggish feeling I had always experienced on my iMac was not a problem restricted to my home set up. At work I first tried the magic mouse (a whole set of ergonomic issues on it’s own, what a terrible design for drafting).

Then I bought a new wired Microsoft mouse. And I even switched my ancient Microsoft wired mouse over to the new iMac. Same problem across the board. Running the mouse across the screen on my ancient windows pc feels so much smoother then running it across the screen on my iMac. I actually ran a mouse across both screens simultaneously. Definite difference. I’m so frustrated.

Drawing for hours on end I mostly use the mouse. Not much keyboard use is required for AutoCAD. I do not know how I am going to get used to the difference. It really bothers me and actually affects the way my arm feels as I tend to ‘push’ the mouse a little more on the iMac to try to get a response, which I realize makes no difference. Anyhow, glad to find that it’s not just me but very saddened to find that there is really no solution. I literally find it more pleasurable to draw on the pc then on the mac which is terrible as I love everything else about the mac 100% more. What I am doing most of the day is drawing so this is a real problem.

Just thought I’d add my voice to those who have experienced this very real issue. Folks,.specially those who have mac mini. After a week with this very annoying lag in the mouse and researching on the internet, I found out the root cause of my issue. It can be a problem in your monitor/TV specially if you are using mac mini with hdmi cable. Those tv’s default setting for hdmi is cinema/music or another preset slow for computers. So you have to update the tv for games or computer, something faster! I realized this couldn’t be a software issue, since I have used Hackintosh for years, and the same wireless mouse didn’t have any lag, even in the very same version of OS X.

So, try that! For God Sake I’m not alone!! My short story: Bought an imac, returned it after a week trying to solve this issue with app, with no success. I told it to some mac forums and all the answers i get is “it’s you, not os x”. I find it so unbelievable that mac users don’t admit that’s the mouse algorithm on os x feels like SHIT (seriously), i’m a hardcore gamer and even when not playing the mouse lag is so f.

unbearable! Damn i really think that mac users who are happy with the mouse are total noobs or never have used windows. Seriously u can’t admit it is “normal”!

I can make my works two times more efficiently and precisely on windows only cause of that! Mac OS X is a GREAT os, but the mouse lag make it so frustating, windows is by far more pleasant to use because of that!

If you can fix this shit, then i will buy a imac again, not until then. You can measure all this objectively. I took a few minutes, pulled out my handy high speed camera, and shot some quick video dragging a window around on my windows desktop and my old macbook. I used the same mouse, a Razer DeathAdder, on both systems. Someone with more time should do a more exhaustive set of tests with a tripod and a trivial app instead of window dragging to make the data cleaner, but the results are so dramatically different that it isn’t a matter of splitting hairs.

Even being generous with exactly which frame the mouse started moving on, I never counted less than 10 frames (at 240 hz = 42 milliseconds) and sometimes as many as 17 from the time the mouse moved to the time the pixels on the screen started to change. I’m sure this is better on a more modern system. The PC result was surprising. I was running on a 120hz monitor, and I couldn’t positively identify any frames of latency between the mouse starting to move and pixels on the screen changing. The mac does tear-free, retrace-synced desktop compositing, which means that a window at the bottom of the screen will always update 14 milliseconds later than one at the top of the screen due to a 60hs scanout. I don’t know the internal details, but it is possible that there may be a full frame of latency involved in latching the stable output of each window in preparation for the compositor, which would roughly line up with the observed data. The windows system (not running with Aero, which is probably significant here!) apparently gets a new mouse update ever 2 milliseconds and moves the window immediately.

This is why you get tear lines while dragging windows, and there were other temporal repainting artifacts visible in the high speed video. Apple made a (presumably) conscious decision to sacrifice responsiveness for perfect pixels. Again, someone could make a more direct comparison of similarly configured systems and write a real article about the results. It is also possible (likely?) that full screen 3D apps may bypass the desktop compositing and not suffer from any of this.

I’ve been switching between Macs and PCs since the early nineties and I can tell you there’s always been a difference between how fast the mouse movement “feels” between both operating systems. Macs have always used a logarithmic acceleration curve to determine the speed of the cursor. Windows does not (by default). This leads to native Windows users believing the mouse on Macs feels slow and sluggish where as a native Mac user finds the Windows mouse behavior to fast and overly sensitive. Dae fits into the former category.

Rather than doing what the rest of us have done and naturally adjust to the difference, Dae has gone on a personal crusade to make the mouse behavior on Macs behave just like it does on Windows. Meanwhile finding every possible obscure little issue with the mouse regardless if it’s an issue or not. The word “lag” is highly ambiguous and it’s hard to know what it means other than “I don’t like it.” I’ve seen people complain about mouse lag on both MacOS and Windows but have never experienced it myself. That does not mean it does not exist. We all speak english here, we aren’t all using the same language. So when you say “lag” someone might think “jerky”, another person might think “sluggish” and another would scratch his head unable to find a connection. Dae fits into the former category.

I can easily adjust to OS X acceleration curve as long as cursor doesn’t lag as much. Unlike acceleration, lag (when I say lag I imply a delay between physical movements and on-screen changes) is a big problem, not just a matter of preference. Surely you can adjust to it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem. Imagine a pen with ink which appears after minutes. Do you think it would be as easy for a child to learn writing with such a pen (compared to a normal pen)? Don’t you think it would be, at least, annoying? Or perhaps better example.

Do you think it would be easy and safe to drive a car if it didn’t react to steer wheel movement instantly? Windows does not (by default). Not true, by default it uses logarithmic acceleration which can be turned off by unticking “enhance pointer precision”. What was suggested above is to disable VSync — in Quartz debug this is Quartz debug settings - Beam Sync - Disable You will notice tearing when you move windows around (as on XP for example), but animations and screen drawing in general will now not be capped to the vertical refresh of the monitor (I see up to 150FPS, theoretically a 6ms drawing delay).

John Carmack’s post above gave very clear evidence this delay exists (on an old Macbook compared to XP at least), and his hypothesis about the window compositor delaying the drawing is clear. Disabling beam sync should allow you to test this. OK, I’ve been using Windows 12+ hours every single day for the last 15 years or so, and only recently got my very first Mac for iOS development.

I liked OS X so much I decided to dump Windows altogether, and I have no f’n idea what y’all are talking about with this mouse lag BS. “Annoyances?” What annoyances?! If anything the cursor in Mac OS (I’m running ML on an MBP) feels a lot smoother than Windows! And I use a crappy A4Tech wireless (not Bluetooth) mouse. So yeah, as if this whole thing didn’t seem exaggerated out of proportion already, calling OS X “less suited for gaming and design” (IN BOLD NO LESS) tells me that someone is butthurt just for the sake of having butthurt. I’m glad i found this blog.

I switched to mac from pc some months ago and the lag has been driving me crazy. I noticied this on all of my friends mac’s befor i made the decision to switch myself and whenever i’ve brought it up it was quickly dismissed as fanboyism.

Mainly because they don’t see the issue being used to the horrid mouse movement. I thought it was because their macs was older but no, my brand new maxed out MBA 13 has the same issues. I use the mouse only in Logic pro where i need precise movement to trim regions and similar fiddly operations. I’ve installed several mouse acceleration software but the lag prevails. It’s my #1 annoyance in the mac os.

Issue 2: Magic Mouse Won't Connect or Pair First of all, make sure your wireless mouse is switched. Also, make sure your Mac bluetooth has been turned on. Then move your mouse or tap to click it. This often wakes up the device. If that doesn't work, restart your Mac. If that still doesn't help, your mouse battery could be low.

Charge it for several minutes (or replace the AA batteries with new ones if you are using a traditional Magic Mouse) and retry. Note: If you are like me, and tend to slide the mouse switch to 'off' after shutting down my Mac for the sake of saving battery, be sure to slide the switch to 'on' first before you start your Mac machine.

Quite a few times, when I turned on the switch at an inappropriate time, I couldn't locate or use the mouse at all, and had to restart my Mac. Issue 3: Magic Mouse One Finger Scroll Doesn't Work This issue annoyed me for a while. My Magic Mouse 2 was successfully connected to my Mac, and I could move the mouse cursor with no problem, but the scrolling function didn't work at all. I couldn't scroll up, down, left or right with one finger. Well, the culprit turned out to be OS X Yosemite, which contains related to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Apple Mail. To check what OS X version your Mac is under, click the Apple logo on the top left corner and click on About This Mac.

The solution? I tried and it resolved the issue perfectly. Issue 4: Magic Mouse Keeps Disconnecting or Freezing on Mac This happened to me as well, and it turned out to be that my mouse battery was low. After recharging, the issue never occurred again. However, after viewing, some fellow Apple users also contributed other fixes. I've summarized them here, the order is based on ease of implementation:. Charge your mouse battery.

Disconnect other peripherals, then move your mouse closer to your Mac for a stronger signal. Disconnect your mouse and repair it. If possible, rename the device. Reset NVRAM.

Issue 5: How to Set Up Mouse Preferences If you want to adjust the mouse's tracking speed, enable right-click, add more gestures, etc, Mouse Preferences is the place to go. Here, you can customize your preferences with Apple's intuitive demos shown on the right.

Click on the bluetooth icon on the top menu bar, move to your mouse name, and click 'Open Mouse Preferences.' Magic Mouse Issues on Windows Disclaimer: The following issues are purely based on my observation and experience using Magic Mouse on my HP Pavilion laptop (Windows 10). I am yet to test it with Windows 7 or 8.1, or while using Windows on a Mac via BootCamp or such as,. As such, some of the solutions may not necessarily work with your PC. Issue 1: How to Pair Magic Mouse to Windows for the First Time Step 1: Locate the Bluetooth icon on the Taskbar on the bottom right corner. If it does not show up there, see to learn how to enable it. Right-click on it and select 'Add a Bluetooth Device'.

Step 3: Follow the rest of the instructions your PC walks you through, then wait for a few seconds. Your should be able to use your mouse now. Issue 2: Magic Mouse Scrolling Feature Not Working on Windows You'll need to install some drivers to make it work.

If you installed Windows via BootCamp on your Mac, Apple offers Boot Camp Support Software (Windows drivers). Click the blue button to download the drivers (882 MB in size). Then follow the instructions in this video to install them properly. If you are like me and using Windows 10 on a PC, you can download these two drivers (AppleBluetoothInstaller64 & AppleWirelessMouse64) from ( note: the language is Chinese).

After installing them on my Windows 10 based HP, the Magic Mouse scrolling feature works amazingly well. Plus, they are free. Shout out to my Chinese geek mate for developing them. I also tried another tool called. It worked nicely as well, but it's a commercial program that offers a 28-day free trial. After the trial is over, you'll have to pay $9.4 to purchase it.

Mac Mouse Problems : Steam For Mac Pro

So, in case the free drivers above don't work, Magic Mouse Utilities is a good option. Issue 3: How to Set Up Magic Mouse on Windows and Make It Work If you feel the scrolling is not smooth, right-click does not work, the pointer speed is too fast or slow, or want to switch right-handed to left-handed or vice versa, etc., you can change those in Mouse Properties.