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Newish Mac user here. The "feel" of mouse cursor movement is one of the few areas were Windows is superior. Years ago something like this was a big issue in Linux/X.org aswell but recently it has been fixed, atleast it feels like it for me.

I have noticed this "lag" with my magic mouse. Until now I have assumed there is something wrong with the hardware in it. Or that the bluetooth connection was breaking up. When I use the build in trackpad I have never noticed any lag.

Since Apple normally pay attention to details like this, im suprised that they have ignored this issue for so long.

If you use it for a while you might become blind to it?




I don't mind the mouse lag in normal use, but it's very annoying in FPS games. I've actually spent a day or two tweaking OS X mouse acceleration curves and whatever settings I could find. At the desktop I could get more "windows-y" feel, but always when I tried new settings TF2 the feeling was still wrong.

The lag author described is a plausible cause for my experiences.


TF2 is completely unplayable for me. I have to dual boot.

The other area where it drives me crazy is highlighting text - for some reason, it always feels cumbersome.


Yes! This was my biggest gripe when switching from Windows - the mouse 'feel' is, well, wrong. I played around with the mouse settings, downloaded software to change the acceleration curve - nothing worked!

I'm now used to the mouse behaviour on OS X, but every time I have to switch back to Windows to do some testing I realise what I'm missing.

The mouse is such a crucial part of the experience it's odd that Apple haven't gotten it right.


Weirdly I had the exact opposite experience. There is simply no way that I've found to get Mac-like acceleration on Windows.

I've hated every Windows/Linux touchpad I've used, but I love the Mac trackpad. I am not a gamer, though.


The differing mouse "feel" that you're describing is most likely a result of the different mouse acceleration curve that OS X uses. (Mentioned in the article) I've noticed this too but I was able to resolve it by changing the mouse acceleration curve using this tool: http://triq.net/articles/mouse-acceleration-preference-pane-... Now I think it feels just as nice as Windows.




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