Yeah, which is a total joke. I wish every game let you enter your DPI and then an exact cm/360. The fact I've found it worth it to buy a lifetime membership on a certain sensitivity calculator site, is a travesty.
@@Isaiiahii Im using an 18,000 dpi mouse and i can't see how anyone could play with anything under 4000 unless their playing older games. It sounds like either your moving the mouse too much if 1600 is too fast or the game is very old.
The TLDR is: You're brushing up against diminishing returns at 1000hz. There's some benefit past there, but you probably won't notice it as a human interfacing with an input device. The other mouse features / shape / weight / feel will have substantially more impact. Thanks for the tests as always. Some of the best honestly.
The benefit can actually be negative because past 1000hz every time you move your mouse the CPU is interrupted 2000 times per second to process your input as opposed to 1000. So you can actually lose FPS and cause stuttering in games if your CPU isn't fast enough or if the game is already using 100% of the core that is handling mouse inputs.
On proper setup and supported game with high fps and high Hz monitor you will, as also for high refresh rate monitors polling rate also need to keep up. It needs to be higher number of times over monitor refresh rate. If it's not there is jitter.
@@TheFPSPower input processing isn't done by interrupts anymore and the cpu overhead is trivial on modern cpus. I'm more worried about battery life, and returns are definitely diminishing anyway.
@@achillesa5894some games just don't handle polling rates about ~1000 very well. more modern games account for high polling rate mice, but games like osu! or tf2 and old versions of Minecraft don't, and will drop frames even on higher powered systems. this seems to be an engine limitation, as other games like fortnite or valorant don't have any issues with high polling rates
Great explanation of what polling rate actually means during gameplay, straight to the point. I really appreciate how in-depth you go and the graphics you use to visually understand the concepts. This type of content is very important to keep customer informed so we can make informed decisions on our purchases, instead of buying the new piece of tech just because it has a bigger number
I really appreciate not only the level of detail you put into your videos, but also the way you explain things. It’s very easy to understand and well thought out. That and your camera work and editing is awesome.
Im so grateful for this, a lot of other people have been taking about it, but its so nice to hear it from what is a bigger channel. Shape, weight, and sensor implemntation will matter more than polling rates, at least right now. And I've heard stories--granted heard--of people experincing more latency in polling rates due to increased CPU usage.
He dosent know what hes talking about he needs skill to back up his claims coming from someone who actually no lifes games 8000 if you are a real aimer is sooooo nice you cant move your mouse subtly on lower polling too bad for wireless you need final or viper mini se but its 100% worth if your a casual dont worry about though
@@maximkikena622 You can still move your mouse subtly on lower polling rate as that's more on DPI. I bet you won't feel a difference between 500 Hz and 8000 Hz. Also, optimum is insanely good at games, take a look at his second channel.
@@RegBinary1 you dont know what ur talking about keep buying ur gpx and stay in gold nova and 2 optimum wouldnt get above mg1 in counter strike even after 500 hours i gurantee you
There is a misconception about polling rate The polling rate is not variable. The set polling rate isn't an option for the mouse, it is mandatory. The mouse is being polled at a fixed rate, hence it can not dynamically vary. The reason why mousetester reports less updates is because some polls don't have any new data to give, for two reasons: 1. The mouse sensor didn't update. Sensor framerate is variable, at low movement speeds you can easily drop below 4000 FPS 2. The sensor doesn't have new data because the DPI is too low. A movement might have been registered by the sensor itself, but not worthy of reporting as a step. So even if only every 4th packet or so might contain data that registers as an "update", this will be more consistent than 1000hz. Consider a situation, in which there is only a position update from the sensor every 1.1 milliseconds, be that because of framerate or because the dpi is low. Now you have a situation in which you have an update that mostly occurs every poll but sometimes skips one. With 4000hz, the variance shrinks, because now you are talking about either 4 or 5 polls, which is a stark reduction in overall variance. Basically: A higher polling rate gets your absolute data output closer to what the sensor outputs. This is more important than latency imo, 1ms->0.25ms is probably not noticeable at all, but inconsistent mouse movement might be. Even at 400 dpi, the data output will be technically smoother. Not a comment on noticeability, but raw data. If I have made a glaring mistake, feel free to point it out.
You are correct. I also wrote a comment about this. And my conclusion was, that it is not all about the tracking and the "smoothness", it's about input latency. As you mentioned the mouse still -works- operates at the high polling rate, but only ever sends data to the PC if an update happens. That also explains why your PC registers a polling rate of 0 Hz when the mouse is stationary. Nevertheless clicks are also registered by the mouse at the higher rate, hence the input latency for clicks should be reduced as the mouse polls these updates at 8000/4000 Hz instead of 1000 Hz.
All that data is correct , but is it worth it the change? Are you going to be aware of that when you are using the mouse? If I had have a 4000hz or 8000hz mouse I wouldnt lose that gunfight, thats not gonna happen, so is it worth the change if your mouse is not broken?
I went deep down that rabbit hole. Maxed out my dpi and polling rates on my viper signature edition for a while. The differences are negligible. Turns out mouse shape is king. I’ve spent a lot of money on mice to just find myself using a cheap Lamzu Atlantis and running it at 2K. Love the content.
"maxed out my DPI" High end sensors can do 3200 DPI fine but lower-mid range mice at recommended at 1600 DPI. Any higher and the mouse starts skipping, it's not ideal.
It might be interesting to see a test that measures whether higher polling rate lowers input latency for the beginning and end of a motion. In all practicality, I think it says enough that the polling rate being lowered due to battery level wasn’t noticeable. It would be interesting though to see if there’s a perceivable difference in slow-mo.
Polling rate is the last thing you should consider when buying a new mouse. Shape, skates, switches, sensor, mcu, weight even coating is more important imo. + you spend additional amount of money for the dongle and you sacrifice 2 to 8 times of battery life for stressing your cpu to get no benefits irl. Poor marketing strategy as always.
dude you can get the best switches, sensors, mcu, all of it, wont change that you cant aim in game. but keep convincing yourself that if you put some huano switches in that youll go pro. LOL actual clowns. make sure to ask mom for the artisan mousepad for xmas! LOLOLOL
@@itchiegames since i'm not a fkin loser who sweats in his basement like u to get wins , comfort, quality and durability are my main concerns. better mouse can't make u win but satisfy which u'll never understand 13 year old sweaty kiddo.
but that means if a decent polling rate is present? say 125hz polling rate still ok in your opinion? 1000 or maybe 500 sure no big deal but below that i dont know
Don’t forget the CPU impact. It’s barely noticeable on a modern CPU but on an older one my 2000Hz corsair Dark Core can use up to 30% CPU usage when moving the mouse 😆
Thats a important information! I use a g pro superlight and even with a 1000 Hz polling rate my Ryzen 3700X was struggling in Apex. I just read in a thread that a too high rate could let your game microstutter so I finally could fix that by lowering it
@@zeronin4696That doesn't sound right.. I have a 3300x with a 1070. The only bottleneck I've experienced is the GPU. Microstutter or really obvious stutters usually only happens when you haven't boot up the game for so long or there was an update so it has to marinate in the first few minutes.
@@zeronin4696 I think its just Logitech that's crap because my game fps drops(90 to 45) whenever I move my mouse on my 1000Hz G pro wireless. but its gone when I use my wired zowie FK2. I also use Ryzen and the game was Lost Ark
Good point but it's really important to note that Corsair is known to use fake 2khz, as in instead of sending more updates between a movement per second it sends the same movements as on 1khz twice. If it's doing this constantly instead of only when needed like Optimum showed then it could be a heavier drain on the cpu than true 2khz
It's also really bad in certain games if you aren't on Win11. I got the M2K and tried to use 4-8k in Apex and even in the firing range the framespikes were insane. Even after upgrading to Win11 (they had a certain insider patch a while ago specifically dealing with high polling rate devices) and using project lasso to turn prevent certain apps which are open such as Steam, Discord etc from running on core 0/1 of my 12700k, I still would get the odd frametim spike in a real game scenario in Apex. In other games such as OW2, Kovaaks etc I can use 8k without any issues, but honestly I've just gone back to using 2khz because it seems a lot more consistent for me personally.
Thank you! Perfectly aligns with every assumption I've made about increasing the polling rate beyond 1000 Hz. There's no way something that makes less than a millisecond of difference is going to impact user performance in any way at all.
This is the exact kind of content we all need and I really appreciate your channel for investigating things like this. I love my mouse but have kinda dipped my toes into changing for 4K hz, but now I can just be happy with my perfectly good mouse.
Brilliant work as always, but what I am most impressed by is the ingenuity. In almost every video I hear you say "So I made this"....love it. Keep the content coming!
So my thinking on this is that 2000 is probably the "soft cap" where you stop being able to perceive it, while 4000-8000 is the "hard cap" where it stops giving any gain at all like a higher headshot percentage. Simulator to where, technically our eyes dynamically change their framerate around 255-500 which is the "soft cap". While technically having higher gives better stats but realistically the hard cap is like 800-1000 hz. Where there is no more reasonable gain.
the quality of your content is from other world, no bull$#!t, great explanations, great examples, very deep tests shown very clearly, love your channel
(Commenting before watching) got an x2v2 mini with the 4khz dongle and played around with it for a bit. Tried it before being fully dialed in and didn't notice any difference while tracking at least. For very large flicks I can imagine it being a tiny bit more consistent because of the more accurate position delta. Main issue I had with 4khz is, that older source games like tf2 don't support anything above 2khz polling rate. (the cursor stutters a lot) (this part is after watching) About what I expected, I would like to see comparisons between stopping points on very large flicks, if that's at all testable, but unless there's like three pixels of difference, I would prefer a longer battery life and not having an led on the dongle :) -Note, I play on a 144hz qd-oled panel so that will obviously affect my perception compared to a ridiculously high refresh rate monitor.
Great video! I just got G Pro X Superlight 2...and realized on my 165Hz 1000Hz polling works a lot better then 2000Hz, let alone 4000 (whic is now supported on Superlight 2)! On my setup with 1440p2165Hz, 1000hz polling results in more accuracy for me...I have set it for 800dpi @ 1000hz
It is supposed to have 8000khz now. I have that mouse, but in the polling rate tests it never exceeds 3000khz, not even with absurdly high sensitivities... I don't understand it.
Thank you for making this. This obsession over latency is damaging the mouse space. I feel like people have become more focused on trying to appreciate the companies that are doing the most "hard work", rather than trying to find mice that actually feel better in hand.
there are companies that actually do both. Take a look at Vaxee for example. Exceptional shapes and they already updated the firmware for their mice and dongles to increase responsiveness and battery life, paired with really solid build quality
Well games are only getting worse with latency. The ONLY games that even have as good latency as Doom from the fucking 80s are the devs that have made their own forks of Carmacks engine. The only exception I have ever seen is Diabotical. We still can't match the original FPS in terms of input latency. Shits bad.
Thanks for making these videos. I guess this could be the future but it really seems a bit pointless at the moment, specially considering the worse battery life and increased CPU load
that was a really fascinating test, I love the method you used. Definitely helped to clear up the confusion I had between the relationship between DPI, monitor refresh rate, and mouse polling rate. Keep it up!
LOL Seeing this was eye-opening And people arguing over the internet and being brand victims just really shows now. Thanks for covering this interesting topic. It really reminds me of harmony and balance of building a PC. It's the same scenario as when people will buy a beefy GPU and think they are all set. They forget that they need to upgrade other components aswell e.g. RAM, CPU, PSU etc. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. It's just so funny when people buy 4K dongles and play on a 75Hz monitor. I'll send this to everyone now who even tries to be a smart-arse on this department.
Does this man NOT build a test setup for everything lol. SO prepared for everything! Love it! Always appreciate the ingenuity and effort put into production of these videos. Thank you!
First of all great video, I love your testing methodology very accurate and significant results, definitely one of the best TH-cam channels about tech. And about polling I still keep my mice at 1000 don't really care to go beyond that especially if it's a wireless mouse, to me battery life has more value than 4k or 2k polling. I got the GPX2 aswell after I got a wheel button issue with my viper ultimate and I got 4 friends who had the same problem with basilisks and deathadders (weirdly happened to all of us in the last couple of months). So i ditched Razer and went for the gpx2 and all the people complain about the missing 4k polling I think it's just placebo when they read the higher number and they just feel glorious PC master race.
In reality, going over 1000 Hz doesn't work well with certain games. I have the DAv3 with the 4k Hz dongle, and some games couldn't register my mouse input at 4k. You know, almost like the game engine wasn't built to get that amount of mouse data. The result was the framerate would tank and you'd have to set it back to 1k again. I'd recommend trying 2k on several different FPS's and see if the game is playable.
@@Skrewdriver11 are you on windows 11? W11 had an update not too long ago that should have fixed it with almost every game. If you are w11, then it might be your cpu or usb port causing issue.
@@HeyNavi yeah, im on w11 and i didnt know that. i bought this mouse like a 6 month ago, tested 8k mode in apex legends, had stutters and played 1k mode after that. i'll try 8k once again, thx for the advice.
@@HeyNavi i dont think that cpu or usb is the problem. I have stable 170+ average fps in apex legends. i read the post on reddit about 8k and a lot of people saying that game engine in some games cant handle 8k polling rate. 8k works good in overwatch and valorant for me. but i didnt know about w11 update, hope it will help.
I tested 1k, 4k, and 8k with multiple games over time. Had issues over 1k with several games too. I have windows 11, so I guess I will have to try again.
Thanks for this. I have been using the razer orochi v2 since it came out and have had 0 issues.... But was getting caught up in the hype around 4k and 8k polling and thought it would be worth an upgrade. After seeing this and due to how acclimated I am to the orochi. I'm just going to stick with it until it gives out on me
My take on these marginal gains for FPS is that internet speed/server connection etc etc provide more blockers to performance and translation of input accuracy to gaming outcomes (i.e shooting/cursor accuracy) than polling rates. For example a few pixels of vertical/horizontal stutter or bounce in a gun/fps engagement in on online shooter isn't going to be the defining factor often enough when there's so many other variables - to justify getting too hung up on the difference between 1-2k polling rates and spending more money for such an option.
Sorry in advance for the wall of text lol. Your videos really are great but I don't think enough was tested here on this one, I always thought the same thing that the cursor above 1000 hz doesn't appear different visually if moving it in a line. Showing this test was really cool to see confirm this but the biggest and most important thing about 4000 hz in my experience is the the feel of how much snappier the mouse is, I play super low sens around 80 cm for a 360 so small fast movements are much more noticable. Moving the mice in a straight line isn't going to show how well high polling can handle instant changes in direction, at 4000 hz tracking a fast moving target with erratic movement or just quick target switching in general just feels so much more instant. In my head it's like wanting to see some car acceleration tests between two cars, but the only test is showing the can both reach the same speed if that makes sense lol. Not a 4k hz shill though, I feel like most don't need to worry about it still unless it's someone who really wants the focus on pure aiming. There are some issues too, not just battery drain but as of now on Windows 10 doesn't handle high polling rates of 4000hz-8000hz very well, from what I read the extra polling is applied to multiple programs in the backround and causes extra unnecessary CPU usage. I was on CS2 one day trying 4000 hz on my Viper V2 and the Deathadder V3 wired at 8000hz and noticed I get massive fps drop if I move the mouse fast, in lower end games where you have a ton of frames though it's not an issue. Apparently Windows 11 fixes this polling issue though, but I haven't tried it myself. I'm rambling a bit now but at the end of the day the shape still is the one of the most important things so don't waste money on a 4k mouse just because it's 4k, I still go back to my G305 more than anything since I'm more consistent with shape compared to the Viper V2 Pro. But if it's a great shape you like a lot, you can't go wrong getting a 4k version of it. You can drop to 1-2k hz anyways to save battery life if you don't wanna use it much. I'd pay some good money to get a 4k G305 though lmao
I just want to let a comment here cause i love your work and your videos. I found them really useful and that's not the first time that i watch one of your videos to have an answer about things like the video is talking about. So big thanks ! And continue like that !
Bought the Ninjutso Sora 4K as my first higher polling rate mouse and honestly the battery drainage is hella annoying. Have been using 4k and 2k hz and honestly I've never thought "oh wow this is a game changer". Great mouse otherwise though lol. Kinda figured higher polling rates have been a gimmick considering alot of FPS pros still use 1k hz and you know... still dominate
@@3ildcard reddit is filled with clueless rats. All heavy copium to deal with the fact that they bought an expensive mouse marketed with having “the best tech”, meanwhile back at the ranch…
Yeah I got a 4k dongle as well but I just use 1k now. Waste of 20 bucks but I didn't know any better. It just drains your battery 4x as quickly for 0.25ms of delay instead of 1ms lmao. It's completely useless when you put the raw numbers out and you don't even need testing but I'm glad he did just to prove to those coping on Reddit.
I still a big believer in the feel of the mouse over everything else. I love my Xtrfy-wireless MZ1, its 1000 pulling rate. I have had 0 issue being competitive. The feel and look of the mouse is great. The only thing I wish it had that it doesn't is some kind of GUI interface that I can turn off and on but at the same time it can respect not putting more bloat software on my computer.
this guy gets it. use a mouse thats good for you. use the settings that are good for you. all these bad gamers think if they get the perfect DPI settings and the perfect skates and the perfect switches that all of a sudden they wont be bad at gaming anymore. lmao
@@Snxgur I know and I agree, you can see the difference, and I agree with the person above that 1000hz is more comparable to 240hz, 500hz on mice is not bad, so maybe it's more comparable to 144hz, but I meant it in the sense that 144/165hz, just like 1000hz, is very accessible, so everyone should have at least that. If you look at the actual frametimes for different refresh rates (60hz - 17ms, 165hz - 6ms, 240hz - 4ms, 480hz - 2ms), it's pretty clear that you get severe deminishing returns fast.
Would be also cool to see if you could tell the difference in the click latency as that also changes with the higher polling rates. If anyone can figure out how to test that meaningfully it is you. Keep up the insane quality videos that we all tune in to watch!
Yeah polling rate will affect click latency also, kinda strange it wasn't covered here. End to end latency it might not make an impact, but clicking a shot at 1k vs 4k, the 4k one will be sent sooner.
@@negation4399 Best case it'll be sent 0.749~ milliseconds sooner, assuming absolutely no other factors. (i.e. you click just a moment after the millisecond mark, which is missed by the 1K sensor until the next millisecond, while the 4K will catch it at the .25 millisecond mark). Granted, I doubt it could even be visually seen in his setup, considering the display is only 540hz and the slow-motion camera is 240fps, either of which could capture millisecond differences. You can barely see the difference in 1K vs 4K with constant movement (which generates a constant input), so you definitely won't see or feel the difference in a single click (a single input). If there's any noticed or perceived difference, it's likely somewhere else - The test program stuttering, the OS being queued to process the input in next millisecond instead of immediately, GPU rendering, etc., and we're not even mentioning the multiple milliseconds of network latency.
Amazing job as always. I'm completely fan of technology and I really appreciate your content. As always, amazing job, great transparency, you're putting this to the next level. Thank you !
The issue with playing at higher than 800DPI is that most games don't allow a low enough sensitivity to be set to have the same sensitivity that most pro FPS players use. Which would be anywhere between 30-50cm for 360 degrees in the game. Keep up the good work!
@@Impecable.. I had no idea something like this existed. Do you have any idea if it affects input latency since it's a man in the middle situation? Also, how sure are we that it doesn't add negative acceleration?
@@Akemic There are still games that don't allow you to go low enough with the sensitivity setting while having 1600DPI. So I and the top aimers need to consider other solutions.
Long time subscriber, rare commenter - just wanted to say great work, thank you and keep it up. The quality of the videos, experimentation, presentation of the data in this space and other items you cover in your channel provide incredible value to the community - helps us see past some of the marketing and the gimmicks companies are touting. Big Thanks!
Most people will see much more dramatic improvements to their mouse feel by optimizing their systems properly. Sorting out things like bloatware, dpc latency/cpu interrupts, frame timing, gpu and cpu busy time, electro magnetic interference, radio frequency interference, turning off certain power saving features in bios and windows etc etc..
You should also check click response times with 1000, 2000, and 4000hz. Any mouse > 1000hz will require USB high speed which should give up to 750us less input latency, although it may require the full 8000hz high speed offers to get that, unsure.
@@alexanderx784k polling rate doesn’t do doggy shit, gpx 2 is nice shape click feel and coating for most people, that’s why so many people still swear by the gpx 2 even if it isn’t objectively the best mouse on the market for the price (which it isn’t)
Knew what ? They just wanted battery to last longer cause the mouse is wireless, 4khz and 8khz still feel better than 1k or 2k. Buy a razer viper 8khz and feel it out, it's simply a better response time, when you put it back to 2khz after playing with 8khz you will know for sure.
The curser in game is moving way to slow to see a difference. Even 500hz was practically no different at that speed. The curser test isn’t just because it’s flat. But because it’s moving way faster. Same with high refresh, the faster the movement the easier it is to see.
I'd be interested in some more work being done on the high polling rate space. We reach diminishing returns past 1000 Hz, but what if we downsample from 4000 to 1000? Would the mouse input theoretically be more stable if you take an average of the 4x extra data in that 1x time? There's still a bit of potential for high polling rates past 1000 Hz at mid-high DPIs I think, personally.
I think the difference may be noticeable when you changing direction of cursor. Higher mouse refresh rate could register movement earlier. But it will affect at maximum one frame per direction change, and at 540hz it is less then 2 ms. And i think that no human can tell the difference in 2 ms.
Another thing that I didn't hear mentioned in the video is that an increase in polling rate above 1k can heavily strain the CPU and cause noticeable frame drops.
some older games (Minecraft notably, at least the 1.8 version most commonly used for competitive multiplayer) have issues at even 1000, making it better to use 500hz polling rate.
as someone else already mentioned in one of the comments, input processing isn't done by interrupts anymore and cpu overhead is trivial on modern cpus. So unless you play on an old cpu on windows 7, you literally won't have any issues.
Thanks for doing this testing. I am a casual gamer, and I can easily tell the difference between 500hz and 1000hz. I incorrectly assumed those 8000hz mice would offer a comparable jump in smoothness. I'm glad that's not the case and that I can just stick to my cheap mice :)
I upgraded from the Deathadder elite to the Deathadder v3 wired a few months ago thinking it would improve my gameplay even just by a little (and because I needed a new mouse), but it honestly just felt kind of the same, definitely lighter and a bit smoother and more responsive than the elite but just like mentioned in the video the difference is minuscule and you don't really notice it when playing. While the mouse is great, at least in my opinion which may be biased because I have been using Deathadder mice since I was 12 and I love the shape and the less weight, I don't think anyone should go and buy a mouse just because it has double the polling rate of their current one.
I have an 8khz Viper Mini SE and 360hz DyAc+ monitor, believe me, there is a noticeable improvement in smoothness, Optimum just didn't set his DPI to 3200. And reactivity / direction changes are a lot smoother.
Your wired sensor is the same as mine, try getting a 360hz with ULMB or a 540hz with ULMB when it comes out as that is superior to DyAc+, and then set yoor DPI to 3200 and hz to 8k and you'll feel buttery smoother than at 1khz. You're welcome. Again, the wired dav3's 8khz is the best sensor by Razer, tied with the overpriced viper mini SE
@@ArceusX300 I have the Acer Predator XB273U which is 360hz and has ULMB 2. I set my polling rate to 8k and 4k at 1600 dpi and at least for me there is not a significant difference when I play. I do notice it being smoother but only when I focus on my crosshair movement.
Agree to disagree about not being able to notice the difference between 1k and 2k polling. Set a previous gen GPX at 1k polling, 1600 DPI, then the GPX2 to 2k polling 1600 DPI. Swipe around each mouse in-game. The 2k is noticeably smoother.
@@Milkamori Load a game with a 4k mouse and a 1k mouse. Wiggle each around. If you really can’t tell the difference then maybe check in at an Emergency Room for signs of a concussion. This video is pseudoscience clickbait.
Great video man. Loving the recent content. Super super excited for your upcoming vid on windows / os tweaks. Looking forward to seeing more of your content, much love
One thing to mention that I have noticed when I was testing polling rates was that my fps would drop by alot (around 300 fps give or take on valorant) when swaying or just general movement with 1k polling rate on, whilst on 500hz, it was only 100 or less. I'm not sure what exactly is happening, how much it actually affects your gaming, and if something worse happens at higher polling rate. I know you probably won't feel it since anything above 240 fps just makes it a tiny bit smoother, but its still something to be a little concerned about.
Bullshit back round process like steam webhelper razer synapse etc are what make it lag with all backround apps closed i might drop 20 frames with higher pollimg rates and thats all if that ive never played a game that hasnt been playable cause of it its actually the opposite especially after a pc reset and disk clean and driver clean
@@maximkikena622 I literally have optimized windows 11, and my steam also had all the hardware acceleration off (also optimized), only thing that was open was CS2, or if I'm playing valorant, Riot Client and the game itself. You really think I would leave apps that could possibly deter the data open? You can test it yourself. Go to a practice range or something and move your mouse to multiple directions, You'll notice a heavier fps decrease with 1k polling rate compared to 500hz polling rate.
It can be lower, but the difference isn’t enough to justify it. Improving game knowledge and aim is a much bigger step up over 1000 -> 4000 hz. People shouldn’t buy mice just because of pulling rates since clearly 1000hz wasn’t holding anybody back.
There is zero difference at slow mouse movements, but there is a visible difference even for the windows cursor at very fast movements. You do not state at which speed the mouse was moved, which is basically the most important parameter in this test from a physics perspective. Figure out the fastest flicks people do (1m/s or a bit more maybe?) and replicate that speed in your machine if you want the most relevant results. Thanks for the great videos!
i know you say you cant feel it but i have a mouse that has 4k hz and when i first tried it, before i even considered 4k hz my tracking felt just a little more "telepathic" and when i turned off 4k to try and save the battery life i definitely felt that go away. could it be placebo? absolutely, but im usually pretty good at not being affected by placebo from the couple bad supplement purchases Ive made 😅
I was surprised by this. I've been using the Razer Viper 8K @ 8000Hz polling rate on a 144Hz monitor, and it feels smoother when I move the mouse quickly, especially in comparison to my Logitech G Pro Wireless @1000Hz polling rate. I expected that the difference would be even more pronounced when paired with a monitor that has a 240Hz to 540Hz refresh rate. It would be interesting to see a wired mouse in any future tests. (however Windows seems to struggle with the 8000Hz rate, causing some stuttering. But when it does work smoothly, even for just a few minutes, the difference in performance is apparent.) Excellent content as always! One of the few channels I click instantly when I see a new video!
@@d2sptzltz It is probably a combination of windows and CPU, you can see how the cpu works hard just by mouse moment on desktop with 8k polling. With newest widows update and a decent cpu it works quite well today but i use 4k polling atm, (8k) does not work at all with some games. (if you have a old cpu for exapmle a 4790k uses 100 cpu usage with just moving the mouse on desktop.
I think the only time you might notice is on sharp directional changes, But the reality is that it takes a fair amount of effort for us to change the direction of our hands given the mass that’s on it . Ants with monitors the difference gets progressively smaller every time you double the refreshrate. It’s not useless, but it really doesn’t have as much of an affect us most people think
It has the same concept as rgb lights, it doesn't affect the actual gameplay but it makes you more confident. It's an emotional thing where it boosts your ego
Man, I was actually waiting for this video, just yesterday I was looking for a video like this because I ordered lamzu 4k and I was scouring your page for this video
2k 4k and 8k polling rate also puts more load on the CPU which can lower your framerate in games and can egen cause stuttering if your system cant handle it. My old 6700k stuttered past 500 polling rate and when i upgraded to a 10850k the stutter was gone. Thanks for saving me $30 on Razers 4k dongle.
Its not only about smoothness but the time it takes for a mouse to respond to movements from a standstill and thats where higher polling rate comes into play
One big issue with high dpi is that many games don't let you set very low in-game sensitivity to compensate
Yeah, which is a total joke. I wish every game let you enter your DPI and then an exact cm/360. The fact I've found it worth it to buy a lifetime membership on a certain sensitivity calculator site, is a travesty.
I always buy a mouse with a DPI button on it for this
I typically go into the game setting files and set a custom value manually.
@@Isaiiahii Im using an 18,000 dpi mouse and i can't see how anyone could play with anything under 4000 unless their playing older games.
It sounds like either your moving the mouse too much if 1600 is too fast or the game is very old.
@@Isaiiahii Let me guess, you are playing on a 1080p monitor.
Once again, you are the benchmark when it comes to interesting tech videos like this. Great work dude!
😮-
The TLDR is: You're brushing up against diminishing returns at 1000hz. There's some benefit past there, but you probably won't notice it as a human interfacing with an input device. The other mouse features / shape / weight / feel will have substantially more impact.
Thanks for the tests as always. Some of the best honestly.
The benefit can actually be negative because past 1000hz every time you move your mouse the CPU is interrupted 2000 times per second to process your input as opposed to 1000. So you can actually lose FPS and cause stuttering in games if your CPU isn't fast enough or if the game is already using 100% of the core that is handling mouse inputs.
On proper setup and supported game with high fps and high Hz monitor you will, as also for high refresh rate monitors polling rate also need to keep up. It needs to be higher number of times over monitor refresh rate. If it's not there is jitter.
@@TheFPSPower input processing isn't done by interrupts anymore and the cpu overhead is trivial on modern cpus. I'm more worried about battery life, and returns are definitely diminishing anyway.
Just because you can't notice something doesn't mean it isn't there. Polling rates above 1000hz are very beneficial.
@@achillesa5894some games just don't handle polling rates about ~1000 very well. more modern games account for high polling rate mice, but games like osu! or tf2 and old versions of Minecraft don't, and will drop frames even on higher powered systems. this seems to be an engine limitation, as other games like fortnite or valorant don't have any issues with high polling rates
absolutely love the transparency across all the tests you do on the channel, good job as always man
Great explanation of what polling rate actually means during gameplay, straight to the point. I really appreciate how in-depth you go and the graphics you use to visually understand the concepts. This type of content is very important to keep customer informed so we can make informed decisions on our purchases, instead of buying the new piece of tech just because it has a bigger number
Really thoughtful, rational and researched commentary on our gaming hobby, as always. Thanks!
And your comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion as always. Thanks!
@@testtube173 who hurt you?
@@testtube173man moment lol
@@testtube173 Actually it does. He's commenting what he thinks about the video. However your's is pretty useless
@@testtube173your name defines how you were born?
I really appreciate not only the level of detail you put into your videos, but also the way you explain things. It’s very easy to understand and well thought out. That and your camera work and editing is awesome.
Thanks for the clear explanation of polling rates and how it affects smoothness. Your explanations are always very clear and easy to understand.
Im so grateful for this, a lot of other people have been taking about it, but its so nice to hear it from what is a bigger channel. Shape, weight, and sensor implemntation will matter more than polling rates, at least right now. And I've heard stories--granted heard--of people experincing more latency in polling rates due to increased CPU usage.
He dosent know what hes talking about he needs skill to back up his claims coming from someone who actually no lifes games 8000 if you are a real aimer is sooooo nice you cant move your mouse subtly on lower polling too bad for wireless you need final or viper mini se but its 100% worth if your a casual dont worry about though
@@maximkikena622dude i dont think youve seen him play, hes good
@@maximkikena622 this is the most no-life comment I've ever seen
@@maximkikena622 You can still move your mouse subtly on lower polling rate as that's more on DPI. I bet you won't feel a difference between 500 Hz and 8000 Hz. Also, optimum is insanely good at games, take a look at his second channel.
@@RegBinary1 you dont know what ur talking about keep buying ur gpx and stay in gold nova and 2 optimum wouldnt get above mg1 in counter strike even after 500 hours i gurantee you
This is why this channel is my favorite when it comes to peripheral testing. No hyping up useless meat swinging by the manufacturers.
There is a misconception about polling rate
The polling rate is not variable. The set polling rate isn't an option for the mouse, it is mandatory. The mouse is being polled at a fixed rate, hence it can not dynamically vary.
The reason why mousetester reports less updates is because some polls don't have any new data to give, for two reasons:
1. The mouse sensor didn't update. Sensor framerate is variable, at low movement speeds you can easily drop below 4000 FPS
2. The sensor doesn't have new data because the DPI is too low. A movement might have been registered by the sensor itself, but not worthy of reporting as a step.
So even if only every 4th packet or so might contain data that registers as an "update", this will be more consistent than 1000hz.
Consider a situation, in which there is only a position update from the sensor every 1.1 milliseconds, be that because of framerate or because the dpi is low. Now you have a situation in which you have an update that mostly occurs every poll but sometimes skips one. With 4000hz, the variance shrinks, because now you are talking about either 4 or 5 polls, which is a stark reduction in overall variance.
Basically: A higher polling rate gets your absolute data output closer to what the sensor outputs. This is more important than latency imo, 1ms->0.25ms is probably not noticeable at all, but inconsistent mouse movement might be. Even at 400 dpi, the data output will be technically smoother. Not a comment on noticeability, but raw data.
If I have made a glaring mistake, feel free to point it out.
You are correct. I also wrote a comment about this. And my conclusion was, that it is not all about the tracking and the "smoothness", it's about input latency. As you mentioned the mouse still -works- operates at the high polling rate, but only ever sends data to the PC if an update happens. That also explains why your PC registers a polling rate of 0 Hz when the mouse is stationary. Nevertheless clicks are also registered by the mouse at the higher rate, hence the input latency for clicks should be reduced as the mouse polls these updates at 8000/4000 Hz instead of 1000 Hz.
1ms->0.25ms is noticeable.
Same as Nvidia Reflex Latancy on/off/boost.
The polling rate is for the wireless dongle, NOT the mouse.
All that data is correct , but is it worth it the change? Are you going to be aware of that when you are using the mouse? If I had have a 4000hz or 8000hz mouse I wouldnt lose that gunfight, thats not gonna happen, so is it worth the change if your mouse is not broken?
Your mistake was making an intelligent comment in a yt comment section
I went deep down that rabbit hole. Maxed out my dpi and polling rates on my viper signature edition for a while. The differences are negligible. Turns out mouse shape is king. I’ve spent a lot of money on mice to just find myself using a cheap Lamzu Atlantis and running it at 2K. Love the content.
Felt. I went through so many mice training to avoid the GPX just to end up settling on the GPX 2, and the shape is just too consistent for me.
Higher DPI will not give lower latency
"maxed out my DPI"
High end sensors can do 3200 DPI fine but lower-mid range mice at recommended at 1600 DPI.
Any higher and the mouse starts skipping, it's not ideal.
Why only at 2k tho?
@@SkyFives LOLOL
You are hands down the best tech reviewer/informer on youtube currently
fax
It might be interesting to see a test that measures whether higher polling rate lowers input latency for the beginning and end of a motion. In all practicality, I think it says enough that the polling rate being lowered due to battery level wasn’t noticeable. It would be interesting though to see if there’s a perceivable difference in slow-mo.
Polling rate is the last thing you should consider when buying a new mouse. Shape, skates, switches, sensor, mcu, weight even coating is more important imo. + you spend additional amount of money for the dongle and you sacrifice 2 to 8 times of battery life for stressing your cpu to get no benefits irl. Poor marketing strategy as always.
dude you can get the best switches, sensors, mcu, all of it, wont change that you cant aim in game.
but keep convincing yourself that if you put some huano switches in that youll go pro. LOL actual clowns. make sure to ask mom for the artisan mousepad for xmas! LOLOLOL
@@itchiegames since i'm not a fkin loser who sweats in his basement like u to get wins , comfort, quality and durability are my main concerns. better mouse can't make u win but satisfy which u'll never understand 13 year old sweaty kiddo.
@@minusdrei6561I've been using the Deathadder V3 wired for a while now, and 8000hz feels very smooth compared to 1000hz, I prefer it. 800dpi
but that means if a decent polling rate is present? say 125hz polling rate still ok in your opinion? 1000 or maybe 500 sure no big deal but below that i dont know
@@BurnoutWien we're talking about gaming mouse not office
Don’t forget the CPU impact. It’s barely noticeable on a modern CPU but on an older one my 2000Hz corsair Dark Core can use up to 30% CPU usage when moving the mouse 😆
Thats a important information! I use a g pro superlight and even with a 1000 Hz polling rate my Ryzen 3700X was struggling in Apex. I just read in a thread that a too high rate could let your game microstutter so I finally could fix that by lowering it
@@zeronin4696That doesn't sound right.. I have a 3300x with a 1070. The only bottleneck I've experienced is the GPU. Microstutter or really obvious stutters usually only happens when you haven't boot up the game for so long or there was an update so it has to marinate in the first few minutes.
@@zeronin4696 I think its just Logitech that's crap because my game fps drops(90 to 45) whenever I move my mouse on my 1000Hz G pro wireless. but its gone when I use my wired zowie FK2. I also use Ryzen and the game was Lost Ark
Good point but it's really important to note that Corsair is known to use fake 2khz, as in instead of sending more updates between a movement per second it sends the same movements as on 1khz twice. If it's doing this constantly instead of only when needed like Optimum showed then it could be a heavier drain on the cpu than true 2khz
It's also really bad in certain games if you aren't on Win11. I got the M2K and tried to use 4-8k in Apex and even in the firing range the framespikes were insane. Even after upgrading to Win11 (they had a certain insider patch a while ago specifically dealing with high polling rate devices) and using project lasso to turn prevent certain apps which are open such as Steam, Discord etc from running on core 0/1 of my 12700k, I still would get the odd frametim spike in a real game scenario in Apex.
In other games such as OW2, Kovaaks etc I can use 8k without any issues, but honestly I've just gone back to using 2khz because it seems a lot more consistent for me personally.
Thank you! Perfectly aligns with every assumption I've made about increasing the polling rate beyond 1000 Hz. There's no way something that makes less than a millisecond of difference is going to impact user performance in any way at all.
This is the exact kind of content we all need and I really appreciate your channel for investigating things like this. I love my mouse but have kinda dipped my toes into changing for 4K hz, but now I can just be happy with my perfectly good mouse.
Brilliant work as always, but what I am most impressed by is the ingenuity. In almost every video I hear you say "So I made this"....love it. Keep the content coming!
So my thinking on this is that 2000 is probably the "soft cap" where you stop being able to perceive it, while 4000-8000 is the "hard cap" where it stops giving any gain at all like a higher headshot percentage.
Simulator to where, technically our eyes dynamically change their framerate around 255-500 which is the "soft cap". While technically having higher gives better stats but realistically the hard cap is like 800-1000 hz.
Where there is no more reasonable gain.
As someone with a 360hz monitor who has bought a couple 4k hz mice and didn't notice a difference, this video made me feel a lot better.
try 8k razer for 360hz
@@032HULKno point games have issues with 4k let alone 8k
The only guy to listen to when it comes to all kinds of latency tests, love you mate great video as always :)
the quality of your content is from other world, no bull$#!t, great explanations, great examples, very deep tests shown very clearly, love your channel
Ali has the best graphs on youtube. its not even close. a non tech person could follow along easily
RocketJumpNinja eat your heart out. Wow this is the best testing I've seen for high polling.
Somehow these videos just keep getting better and better
The only Tech TH-camr I trust, never have I seen such a good competitive gamer-reviewer
(Commenting before watching) got an x2v2 mini with the 4khz dongle and played around with it for a bit. Tried it before being fully dialed in and didn't notice any difference while tracking at least. For very large flicks I can imagine it being a tiny bit more consistent because of the more accurate position delta. Main issue I had with 4khz is, that older source games like tf2 don't support anything above 2khz polling rate. (the cursor stutters a lot)
(this part is after watching) About what I expected, I would like to see comparisons between stopping points on very large flicks, if that's at all testable, but unless there's like three pixels of difference, I would prefer a longer battery life and not having an led on the dongle :)
-Note, I play on a 144hz qd-oled panel so that will obviously affect my perception compared to a ridiculously high refresh rate monitor.
Update to the new Windows 11 update for native support for 4khz / 8khz. It makes it feel smoother and works in all games.
Honestly love your videos man, the quality and atmosphere is just great.
Great video! I just got G Pro X Superlight 2...and realized on my 165Hz 1000Hz polling works a lot better then 2000Hz, let alone 4000 (whic is now supported on Superlight 2)!
On my setup with 1440p2165Hz, 1000hz polling results in more accuracy for me...I have set it for 800dpi @ 1000hz
same dude. i tried higher polling and my aim just wasn’t the same. it felt like mouse acceleration. I prefer 1k polling 800 dpi
@Snxgur yup! Kinda like mouse acceleration...
It is supposed to have 8000khz now. I have that mouse, but in the polling rate tests it never exceeds 3000khz, not even with absurdly high sensitivities... I don't understand it.
@@scuak337 8khz a waste 1k is fine
Thank you for making this. This obsession over latency is damaging the mouse space. I feel like people have become more focused on trying to appreciate the companies that are doing the most "hard work", rather than trying to find mice that actually feel better in hand.
there are companies that actually do both. Take a look at Vaxee for example. Exceptional shapes and they already updated the firmware for their mice and dongles to increase responsiveness and battery life, paired with really solid build quality
and also rather than actually playing and actively trying to improve
Gotta sell junk to the mindless consumers somehow 😂
Well games are only getting worse with latency. The ONLY games that even have as good latency as Doom from the fucking 80s are the devs that have made their own forks of Carmacks engine. The only exception I have ever seen is Diabotical. We still can't match the original FPS in terms of input latency. Shits bad.
He didn't even test latency
finally an optimum video, love your content bro
Thanks for making these videos. I guess this could be the future but it really seems a bit pointless at the moment, specially considering the worse battery life and increased CPU load
It's totally ridiculous and folk are just eating it up it's sad to see, I've been laughing at '4K' polling for a LONG time.
this man doesn't miss good job Mr optimum always so precise and on point without a lot of filler
that was a really fascinating test, I love the method you used. Definitely helped to clear up the confusion I had between the relationship between DPI, monitor refresh rate, and mouse polling rate. Keep it up!
LOL
Seeing this was eye-opening
And people arguing over the internet and being brand victims just really shows now.
Thanks for covering this interesting topic. It really reminds me of harmony and balance of building a PC. It's the same scenario as when people will buy a beefy GPU and think they are all set. They forget that they need to upgrade other components aswell e.g. RAM, CPU, PSU etc.
Otherwise it doesn't make sense. It's just so funny when people buy 4K dongles and play on a 75Hz monitor. I'll send this to everyone now who even tries to be a smart-arse on this department.
100%
There's tonnes of misinformation on the internet. I trust very few people these days. It's all about your own journey and experiences.
@@griffin1366 Agreed
Again, you have RIDICULOUSLY high quality videos man. You NEVER miss. Keep it up, loved the information and graphics in this video.
Does this man NOT build a test setup for everything lol. SO prepared for everything! Love it! Always appreciate the ingenuity and effort put into production of these videos. Thank you!
First of all great video, I love your testing methodology very accurate and significant results, definitely one of the best TH-cam channels about tech. And about polling I still keep my mice at 1000 don't really care to go beyond that especially if it's a wireless mouse, to me battery life has more value than 4k or 2k polling. I got the GPX2 aswell after I got a wheel button issue with my viper ultimate and I got 4 friends who had the same problem with basilisks and deathadders (weirdly happened to all of us in the last couple of months). So i ditched Razer and went for the gpx2 and all the people complain about the missing 4k polling I think it's just placebo when they read the higher number and they just feel glorious PC master race.
This was very helpful!!! I too questioned these things and by the grace of the TH-cam gods, this video comes up! What are the chances!!
In reality, going over 1000 Hz doesn't work well with certain games. I have the DAv3 with the 4k Hz dongle, and some games couldn't register my mouse input at 4k. You know, almost like the game engine wasn't built to get that amount of mouse data. The result was the framerate would tank and you'd have to set it back to 1k again. I'd recommend trying 2k on several different FPS's and see if the game is playable.
💯 i have this issue with razer viper 8k in most of the games i have stutters in 8k mode
@@Skrewdriver11 are you on windows 11? W11 had an update not too long ago that should have fixed it with almost every game. If you are w11, then it might be your cpu or usb port causing issue.
@@HeyNavi yeah, im on w11 and i didnt know that. i bought this mouse like a 6 month ago, tested 8k mode in apex legends, had stutters and played 1k mode after that. i'll try 8k once again, thx for the advice.
@@HeyNavi i dont think that cpu or usb is the problem. I have stable 170+ average fps in apex legends. i read the post on reddit about 8k and a lot of people saying that game engine in some games cant handle 8k polling rate. 8k works good in overwatch and valorant for me. but i didnt know about w11 update, hope it will help.
I tested 1k, 4k, and 8k with multiple games over time. Had issues over 1k with several games too. I have windows 11, so I guess I will have to try again.
Thanks for this. I have been using the razer orochi v2 since it came out and have had 0 issues.... But was getting caught up in the hype around 4k and 8k polling and thought it would be worth an upgrade. After seeing this and due to how acclimated I am to the orochi. I'm just going to stick with it until it gives out on me
All about the shape imo. You will do better on a preferred shape at 1000hz than a less comfortable one at 4000hz.
my orochi gave out so fast :(
honestly the only thing that i wish you tested for is whether or not the higher polling rate reduces overall mouse drift
Mousedrift is only caused to a noticeable amount by you holding the mouse off axis with the sensor.
My take on these marginal gains for FPS is that internet speed/server connection etc etc provide more blockers to performance and translation of input accuracy to gaming outcomes (i.e shooting/cursor accuracy) than polling rates. For example a few pixels of vertical/horizontal stutter or bounce in a gun/fps engagement in on online shooter isn't going to be the defining factor often enough when there's so many other variables - to justify getting too hung up on the difference between 1-2k polling rates and spending more money for such an option.
Sorry in advance for the wall of text lol. Your videos really are great but I don't think enough was tested here on this one, I always thought the same thing that the cursor above 1000 hz doesn't appear different visually if moving it in a line. Showing this test was really cool to see confirm this but the biggest and most important thing about 4000 hz in my experience is the the feel of how much snappier the mouse is, I play super low sens around 80 cm for a 360 so small fast movements are much more noticable. Moving the mice in a straight line isn't going to show how well high polling can handle instant changes in direction, at 4000 hz tracking a fast moving target with erratic movement or just quick target switching in general just feels so much more instant.
In my head it's like wanting to see some car acceleration tests between two cars, but the only test is showing the can both reach the same speed if that makes sense lol.
Not a 4k hz shill though, I feel like most don't need to worry about it still unless it's someone who really wants the focus on pure aiming. There are some issues too, not just battery drain but as of now on Windows 10 doesn't handle high polling rates of 4000hz-8000hz very well, from what I read the extra polling is applied to multiple programs in the backround and causes extra unnecessary CPU usage. I was on CS2 one day trying 4000 hz on my Viper V2 and the Deathadder V3 wired at 8000hz and noticed I get massive fps drop if I move the mouse fast, in lower end games where you have a ton of frames though it's not an issue. Apparently Windows 11 fixes this polling issue though, but I haven't tried it myself. I'm rambling a bit now but at the end of the day the shape still is the one of the most important things so don't waste money on a 4k mouse just because it's 4k, I still go back to my G305 more than anything since I'm more consistent with shape compared to the Viper V2 Pro. But if it's a great shape you like a lot, you can't go wrong getting a 4k version of it. You can drop to 1-2k hz anyways to save battery life if you don't wanna use it much. I'd pay some good money to get a 4k G305 though lmao
I just want to let a comment here cause i love your work and your videos. I found them really useful and that's not the first time that i watch one of your videos to have an answer about things like the video is talking about. So big thanks ! And continue like that !
Bought the Ninjutso Sora 4K as my first higher polling rate mouse and honestly the battery drainage is hella annoying. Have been using 4k and 2k hz and honestly I've never thought "oh wow this is a game changer". Great mouse otherwise though lol. Kinda figured higher polling rates have been a gimmick considering alot of FPS pros still use 1k hz and you know... still dominate
@@3ildcard reddit is filled with clueless rats. All heavy copium to deal with the fact that they bought an expensive mouse marketed with having “the best tech”, meanwhile back at the ranch…
Yeah I got a 4k dongle as well but I just use 1k now. Waste of 20 bucks but I didn't know any better.
It just drains your battery 4x as quickly for 0.25ms of delay instead of 1ms lmao. It's completely useless when you put the raw numbers out and you don't even need testing but I'm glad he did just to prove to those coping on Reddit.
1k is the best . unless ur on 1000k dpi
I still a big believer in the feel of the mouse over everything else. I love my Xtrfy-wireless MZ1, its 1000 pulling rate. I have had 0 issue being competitive. The feel and look of the mouse is great. The only thing I wish it had that it doesn't is some kind of GUI interface that I can turn off and on but at the same time it can respect not putting more bloat software on my computer.
this guy gets it. use a mouse thats good for you. use the settings that are good for you.
all these bad gamers think if they get the perfect DPI settings and the perfect skates and the perfect switches that all of a sudden they wont be bad at gaming anymore. lmao
man you are realy taking these videos and testings to another level compared to other reviewers. keep up the good job, love your videos
7:06 that tracer one clip is fire though
1000hz for mice is like 144hz for monitors, once you have at least that, you should not worry too much
and 240 is like 2k?
@@yeke7055 id say 240hz is 1k polling since i can actually notice a difference between 144hz and 240
disagree, i have 480hz and it makes 144hz look like a slideshow
@@Snxgur I know and I agree, you can see the difference, and I agree with the person above that 1000hz is more comparable to 240hz, 500hz on mice is not bad, so maybe it's more comparable to 144hz, but I meant it in the sense that 144/165hz, just like 1000hz, is very accessible, so everyone should have at least that.
If you look at the actual frametimes for different refresh rates (60hz - 17ms, 165hz - 6ms, 240hz - 4ms, 480hz - 2ms), it's pretty clear that you get severe deminishing returns fast.
@ anything above 1000hz polling rate is schizophrenia psychosis . there’s. no difference
Would be also cool to see if you could tell the difference in the click latency as that also changes with the higher polling rates. If anyone can figure out how to test that meaningfully it is you. Keep up the insane quality videos that we all tune in to watch!
Yeah polling rate will affect click latency also, kinda strange it wasn't covered here. End to end latency it might not make an impact, but clicking a shot at 1k vs 4k, the 4k one will be sent sooner.
@@negation4399 Best case it'll be sent 0.749~ milliseconds sooner, assuming absolutely no other factors. (i.e. you click just a moment after the millisecond mark, which is missed by the 1K sensor until the next millisecond, while the 4K will catch it at the .25 millisecond mark).
Granted, I doubt it could even be visually seen in his setup, considering the display is only 540hz and the slow-motion camera is 240fps, either of which could capture millisecond differences. You can barely see the difference in 1K vs 4K with constant movement (which generates a constant input), so you definitely won't see or feel the difference in a single click (a single input).
If there's any noticed or perceived difference, it's likely somewhere else - The test program stuttering, the OS being queued to process the input in next millisecond instead of immediately, GPU rendering, etc., and we're not even mentioning the multiple milliseconds of network latency.
Amazing job as always. I'm completely fan of technology and I really appreciate your content. As always, amazing job, great transparency, you're putting this to the next level. Thank you !
HOLEE SHEET!! that stick at 5:35 insane!
The issue with playing at higher than 800DPI is that most games don't allow a low enough sensitivity to be set to have the same sensitivity that most pro FPS players use. Which would be anywhere between 30-50cm for 360 degrees in the game.
Keep up the good work!
Rawaccel solves this, I play at 6400dpi with a 0.125x multiplier so 800dpi effective
@@Impecable..not a single top aimer wmuses raw accel, not worthed 1600 dpi good enough
@@Impecable.. I had no idea something like this existed. Do you have any idea if it affects input latency since it's a man in the middle situation?
Also, how sure are we that it doesn't add negative acceleration?
@@Akemic There are still games that don't allow you to go low enough with the sensitivity setting while having 1600DPI. So I and the top aimers need to consider other solutions.
@@Hirens. any current competitive esport can achieve a range of 20cm to around 60cm with 1600 dpi, so idk what you saying
Long time subscriber, rare commenter - just wanted to say great work, thank you and keep it up. The quality of the videos, experimentation, presentation of the data in this space and other items you cover in your channel provide incredible value to the community - helps us see past some of the marketing and the gimmicks companies are touting. Big Thanks!
Battery life and lightweight > rolling rates
I have a razer viper v2 pro based on your testing. As soon as I got it, I noticed a massive difference, way more consistent and accurate
I use 1250 dpi btw.
it’s placebo, there is no human perception noticeable from over 1k polling
Most people will see much more dramatic improvements to their mouse feel by optimizing their systems properly. Sorting out things like bloatware, dpc latency/cpu interrupts, frame timing, gpu and cpu busy time, electro magnetic interference, radio frequency interference, turning off certain power saving features in bios and windows etc etc..
So glad you're back with a mouse review video. It's been a while.
You should also check click response times with 1000, 2000, and 4000hz. Any mouse > 1000hz will require USB high speed which should give up to 750us less input latency, although it may require the full 8000hz high speed offers to get that, unsure.
Turns out Logitech actually knew what they were doing when they stopped at 2k polling rate
Still charging as much as those mouses that have 4k polling rate xd
@@alexanderx784k polling rate doesn’t do doggy shit, gpx 2 is nice shape click feel and coating for most people, that’s why so many people still swear by the gpx 2 even if it isn’t objectively the best mouse on the market for the price (which it isn’t)
Knew what ? They just wanted battery to last longer cause the mouse is wireless, 4khz and 8khz still feel better than 1k or 2k. Buy a razer viper 8khz and feel it out, it's simply a better response time, when you put it back to 2khz after playing with 8khz you will know for sure.
@@StefKRah razer mice are FOR GAMERS, stick to your logitech if you're a casual
@@StefKRah would u need a atleast 240hz monitor to fully utilize 8k hz mouse or anything under 200hz also works well?
Love your scientific approach to these questions, building that rig with the slo-mo camera.
The curser in game is moving way to slow to see a difference.
Even 500hz was practically no different at that speed.
The curser test isn’t just because it’s flat. But because it’s moving way faster.
Same with high refresh, the faster the movement the easier it is to see.
I'd be interested in some more work being done on the high polling rate space. We reach diminishing returns past 1000 Hz, but what if we downsample from 4000 to 1000? Would the mouse input theoretically be more stable if you take an average of the 4x extra data in that 1x time? There's still a bit of potential for high polling rates past 1000 Hz at mid-high DPIs I think, personally.
I think the difference may be noticeable when you changing direction of cursor. Higher mouse refresh rate could register movement earlier. But it will affect at maximum one frame per direction change, and at 540hz it is less then 2 ms. And i think that no human can tell the difference in 2 ms.
Another thing that I didn't hear mentioned in the video is that an increase in polling rate above 1k can heavily strain the CPU and cause noticeable frame drops.
some older games (Minecraft notably, at least the 1.8 version most commonly used for competitive multiplayer) have issues at even 1000, making it better to use 500hz polling rate.
as someone else already mentioned in one of the comments, input processing isn't done by interrupts anymore and cpu overhead is trivial on modern cpus. So unless you play on an old cpu on windows 7, you literally won't have any issues.
@@astre09 exactly. Most modern cpu's can are made to be handling allot more so mice impact is significant.
@@Dailyrider94you mean insignificant?
@@astre09 yes, thanks 😃
Babe wake up optimum just dropped a new tech video
Thanks for doing this testing. I am a casual gamer, and I can easily tell the difference between 500hz and 1000hz. I incorrectly assumed those 8000hz mice would offer a comparable jump in smoothness. I'm glad that's not the case and that I can just stick to my cheap mice :)
I upgraded from the Deathadder elite to the Deathadder v3 wired a few months ago thinking it would improve my gameplay even just by a little (and because I needed a new mouse), but it honestly just felt kind of the same, definitely lighter and a bit smoother and more responsive than the elite but just like mentioned in the video the difference is minuscule and you don't really notice it when playing.
While the mouse is great, at least in my opinion which may be biased because I have been using Deathadder mice since I was 12 and I love the shape and the less weight, I don't think anyone should go and buy a mouse just because it has double the polling rate of their current one.
I have an 8khz Viper Mini SE and 360hz DyAc+ monitor, believe me, there is a noticeable improvement in smoothness, Optimum just didn't set his DPI to 3200. And reactivity / direction changes are a lot smoother.
Your wired sensor is the same as mine, try getting a 360hz with ULMB or a 540hz with ULMB when it comes out as that is superior to DyAc+, and then set yoor DPI to 3200 and hz to 8k and you'll feel buttery smoother than at 1khz. You're welcome. Again, the wired dav3's 8khz is the best sensor by Razer, tied with the overpriced viper mini SE
@@ArceusX300 I have the Acer Predator XB273U which is 360hz and has ULMB 2. I set my polling rate to 8k and 4k at 1600 dpi and at least for me there is not a significant difference when I play. I do notice it being smoother but only when I focus on my crosshair movement.
What really makes me piss myself is........ 8K polling.
Agree to disagree about not being able to notice the difference between 1k and 2k polling. Set a previous gen GPX at 1k polling, 1600 DPI, then the GPX2 to 2k polling 1600 DPI. Swipe around each mouse in-game. The 2k is noticeably smoother.
Placebo
@@AuDiGo6Are you testing with 240+ fps and 240+Hz? You absolutely should be able to tell the difference between 1k and 2k.
yet i can feel no difference and i tested gpro viper and deathv3@@jaydee499
are you still able to tell ? or that felling goes out with time ?
@@Milkamori Load a game with a 4k mouse and a 1k mouse. Wiggle each around. If you really can’t tell the difference then maybe check in at an Emergency Room for signs of a concussion. This video is pseudoscience clickbait.
Ali, ty for your videos, you really one of the best tech bloggers on TH-cam, so interesting every time, which you good luck
What a video, my friend. Congrats!
r/mousereview in shambles
The only thing it does it hertz your wallet
My prevoius mouse had 1000 Hz and i played with 500Hz. Now with my new 8k hz mouse, i use 500 Hz.
400 DPI adn 500Hz is just in my system.
😊
🤣🤣🤣
@@yeeza420yeh, and i only use 125 hz to save the energy. I don't play fps so not really a problem.
@@nguyenquangminh5296 but i do play fps
If u get the redragon superlight it cost 50 bucks for 4k poling
This channel is sooo insane!!!!!
Great video man. Loving the recent content. Super super excited for your upcoming vid on windows / os tweaks. Looking forward to seeing more of your content, much love
One of the best when you are looking for an "HONEST" review in ANY ITEM
One thing to mention that I have noticed when I was testing polling rates was that my fps would drop by alot (around 300 fps give or take on valorant) when swaying or just general movement with 1k polling rate on, whilst on 500hz, it was only 100 or less. I'm not sure what exactly is happening, how much it actually affects your gaming, and if something worse happens at higher polling rate. I know you probably won't feel it since anything above 240 fps just makes it a tiny bit smoother, but its still something to be a little concerned about.
Bullshit back round process like steam webhelper razer synapse etc are what make it lag with all backround apps closed i might drop 20 frames with higher pollimg rates and thats all if that ive never played a game that hasnt been playable cause of it its actually the opposite especially after a pc reset and disk clean and driver clean
@@maximkikena622 I literally have optimized windows 11, and my steam also had all the hardware acceleration off (also optimized), only thing that was open was CS2, or if I'm playing valorant, Riot Client and the game itself. You really think I would leave apps that could possibly deter the data open? You can test it yourself. Go to a practice range or something and move your mouse to multiple directions, You'll notice a heavier fps decrease with 1k polling rate compared to 500hz polling rate.
@@maximkikena622 also, it's background, not back round. Almost had a stroke reading your comment lol
@@sythe9756 phone life but the point is the same
Things like click latency can be much lower at higher polling rates.
yes. dude dont know what he is doing. obv there is difference with higher polling rate.
Yea because you can definitely react and see rhe difference in .01 ms.
Avg human gamer reaction is at 80ms 1000hz is enough.
@@DoflaminguardIts actually around 200+ms according to humanbenchmark site but yeah you can barely notice the click latency
It can be lower, but the difference isn’t enough to justify it. Improving game knowledge and aim is a much bigger step up over 1000 -> 4000 hz. People shouldn’t buy mice just because of pulling rates since clearly 1000hz wasn’t holding anybody back.
You can still feel differences which you can't see. The machine would remove the testing of feel.
thank you for such thorough testing you do on behalf of pc gamers. you are the best
This guy is so cracked at overwatch damn
winton overwat
There is zero difference at slow mouse movements, but there is a visible difference even for the windows cursor at very fast movements. You do not state at which speed the mouse was moved, which is basically the most important parameter in this test from a physics perspective. Figure out the fastest flicks people do (1m/s or a bit more maybe?) and replicate that speed in your machine if you want the most relevant results. Thanks for the great videos!
Am I the weird guy for using a 16 *THOUSAND* DPI 😅
Wtf how low is your sensitivity
@@jermasus in WZ it's 8.00 and in TF2 it's 3.00, apart from that I don't really play any *big-name* FPS games
You answered the question that was itching my brain and saved me some money at the same time. Sticking with my Viper Ultimate CP2077 edition
Crazy good video! You're bringing gaming-tech to the next level. Keep it up!
i know you say you cant feel it but i have a mouse that has 4k hz and when i first tried it, before i even considered 4k hz my tracking felt just a little more "telepathic" and when i turned off 4k to try and save the battery life i definitely felt that go away. could it be placebo? absolutely, but im usually pretty good at not being affected by placebo from the couple bad supplement purchases Ive made 😅
Underrated comment🤣
it’s definitely placebo sadly
my mouse has 8000hz but my cpu is too shit so i cant use it💀
I was surprised by this. I've been using the Razer Viper 8K @ 8000Hz polling rate on a 144Hz monitor, and it feels smoother when I move the mouse quickly, especially in comparison to my Logitech G Pro Wireless @1000Hz polling rate. I expected that the difference would be even more pronounced when paired with a monitor that has a 240Hz to 540Hz refresh rate. It would be interesting to see a wired mouse in any future tests. (however Windows seems to struggle with the 8000Hz rate, causing some stuttering. But when it does work smoothly, even for just a few minutes, the difference in performance is apparent.) Excellent content as always! One of the few channels I click instantly when I see a new video!
Yeah need a 240+ monitor to really notice the difference
is windows holding u back? i mean can u please elaborate.
bruh i hate stuttering
@@d2sptzltz It is probably a combination of windows and CPU, you can see how the cpu works hard just by mouse moment on desktop with 8k polling. With newest widows update and a decent cpu it works quite well today but i use 4k polling atm, (8k) does not work at all with some games. (if you have a old cpu for exapmle a 4790k uses 100 cpu usage with just moving the mouse on desktop.
I think the only time you might notice is on sharp directional changes,
But the reality is that it takes a fair amount of effort for us to change the direction of our hands given the mass that’s on it .
Ants with monitors the difference gets progressively smaller every time you double the refreshrate.
It’s not useless, but it really doesn’t have as much of an affect us most people think
My confusion related to dpi and pulling rate got celared he explains the stuff very good
It has the same concept as rgb lights, it doesn't affect the actual gameplay but it makes you more confident. It's an emotional thing where it boosts your ego
Man, I was actually waiting for this video, just yesterday I was looking for a video like this because I ordered lamzu 4k and I was scouring your page for this video
That was some nice testing. Thanks for the video!
2k 4k and 8k polling rate also puts more load on the CPU which can lower your framerate in games and can egen cause stuttering if your system cant handle it. My old 6700k stuttered past 500 polling rate and when i upgraded to a 10850k the stutter was gone.
Thanks for saving me $30 on Razers 4k dongle.
This is the best down to ground explanation video ever. thank you!
Its not only about smoothness but the time it takes for a mouse to respond to movements from a standstill and thats where higher polling rate comes into play