Discuss: Logitech MX518 Gaming Mouse

[Rob Williams]

Are you a hardcore gamer that still uses the basic, bland mouse? Are you looking to add improvements to your gameplay, so you don't look like a noob online? Logitech's MX510 Series of mice are great, but they looked to improve it even more, by adding the ability to change the DPI on the fly. How does the MX518 do in our review?

Please feel free to discuss the review here. If you have any further questions on the mouse, you can ask, and I will reply asap.

 

[Will Nave]

Wow that makes my naughty parts tingle!!! Seriously though, I'm actually going to have to look into getting one of these and hopping back onto the FPS scene again. Nice review, even nicer mouse!

 

[Rob Williams]

"Enable Notification"

To update the matter with Enabling Notification:

In order to have this work, you must go into your Control Panel, then Sound and Audio options. Under your sounds, there is an option for 'Logitech SetPoint', and you can then set the sounds, then this feature will work. There are included sounds in your SetPoint directory.

 

[cmoz]

It seems to me that the MX518 just 'borrows' all the innovation from the Razer Diamondback that has been in retail for a long time, it also has on-the-fly sensativity and is 1600 DPI and has a 16 bit datapath.

Do you know how the MX518 mouse reacts to tweaking in terms of mouse sample rate?

 

[Rob Williams]

I haven't tried to tweak the rate in any way. However, the average rate is 124Hz.

Are there any programs you would like me to test this with?

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

 

[cmoz]

Thx for welcome

There is a 'hard' way where you hex-edit the usbport.sys file yourself, explained here by RaZieL who discoverd the 'tweak' (a good read even if you use the tool below): http://www.warleagues.com/viewnews.asp?view=45

but that is not needed anymore as there are tools that do it for you, e.g.:
http://www.tcmagazine.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=543

most mice can run at 250Hz = 4ms or 500Hz = 2ms sample rate and a few can run at 1000Hz=1ms but the latter is not so stable, e.g. on the Diamondback it will run at roughly 750Hz on average and only peek 1000Hz.

You will notice when you boot into Windows again the fact that the sens has dropped but that is because of the increases sample rate and is normal. The mouse will feel a lot more smooth after the tweak and a lot more responsive.

Some systems can't handle the increased sample rate, and you should probably try this with only the mouse in the USB first and then hook other USB hardware in later.

If a system can't handle the increases sample rate, you can just revert to the backed up file. The tool linked to above recommends that you run it in safe mode, probaly because of Windows File Protection.

It will not work on wireless mice they are stuck at the 125Hz no matter what.

This tweaks brings more improvement than most mice manufacturers have added with their differerent mice over the last few years.

 

[Rob Williams]

Cool, great info.

I will give this a shot tomorrow, as it's getting late here. Sounds interesting, can't wait to blow up my mouse or computer!

Will have results for you sometime tomorrow. I'll try 250, 500 and 1000 to see what happens.

 

[japroach]

Nice review except one point:

"lifting the mouse [mx1000] during gameplay, would shift the cursor, and when I set it back down, shift it again."

Basically all mice do this... but I just tested with the mx1000 and its just a tiny tiny shift...

Although I dont see why anyone would lift their mouse while playing (unless they have a tiny mouse pad or something).

 

[sonix666]

Hi Rob,

nice review, but I disagree on the thing you mention about the dpi. One of the best uses for 1600 dpi in my opinion is that you can set your sensitivity ingame 2 times lower compared to the MX510, which results in 2 times more accurate aim at the same speed. Higher dpi is NOT only good for moving in game faster with the same mouse movement.

 

[Rob Williams]

cmoz, sorry I didn't have time to test that tweak today.. what a day Will do it tomorrow unless a bomb falls on my house.
---
japroach, That's wierd. My friend and I both found the same thing. I just found gaming on the MX1000 to take away some control. I've never quite had that with any other mice. Of course, maybe I am not explaining it properly. Have you tried playing a game with that mouse? I do lift the mouse often, else I would hit the wall and start using it off that
---
sonix666, Good points.. I never thought of that. Not sure how well that would work.. hard twisted it around my brain. I will have to give that a shot though.

Welcome to the forums guys, hope you'll stick around

 

[Rob Williams]

Ok, today was a little bit better of a day, hehe. I ran the rate checker, and this is what I came up with:

Is that what you were looking for cmoz? Let me know, and I can tweak around a little more with it. Those readings there are when it was patched to 1000ms.

 

[cmoz]

Yea that was it, before the tweak you would get 125Hz as you mentioned, and after much more. The important thing is not the numbers in it self, it is more how much more smooth and responsive the movement are afterwards.

I think the best setting is 500Hz as most mice don't achive 1000Hz, at 500Hz it is more 'stable' I think.

Also note that increasing the sample rate will also use more CPU time, but I haven't noticed (or checked ).

 

[Rob Williams]

I've been using it for a day at 1000ms and haven't noticed any slowdown or anything. I haven't played any games either though. I will likely play some CS later on tonight and see how more "precise" it is...

Like preciseness will help me not get owned :|