The mouse is a key component to have a good performance in games, and a good aim and that the mouse responds properly and with a low latency is essential to achieve victory. There are times, however, when users may notice that the mouse works “slow” in the sense that the cursor does not move simultaneously with the mouse movements , a sign that we are not having a good latency, so In this article we are going to tell you what you can do about it.
Although in this tutorial we will talk about mouse latency as a technical parameter, in reality we are referring more to the “feeling of lag” that many times we can experience and that, sometimes, does not really have to do with the latency of the mouse. hardware itself but other impairments that produce such a sensation. Let’s see it in more detail.
What is mouse latency and what causes the feeling of lag
The term “lag” is used in PC slang to describe a situation in which an unusually long time passes between when we perform an action and it is executed, such as we move the mouse or click with it and this action is sees reflected on the screen. In empirical terms this is also latency, but to understand each other we explain it with this simile.
For example, when you talk about mouse lag, you may notice that the movement of the pointer or cursor is not in tune with the movements you make physically, and this can actually be very frustrating because your performance in games would be ruined. We can classify this feeling of lag in the mouse in five different ways:
- High latency in games : Many users report that their mouse only seems to lag while playing games, but not on the desktop. If this happens, the problem is most likely not due to the mouse but to the software.
- Stuttering on the mouse : this can cause a great detriment to performance, since the effect is that we see how the movement of the pointer jerks, and it is generally caused by the graph.
- The cursor freezes and does not move: if this happens to you, most likely the fault is that the processor does not give more of itself.
- Lag in wireless mouse : this may be due to signal interference, but it is easily solvable.
- Input lag in the mouse : this is the feeling of lag that we have explained above, and that increases the latency between when we press a button or make a movement and it is reflected on the screen.
What to do if you suffer from mouse lag
The first thing you should do is check if the problem is with your mouse or with your computer and its software, and you can easily check this by connecting your mouse to another PC and seeing if the same thing happens, as well as plugging a different mouse into your PC. and doing the same. If the same happens then the mouse is fine, but if the same thing happens again with a different mouse, the problem is with your PC and not with the mouse. Make sure to connect the mice to the same USB port, and if the same happens, try a different USB to see if the problem lies with the port.
On the other hand, it is advisable to update the mouse driver, at least the generic driver of the operating system. To do this, right-click on the Start button and select “Device Manager”. In the window that opens, display “Mice and other pointing devices” and look for your mouse (if its proper name does not appear as in the following screenshot, do so with the “HID compatible mouse”.
Once the device is located, simply click on it with the right mouse button and select the “Update driver” option. A wizard will appear that will guide you in the process of searching and installing the driver, for which you must select the first option: Search for drivers automatically. The system will take care of everything else.
One more thing you can do with respect to the software is to deactivate the option of “Scroll inactive windows” of Windows 10. This option allows you to use the mouse scroll in windows that are not the one you have selected simply by hovering the mouse over it, And oddly enough, it is a process that causes stress on the CPU and can cause mouse latency to increase.
To do this, left-click on the Start button and select Settings (the gear icon). Then select Devices and, on the left, Mouse. You will see the option at the bottom.
Beware of the software
There are some specific applications that have been found to cause mouse lag, for unknown reasons, and they all have to do with audio. To test if the problem lies in these, the recommendation is to “kill” the processes:
- Realtek HD Audio Manager.
- NVIDIA High Definition Audio Component.
To kill these processes, right-click on an empty space on the start bar and select “Task Manager.” Select the “Processes” tab and look for the aforementioned processes; right-click on them and select “End task”, or select them with the left button and click on the “End task” button located in the lower right corner of the screen.
Finally, it has also been detected that Cortana, Microsoft‘s assistant, causes higher latency in the mouse, so it is worth trying to disable it if you had it active. To do this, click with the left mouse button on the Cortana button in the task bar and then select the Settings option (the gear icon). Then go to the “Talk to Cortana” tab and make sure all options are disabled.
After that, try again to see if you continue to suffer high latency in your mouse or if, on the contrary, any of these actions have improved its performance.