Hardware Q's

[Pope]

I gots 2 HW Q's for y'all, for which I did a bit of research but couldn't find adequate information:

- I got a MS Explorer mouse (the first one). It was a great mouse up until the low sensitivity trend kicked in. Now I'm at around 3.5 sens (down from 9+) and when I move the mouse at high speeds across my pad, it b0rks (it basically keeps my UT cursor at around the same position). I remember reading that the MS Explorer 3.0 mouse takes more pictures (or whatever it is that it does) than my version. Does this fix the problem I have?
Relevant specs: MS explorer 1.0 mouse (recently cleaned thoroughly), win98, UT, UT mouse sens 3.5, direct input ON, blue cloth mouse pad

- I'm thinking of connecting one of my PC's to the tv set so that I can watch dvd's and also be able to do simple file management tasks. What will the quality be like? I know that tv's can't draw high res well and that 640x480 will have to be my desktop resolution. But how bout full screen dvd output? Does it depend on my graphics card? Will it be worth it or should I just get a DVD deck and get it over with?
Relevant specs: creative tnt2ultra or voodoo 3 3000.

[Swedix]

Pope, if I remember right, the old version of MS Explorer Optical scanned the surface 2000 times/sec and the new version 6000 times/sec.

There are also a tool that increase the rate on your PS/2 bus, it's called PS2Rate and you can get it here (http://www.voodoofiles.com/4329).
You can increase the rate from standard 40Hz to 200 Hz. This is useless if you use your mouse at your usb-port.

[Loibisch]

Well, I've got the "new" MS IE (3.0)...but since I'm using a very high mouse sens (10 or so, with high mouse acceleration) I cannot really comment on the problem...I've been experienceing no more skips since I got the new model (as opposed to the occasional "looking up into the air and spinning around" with the old 1.0 model).

PS/2Rate won't work, even if you connect your Intelli to the PS/2 port, it just doesn't like it...

The quality on a TV set is only good iwth motion pictures...static screens such as a desktop will appear flickering and in very blurry shape...a 100Hz TV set might work better in terms of flickering, but it will still blur out the text. You will be able to do some simple things as put together a winamp playlists and navigate your HD...but don't plan on writing texts. Also get a well-shielded video cable.

[Peregrine]

I hooked my laptop up to my TV. It was use-able, but not a great picture.


Buy a DVD deck and get it over with. They are pretty cheap now.

Of curse, with D-VHS, they gonna' be outdated soon, too boss. ;)

[Pope]

Yeah, forgot to add that my mouse is on a USB port and that I'm using the MS IntelliPoint software (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouse/download.asp) which has a default sample rate setting @ 100 Hz iirc. Whatever the case, I doubt that the sample rate is the issue here, I think it has to do with the scanning frequency as you said Swed, and those numbers sound about right. I guess it all comes down to whether these extra 4000 scans are enough to fix the UT problem. If Loib could be so kind as to test his mouse on his UT with a lower sensitivity? :D don't want to dish out €53 for nothin' :)

On the other problem, I took my office laptop home last night to try out the dvd on tv thingy since it's got a dvd-rom on it. The quality is, as you all pointed out, sucky for normal desktop graphics (even at 640x480). The dvd video output on the tv set though was, as far as I could tell, near perfect compared to the output on the tft.
So for this problem I guess that it all comes down to graphics cards quality. The laptop graphics card is this S3 Savage thing. I doubt that the quality of my 2 AGP cards will be worse.

[Loibisch]

I've put hte mouse sens on 1 and 3 and moved the mouse around on my ratpadz as well as on my (wooden) desk as fast as I could...I never saw the mouse skipping movements or just standing still.

I cannot guarantee it though, best would be to buy it at a shop that's easy on returns...so you can test it on your machine.

[Pope]

Great Loib!! Good idea about the shop!! Thx a million!! :D :D

[Pope]

I got a MS Wheel Mouse Optical off of a friend to test it and it worked just fine. No 'lost' cursor anymore :D :D. Looks like I'll be getting the MS Explorer 3.0

[Shockwave]

Why not get that Logitech Wheelmouse with *rumble* action? :crosseyed:

[Loibisch]

coz rumbling while enhancing game experience will make it hard to aim when being shot at

functionality >> features