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ComicMischief

PrBoom+ mouse question [partially solved]

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So, I got back into Doom via ZDoom - because I have a laptop, touchpad for FPS is shite and I was using an XBox360 controller, which ZDoom supports. I bought a mouse (because controllers suck, although I was still able to beat Plutonia2 on UV with it, hahahah) and all is good with the world.

Except for, when I wanted to jump ship to PrBoom+ (something something compatibility something something), the mouse doesn't behave the same at all. It kinda 'smooths' off my motions, which isn't very nice at all. I just can't play with this.

The dumb question alluded to in the topic's title: which setting do I fuck with to get the same stop-turning-on-a-dime kind of mouse control I do with ZDoom?

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Do you have any acceleration set in PrBoom's mouse options? How about in Windows? (The deceptively named "enhance pointer precision" checkbox.) Set it to zero/uncheck it.

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I am curious why still nobody implemented DirectInput for mouse in prboom-plus. That's really strange. Please, do it and send patch to the authors.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

How about in Windows? (The deceptively named "enhance pointer precision" checkbox.) Set it to zero/uncheck it.


This has 'almost-fixed' the problem. I'm still turning a bit much sometimes where I used to be spot-on accurate in ZDoom, even when messing with the sensitivity a bit; but it's better than it was...

entryway said:

I am curious why still nobody implemented DirectInput for mouse in prboom-plus. That's really strange. Please, do it and send patch to the authors.


...is this the reason for what I'm noticing?

Either way, mouse response is better but not ideal. I guess I'll be able to knuckle down and get used to it from here.

Thanks, guys.

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What version of Windows do you have? I still have some acceleration on my vista 64bit computer with pr+, even with "enhance pointer precision" turned off, and it sux.

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I'm running Windows 7. As I said, I guess I can get into PrB+'s mouse-handling now I've turned "fuck pointer precision in the ass" off; just a matter of finishing off the WADs I've got ZDoom savegames with now.

Then I'll jump ship, I guess. ^^;

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Vanilla has mouse acceleration built into it, and I'm guessing PrBoom(+) honors that.

mousex = ev->data2*(mouseSensitivity+5)/10; 
mousey = ev->data3*(mouseSensitivity+5)/10;
I don't have that code on this computer, but I'm guessing there's a value that you can set your mouse sensitivity to that negates it (it's 5 in vanilla).

EDIT:

It's worth saying that we all tend to use the term "acceleration" incorrectly. Consider the following mouse input possibilities:

A: 1 reading, 10 "points" to the right
B: 2 readings, each 5 "points" to the right

Given an acceleration of 2, and a sensitivity of 3, here's what the values end up as:

A: 30 "points" to the right
B: 45 "points" to the right

With no acceleration, the values end up being the same.

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Ladna said:

Vanilla has mouse acceleration built into it, and I'm guessing PrBoom(+) honors that.

mousex = ev->data2*(mouseSensitivity+5)/10; 
mousey = ev->data3*(mouseSensitivity+5)/10;


That sounds more like instant mouse input scaling + biasing, than acceleration. By acceleration, I'd imagine something that accumulates previous values and depends on prior history.

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Yeah that's exactly right, but the way "acceleration" has been thrown around, you never know what people are talking about.

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IIRC, Odamex has a nice mouse system where it can read your settings from ZDaemon/Skulltag/ZDoom config files and figure out how to translate it into something that'll respond the same way in Odamex.

I'd love it if the conversion code was somehow detailed and generalized so that one could convert mouse settings from one port to another. It could be a nice little stand-alone utility.

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Gez said:

I'd love it if the conversion code was somehow detailed and generalized so that one could convert mouse settings from one port to another. It could be a nice little stand-alone utility.

This has been my dream for many years. Because no matter how much I play with the settings, each port still feels different. Someone please make it!

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Gez said:

I'd love it if the conversion code was somehow detailed and generalized so that one could convert mouse settings from one port to another. It could be a nice little stand-alone utility.


Such an utility would be made futile because most of the difference in mouse behavior is at the mouse hardware and OS driver level.

What most built-in OS functions report at the usual level that apps & games use them is the precise final x-y coordinate of the mouse on the screen. To detect relative motion, a simple dx/dy system can be used. At this point, there's no "acceleration" to speak of: at time #0 you read a value, at time #1 you read another, and by subtracting you figure out if you moved up/down or left/right. Doom uses a simple pixel-proportional system: if you keep moving the mouse at a fixed speed, you will get a proportional input (e.g. 1 pixel per frame, 4 pixels per frame etc.) If you accelerate and the tracking tech used supports different speeds, you'll see a proportional acceleration.

Now at the mouse driver level, it's another story. Different mouse technologies & designs support different types of motion detection and may lack a "natural" acceleration: e.g. some are only able to detect directions but not speeds: in that case, you need simulated acceleration, which sux.

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Ladna said:
Vanilla has mouse acceleration built into it, and I'm guessing PrBoom(+) honors that.

Acceleration really can happen in vanilla but it depends on the mouse driver. Most importantly, Windows 98 applies acceleration on Doom when the standard serial mouse driver is in charge, which was commonly used with many ball mice back in DOOM's heyday, and perhaps other included drivers. At one point I used it, but I tend to install a different (Genius Mouse) driver to get rid of it.

On drivers without acceleration, Doom provides a linear speed on turns at any sensitivity, while it's progressively faster with (the driver induced) acceleration. Acceleration allows very precise or slow movement when turning the mouse gently, yet you can flick around quickly, while a lack of acceleration makes it easier to gauge any mouse turn movement.

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Maes said:

Such an utility would be made futile because most of the difference in mouse behavior is at the mouse hardware and OS driver level.

Yeah, sure, it's futile if you play ZDoom on computer A with mouse M and OS U, Eternity on computer B with mouse N and OS V, and PrBoom+ on computer C with mouse O and OS W.

If, however, you have only one computer and one mouse and all your ports on it, then it's not a problem anymore. There might still be an issue of DirectInput vs. RawInput on Windows, but that can still be solved software-side.

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I'd like that to convert my prboom-plus mouse config to Chocolate Doom (both on winXP). No matter how much I screw with choco, I can't get the mouse to feel the same as pr+. But ZDoom, ZDaemon, Odamex, prboom are all fine.

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Such a utility would be very nice to have. Is it just me, or it Eternity's vertical mouse looking disproportional to how many degrees it moves horizontally?

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Gez said:

IIRC, Odamex has a nice mouse system where it can read your settings from ZDaemon/Skulltag/ZDoom config files and figure out how to translate it into something that'll respond the same way in Odamex.

I'd love it if the conversion code was somehow detailed and generalized so that one could convert mouse settings from one port to another. It could be a nice little stand-alone utility.


A little late to the thread, but ask and you shall receive (at least part of your wish):
http://odamex.net/boards/index.php/topic,1549.0.html

I can certainly break things down more than that if you're interested...

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