There are two different types of mouse sensors, optical and laser sensors. Now if you are a gamer like me you might want to consider which mouse is best for gaming?
Today, I am going to talk about, which is better, the differences between the two and the advantages each have because there are advantages of both.
Now the only difference between the sensors of the both is that an optical sensor illuminates the surface with LED and a laser mouse obviously uses the laser.
Now the advantage of a laser mouse is that it gets way more detail on the surface and catches even microscopic details, that is why it can pretty much be used on nearly any surface even glass transparent surface.
Whereas an optical mouse has to be used on the opaque surface. A laser mouse is susceptible to sensor acceleration, that means the faster you move the mouse, there is going to be a change in the distance it perceives. So if you move the mouse faster, there might be 5-6% change in the distance of the mouse moves on the screen which is definitely not good for gaming.
It might not be noticeable in the desktop environment, but in the gaming environment when you use muscle memory to aim at someone, you might overshoot or undershoot the person when lining up with them depending on how faster your mouse is moving, this definitely can be a big problem.
Optical sensors don’t do this. Now, of course, if you are in windows sometimes the operating system will introduce acceleration, but the raw input is not going to be accelerated.
If you are using the optical mouse, the mouse surface is really important that is why you want to get a really good mouse pad. I am currently using SteelSeries Qck, it’s a really good mouse pad, it’s pretty much the gold standard. And you should probably avoid a mouse pad which has lots of different colors and stuff in it, you want a uniform just black straight pad.
Now a lot of gaming mouse actually today are coming out with infrared LEDs which is kind of the best of both worlds. Logitech has an LED sensor which is infrared, they can apparently still be used on glass and stuff like that. So with an LED infrared sensor, you can get the benefit of both the type of mouse i.e laser and optical.
Optical vs Laser Mouse – Conclusion
Basically in conclusion, if you are getting a gaming mouse you probably want to get an optical sensor mouse and you can also get an LED infrared mouse, it can give you the advantage of both optical and laser mouse because of the precession that can be used on pretty much any surface and also its got the no acceleration.
No matter what, if you are gaming make sure you turn off the mouse acceleration in your computer. So that is pretty much all, let me know what you guys think, what kind of mouse do you have and do you find it work for gaming? Which mouse you prefer – Laser or Optical mouse?