[workaround] Jerky mouse on Linux

[broozar]

This has bugged me for a while now, and since I was unable to find a search result on this board, I figured it must probably be me. However I am running several PCs with different Linux distros, different graphics cards (Intel/AMD/nVidia) and open/closed drivers, and it's somehow all the same for me:

Mouse movement is extremely jerky and skippy. movement is often ignored, and faces which should get highlighted simply aren't. Rotating the camera with any semblance of precision is near impossible. Compare this to Blender on the same machine, where the mouse is butter smooth.

I used to run Wings on Windows for the majority, where those problems don't exist. However I would really love to get this working smoothly on Linux. Any suggestions?

Here's a quick YT recording: https://youtu.be/PlTZwPGRfLs

PS: Recordings was made with latest dev build, but it really does not matter, this has been like this for a long while. I know about the workaround checkboxes in the settings menu, but these only make things worse for me. Also the type of camera movement preset makes no difference, be it alt+drag or middle click.

PPS: same jerkiness on FreeBSD btw.

[micheus]

People using Ubuntu seems to not experience that. Sorry to know your have problems.

In the Preferences dialog you can go to the Misc tab and check some of those Workaround options - all of them try to workaround behaviours like this you are experiencing. The first or if fix this behaviour for my tablet.

I think that mouses with high DPI may cause that too. If you have the option to decrease it you can test this too.

[broozar]

Wow, it is indeed my high DPI mouse. I use SteelSeries 300/Rival on all of my machines, so that is why my issues are consistent across all distros. If I plug in a 5€ travel mouse, I get smooth rotations. In all this time, I never suspected it could be the mouse hardware.

I have tried reducing the DPI of the SteelSeries mouse down to 800/1200, but the issue remains.

The workarounds in the settings menu don't solve the issue for me.

Short of buying another mouse, Is there any way I might solve this besides changing the DPI which did not work? Can I help you test other workarounds?

[micheus]

Would this "linux driver" help you: How to change mouse DPI? (Mouse is SteelSeries Rival 100, which has a DPI of 250 to 4000)

[broozar]

Wow, you have completely solved my issue. Using rivalcfg and setting my polling rate down to 125 gives me butter smooth rotations. Anything higher than 125 will not work. Thank you very much!

[micheus]

Good to know that helped you.

Interesting that it needs to be so low dpi.
My Logitech M215 is supposed to be 1000 dpi and I don't have any problem using it.

[broozar]

My DPIs are still at 800/1200, but my polling rate must indeed be as low as 125.

[micheus]

Oh, OK. Thanks for the feedback.
It was only a guess that now we know it can help to fix this kind of behaviour.

[dgud]

Wow, did not know that, thanks for the info.
I only test linux at work and of course there I have the standard cheap logitech mouse.

[Ravo]

I can confirm I also have had this problem for years and can alleviate it by switching to a cheap mouse with a low polling rate. Unfortunately on Fedora I can't find any sure fire way to adjust the mouse polling rate and test or confirm that it did indeed change, so I can't verify more than that.

Update: I followed a tutorial on arch's wiki about seeing and setting the polling rate on my mouse so I decided to go through a few mice to scrape up some more info. I can see a mouse' polling rate, but I can't change it. Still, it's an opportunity to put some relevant info on this thread so here goes.

• Mouse 1: Ipictek PC257A. Polling Rate: 1000hz. Result: Fails
  
• Mouse 2: Logitech RX250. Polling Rate: 125hz. Result: Pass
  
• Mouse 3: Sanwa Supply Trackball. Polling Rate: 125hz. Result: Pass
  
• Mouse 4: Logitech G303. Polling Rate: 1000hz. Result: Fail
  
• Mouse 5: Kensington Orbit. Polling Rate: 125hz. Result: Pass
  
• Mouse 6: Elecom HUGE. Polling Rate: 1000hz Result: Pass?
  

After going through the mice I had available. All but one with a 1000hz polling rate resulted in Wings being a jittery unresponsive mess. All the mice running at 125hz were smooth as butter. I don't know why a single high polling rate mouse chose to work, but this test wasn't an exact science. Some of these mice have adjustable DPI but this did not seem to have any effect on performance.

Anyway I can more or less confirm that 1000hz mice won't work in Wings3D. Pic relate: 5 out of 6 mice used.