Although in this tutorial we will be talking about mouse latency as a technical parameter, in reality we are referring more to the “lag feeling” that we can often feel and which sometimes doesn’t really have to. see with the latency of the mouse, the hardware itself but other deficiencies that produce such a sensation. Let’s see this in more detail.
What is mouse latency and what causes lagging sensation
The term ‘lag’ is used in PC slang to describe a situation where an unusually long time elapses between when we perform an action and when it is executed, such as when we move the mouse or click with it and this action is reflected on the screen. In empirical terms, it is also the latency, but to understand itself, we explain it with this comparison.
For example, when talking about mouse lag, you might notice that the movement of the pointer or cursor is not in sync with the movements you are physically making, and it can really be very frustrating as your performance in the games would be ruined. We can classify this sensation of lag in mice in five different ways:
- High latency in games– Many users report that their mouse only seems to slow down when playing games, but not on the desktop. If this happens, the problem is probably not with the mouse but with the software.
- Stuttering in mice: This can significantly affect performance, because the effect is that we see how the movement of the pointer jerks, and it is usually caused by the graph.
- The cursor freezes and it does not move: if this happens to you, the fault is probably that the processor does not give more of itself.
- Wireless mouse delay: It may be due to signal interference, but it is easily resolved.
- Mouse input delay: it is the feeling of lag that we explained above, and which increases the latency between the moment when we press a button or perform a movement and it is reflected on the screen.
What to do if you suffer from mouse lag
The first thing to do is to check if the problem is with your mouse or your computer and its software, and you can easily check it by connecting your mouse to another PC and seeing if the same is happening as well as ‘by plugging another mouse into your PC and do the same. If the same thing happens, the mouse is working fine, but if the same thing happens with a different mouse, the problem is with your PC and not with the mouse. Make sure you connect the mice to the same USB port, and if the same happens, try another different USB to see if the problem is 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 search for your mouse (if its name does not appear like in the following screenshot, do it with the “HID compatible mouse”.
Once the device is located, just click on it with the right mouse button and select the option “Update driver”. A wizard will appear that will guide you through the process of finding and installing the driver, for which you must select the first option: Automatically search for drivers. The system will take care of everything else.
Another thing you can do regarding the software is to turn off the “Scroll inactive windows” option in Windows 10. This option allows you to use mouse scrolling in windows that are not the ones you have. selected just by hovering the mouse over it, and oddly enough, it’s a process that puts strain on the processor 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 software
There are specific applications that cause the mouse to lag, for reasons unknown, 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 remove these processes, right-click on an empty space on the start bar and select “Task Manager”. Select the “Processes” tab and look for the processes mentioned above; 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, Microsoft’s assistant Cortana has also been detected to cause higher mouse latency, so it’s worth trying to turn it off if you had it enabled. To do this, left-click on the Cortana button in the taskbar, then select the Settings option (the gear icon). Next, go to the “Talk to Cortana” tab and make sure all the options are turned off.
After that, try again to see if you continue to suffer from high latency in your mouse or if, on the contrary, any of these actions improved its performance.
