How To Use The Mouse To The Best Of Your Ability (a.k.a. How To Be A Better 'First Person Shooter') [Text-Only]

[Text-Only - This Post is Text-Only Mode, for now. I may return to this posting and add Screenshots or Images at a later time.]

I was browsing around in the Steam Forums [forii?], where I like to try and answer Technical Questions and give Suggestions about Gameplay and Tips - and I recently answered a query someone had about using the Mouse in Fallout 4 (arguably a 'Shooter' game for the most part) and how it seemed difficult for them to aim in the game (it is possible to utilize an Automated Aiming capability called V.A.T.S., in Fallout 4 - but the game can also be played 'in real time' without it, playing as a First Person Shooter would be played, similar to games like Overwatch, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Battlefield, and more).

So, I answered with a somewhat-lengthy reply, trying to be helpful and informative, letting them know where to do things like change the Settings of the Mouse and the Sensitivity; really trying to show them that there needs to be a 'personalization' of the Mouse Settings, if they wanted to utilize the Mouse, as a gaming tool, to the best of their ability (to "let your ability shine through the Mouse" as it were).

I thought it might be nice to share my answer here too, then - to share with others that may be wondering things like:

"Why am I having so much trouble aiming/killing in <game name>?"

"Why does it seem so hard to kill people <in a Multiplayer game>?"

"How can I improve my gameplay in Multiplayer/Player-Versus-Player?"

...and similar questions.

Thus, here was my reply in the Forum... Perhaps it can be of some use to you:

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If I may pop in, as a 'First Person Shooter' since Wolfenstein 3D (1992), and having won some Local Tournaments in the past (UT99 and Quake III Arena); you really need to find your own personal 'mouse sensitivity'…

(I used to do 180's while running to 'check my six' or headshot the player behind me - which they didn't like of course, heh)

Note that this must be adjusted for every new mouse and potentially every new game. This is the only way to truly have a movement and reaction time/rate in the game that you personally feel comfortable with.

There are a few places you must adjust it:

- in Windows (Settings>Devices>Mouse [for Windows 10])

- in Mouse Software (that disc that comes with the Mouse that everyone ignores, or the manufacturer’s Drivers and associated 'Software Configurator' of some type for the mouse from their website), where you can also Keybind different keys or combinations to your Mouse, if it can do so, and set DPI gradations/steps.

- in the Game (Options or Settings)

Again, I cannot helpfully stress this enough; try to do this for each and every game you play – it is amazing in how it can personalize your comfortable movement/scan/hit rate.

It is really possible to 'hit anything' in a game, if you make your own personalized changes to all of the above.

Some people like to move their mouse a lot, slowing down the movement into smaller gradations for sniping and tight movements.

Some people like to move their mouse very little, using mostly their fingers and hardly turning their wrist (these types usually switch DPI settings as-they-move, for sniping and tighter movements).

Both are arguable for usage and both can utilize the DPI settings/changes possible on modern mice.

You must find your own movement type and movement rate, set by those three locations previously stated.

Once you set the mouse how you like it - whether you switch DPI settings on-the-fly (to make your character scan slower or faster, switching between scoped and non-scoped, for example) or whether you keep one DPI setting and alter how fast you move the mouse – you will find that you can aim/scan/hit a lot better (and also not get tired as fast).

Tip: Don’t forget to turn off any Mouse Acceleration (The kind that moves your mouse pointer farther on the screen if you move the same amount of space on your desk, only faster)… This only adds to the difficulty in scanning/aiming and makes it harder to build up muscle memory for your mouse (such as, "I move my mouse this far, and my view onscreen moves this far").

The only recourse, other than doing the above and taking all of the above steps, is V.A.T.S….(at least, to be totally comfortable and 'reach your full potential' with the Mouse (wow this is starting to sound like an Infomercial, sorry about that haha))

But, try to have fun exploring it – find “You” in your mouse movements – and have fun learning how “You” play!

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Note, Dear Reader, that I am not trying to 'be pompous' or 'brag' here, with this posting... I merely stated my 'qualifications' at the beginning, to show that I learned a lot over time and that I had personally found some effective ways to improve playing, with the Mouse (especially in the past). 

I do not wish to sound like to 'know everything' as well - and indeed can learn more - I just wanted to share what I did learn over time and hope that this might help others out, too. If you are an experienced FPS player ('First Person Shooter gamer'), then you no doubt already know most of these concepts (or have figured them out on your own). 

I should state that I am also nowhere near as good as I once was [being 40 now, alas, age occurs to all..]. Where I once could out-shoot almost anyone, regularly doing 180s-to-instant-headshots (as stated previously), I now regularly get my butt handed to me in games like Overwatch, CS:GO and the Battlefield series of games [although I can still get Top Spot on The Board at times! heh]. 

Still, I wanted to try to help others... and I hope that this posting helps anyone improve their mousing (and killing/winning), if that is what they desire to do. 

I always like helping others and teaching others what I can... "The wiser mind mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind." ~ William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

SYITG

Over 2,000 DOS Games Playable For Free At The Internet Archive (First Impressions, some Screenshots and Controls)

Update: Audio has been improved for many games, kudos go out to the Curators at The Archive
Update: Added a few Helpful Controls for the emulation, at the bottom of the article

For those who don't know, there are now over 2,000 DOS-era games that are playable directly in your browser at The Internet Archive, here:

http://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games/v2

I have been testing out these MS-DOS games for the past while and want to share with you all what I have experienced so far...

Only a smattering of the huge library of games available to play at the archive

Looking at the huge list of games from my past, a tear almost came to my eye, thanks to Jason Scott, curator of the collection at The Internet Archive. He has uploaded close to 2400 games at the time of this post, to the collection at the first link above. Smiling at the possibility of him making a 2400-baud Modem 'inside joke' (even if he didn't mean to), I quickly found some childhood favourites to try.

The 'DOSbox' Loading Screen at the Archive for the browser-based interface to the games

The games appear to run in a DOSbox emulator, running within a Java-based Engine in your browser. Unfortunately, there seems to be some problems with how the games are running [at the time of this writing]. For me, trying over a dozen of these classic games, all of them had sound that was 'garbled', or 'glitchy', with 'echo-ey' clicks and pops, which weren't supposed to be present [weren't present in the originals].

Title Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Wolfenstein 3D)
Click to see 'Full Size'

Although the games looked fine, I started troubleshooting what might be happening with the audio... At first, I tried different browsers. Originally playing them in Google's Chrome, I tried Mozilla's Firefox as well, and then Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In all three browsers, the problem with the audio remained, for me. So, I moved to other troubleshooting steps, changing my audio adapter from the built-in ('on-board') motherboard audio to a more dedicated device (I had a USB Sound Adapter from my Creative Labs Tactic 3D headphones, which I wasn't using at the time, so I plugged that in for a quick test). The problem with the 'static-y'/'glitchy' sound remained. Slash-sigh.

Gameplay screenshot captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Prince of Persia)
Click to see 'Full Size'

Just to test if it was some configuration problem perhaps (after updating Java and other drivers), I tried accessing the site from an older XP machine I have. The sound in games still had 'pops' and 'clicks' [at the archive site]... I lastly tried a couple of games on a friend's PC (which was running Windows 7 64-bit, as my system was) and still experienced the sound problem. All of these games from my childhood - and I can't get any of the sound working properly for them, no matter what I do? But I'm sooo close to gaming nirvana! I felt like I finally arrived at Wally World after travelling across-country all this time, only to get a recorded message of Harold Ramis, delivered from Marty Moose, telling me that the amusement park is closed for two weeks for cleaning and repairs... /ShakesFistAtTheSky

Title Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Total Carnage)
Click to see 'Full Size'

But, all is not lost... Surely there are other people enjoying the games as they are - as I didn't find many people talking online about having sound issue(s) in a rudimentary search online. Just to make sure my machine wasn't completely becoming a sufferer of Dosphobia (an illness I just made up), I tried some DOSbox-run games that I purchased from Good Old Games [now GOG.com]. Thankfully, Theme Hospital ran flawlessly (when run locally)!

Welcome Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Warlords 2)
Click to see 'Full Size'

So, my dear friends, a veritable treasure trove of games exists at The Archive now, and is awaiting to be experienced. Hopefully, you are one of those whom are having no problems at all - and if you are having audio issues as I am ...well just play without sound for now. How? In the upper-right corner of the page, you should see two small text buttons that say "Exit Beta" and "Feedback". Clicking "Exit Beta" will take you to the 'Version One' of the game collection's [Archive] interface. When clicking on a game to play, there should now be a "Mute" button below the area where the game runs. Although the game will run without audio, they still appear to run fine visually [I had no problems on my older dual-core XP machine, running the games themselves, even though the sound problem still existed].

The upper-right corner buttons to use if you are having issues with audio (as I was) or if you are experiencing the mouse not being aligned properly (the mouse being far away from what is shown on the screen). To fix that problem, see the below Tip

If you are having issues with your mouse not lining up properly (not being 'where it should be' on the screen), try disabling the newer Beta interface/page by clicking on the "Exit Beta" button in the upper right corner. You will get a page that should now have buttons below the area where the game runs. Clicking the "Fullscreen" button should allow the game to 'take over your mouse' and align it within the in-game cursor more properly.

Gameplay screenshot captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Dune 2, The Building of a Dynasty)
Click to see 'Full Size'

Since the collection is still in Beta, it is understandable that some problems are present and hopefully these glitches will be fixed in the future - for those that experience them, like me. For now, it is still a fantastic effort by Mr.Scott to make all of these Classic games available at The Internet Archive website. Check them out - and enjoy reliving (or experiencing for the first time) a 'Golden Age' in gaming.

Menu Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Eye of the Beholder 2, The Legend of Darkmoon)
Click to see 'Full Size'

By the way, because the games are being presented in DOSbox (an MS-DOS environment emulator), this also means that DOSbox keys should work within the Stream interaction as well. I haven't tested all of them, but here are some that may be helpful [and I know these work for sure with the Streaming Archive as I have used them myself]:

CTRL+F10 - Release the mouse (if the game has 'captured' it) and also get the game to 'recapture' it
CTRL+F12 - Increase the cycles the game uses [of the server, since that's where it's running].
CTRL+F11 - Decrease the cycles the game uses.

Cycles are how many Instructions that DOSbox will try to emulate each Millisecond. When running DOSbox locally (on your own system), a window in the background will usually display the Cycles setting the game is on, but as this is an online ("remote", client/server) version, that window isn't seen. If a game is seeming sluggish/slow/laggy/etc however, you can still try increasing the Cycles; but be aware that if it goes too high, it can make the game skip/chug and seem laggy as well. It's sort of a balance you'll have to find [I try to increase it if a game is running a little slow, but if the sound starts to cut out or skip, then I pull it back down a bit, and this seems to give a good emulation speed - this is the same process I use when playing purchased DOSbox games locally, on my system].

For ALL the controls available for the DOSbox Emulator, see this page at the Wiki for DOSbox:

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Special_Keys 

(Note: I have not tested all of these over the Streaming playable games from The Archive, some of them may not work the same way [when used through the streaming interface as opposed to using them when running DOSbox locally])

Enjoy and See You In The Games!

[Update: During the period of testing and writing this article, some changes have been made at The Internet Archive's MS-DOS Games Collection. It seems that some games are now automatically 'Muted' (the audio is turned off). They can be 'Unmuted' via a button, but this is encouraging evidence that the curator et al. are listening and responding to Feedback that has been submitted at the site. To quote a new piece of text that now appears at the collection's page: "Thank you for your feedback - we will continue to upgrade/bugfix the emulator going forward". Fantastic, in my opinion] 

[Update 2015-01-17: Going back and testing many of the games that I had first encountered in this article, the audio has been improved (less clicking, stuttering) in all of them so far -  kudos to the Curators at The Archive!]

Diablo II - Getting The Scrollwheel To Work In The Game [FIX]

I was having a lot of fun playing in the 2014 Ladder Season in Diablo2, but ran across a problem where the scroll wheel of the mouse wasn't working in the game. For the skills/spells in D2, I prefer to assign the 'right side' (right mouse button) skills to Function Keys, and then use the scrollwheel to quickly change/choose the skill I want to use at the time. At first, this didn't work in the game at all (it was like it wasn't detecting my mouse's wheel), but I quickly figured out this easy 'fix' to get it working in the game. Here is a short tutorial for it, with screenshots for each step:

Simply right-click the Shortcut for DiabloII on the desktop/background and choose Properties. 

(Click to see Full Size)

Then, just place checkmarks in the Checkboxes for (1) "Run this program in compatibility mode" under the Compatibility Mode category, and (2) "Run this program as an administrator" under the Privilege Level area, and click OK (there is no need to adjust what compatibility mode to use (what Service Pack version, etc.)).

(Click to see Full Size)

Then, in the game, hit Escape and choose to go into the Options Menu.

(Click to see Full Size)

In the Options area, go into the Configure Controls section.

(Click to see Full Size)

You should now find you can scroll this list up and down, if the game has properly detected your mouse/wheel. Go down to the "Select Previous/Next Skill" functions and you can now assign 'Mouse Wheel Up' and 'Mouse Wheel Down' to whichever direction you prefer to select your skills (click on one of the Key/Button categories in line with Select Previous/Next Skill, and then use the mouse wheel, spinning it up or down).

(Click to see Full Size)

That's it! Now you can use your mouse's scrollwheel to quickly choose the skill you want your character to use. 

[Although I was utilizing Windows7 at the time here, 
I have recently tested it in Windows 8.1 and it worked there as well] 

I hope that gets it working for you - and See You In The Game!