Today I had an interesting conversation with a gamer. Among other things we talked about mice and their use in games.

For a gamer the mouse may be the most important and most sensitive tool, because in most games nearly everything is done with the mouse. Gamers often use special mice from companies like Razer or, for example, Microsoft's fine Habu™ Laser Gaming Mouse, which is actually also powered by Razer, or their equivalents made by other large mouse manufacturers like Logitech.

Apart from many interesting details like extra mouse buttons or which type of scroll wheel is best to change weapons quickly and precisely, we also talked about a very mundane function, the movement of the mouse pointer. What he told me was, switch off your mouse pointer acceleration.

The reasoning behind this is that you cannot control the mouse pointer both quickly and precisely when you have some software in the computer that keeps changing the mouse pointer speed, depending in some intractable way on your mouse movement speed. He said, if you use an accelerated mouse pointer in an ego shooter game, you've already lost.

The counter-argument is that, of course, the human mind tries to learn the dependency and compensate for it, so if you trained a lot and always with exactly the same acceleration, you should be able to work through it just fine, but think of this: every time your movement is just slightly different, the outcome is, again, unpredictable.

If, however, you switch off the mouse pointer acceleration, which most mouse drivers allow you to do, then you have a linear and predictable relation between mouse position and mouse pointer position that is absolutely independent of the speed with which you move the mouse.

So here is my recommendation, whether you're a gamer or not. Call up your mouse driver, usually through the Control Panel, find the mouse pointer settings, and disable acceleration. In some drivers you may have to click on [Apply] or [OK], while others activate your changed setting instantly.

With most drivers your mouse pointer will become very slow, so speed it up a little, but not too much. Most newcomers have the speed setting at its default, because they've never found it, while somewhat advanced users tend to speed it up far too much, which is far from optimal. Ask the gamers, particularly those who win. They should know what's best, and interestingly, many of them slow down the mouse pointer again quite a bit to trade speed for precision.

Here's your do-it-yourself speed test after switching off the acceleration (it holds for right handers; left handers, please mirror the instructions). Move the mouse pointer to the left edge of your screen. Put the fingernail of your left index finger down on the table, touching the left edge of your mouse.

Now move the mouse pointer over close to the right edge of the screen, but not touching, and measure the distance from your left fingernail to the mouse. Even a distance of 10 cm, 4 inches, is fine. (When the mouse pointer touches the edge of the screen, its relation to the mouse position is shifted, as the mouse can move on, but the pointer cannot, so avoid that for the measurement.)

For good measure, now move the mouse back to your left fingernail, but this time very slowly to avoid any acceleration. If your mouse driver really works without acceleration, the mouse pointer should be near the left edge of the screen again. If it ends up far to the right of that, your mouse is still accelerated.

Now you need a few days to get used to your new mouse behavior, as your brain is still trying to compensate for the erstwhile acceleration. Be patient. After you've used your mouse like that for a considerable amount of time, make your final judgment. Is it better for you? If not, going back is easy. But if it is, be grateful for this hint.

And please let us know your final result in the poll, but please vote only after you've tested thoroughly and have come to a final conclusion.