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Of Mice and Serial Mice...
TheManuel:
Background:
I have a CompUSA Crystal Trackball that will be used in my CP.
It is combination serial and PS/2.
It works great for a budget solution in PS/2 mode.
Problem:
When in serial mode, the movement resolution is obviously reduced and its performance simply sucks. However, the absolutely most convenient alternative for me is to use it in serial mode to free up the PS/2 port for a spinner.
Question:
Is this a trait of all serial mice?
Is this a driver/software issue?
Does anyone know how to make it work well in serial mode?
u_rebelscum:
--- Quote from: TheManuel on May 27, 2003, 06:04:08 pm ---...
Question:
Is this a trait of all serial mice?
Is this a driver/software issue?
Does anyone know how to make it work well in serial mode?
--- End quote ---
For the most part the PS/2 port is faster than the serial port (not including the really fast serials). Since mice usually don't use the really fast serial ports, most of the time the serial port mice has a hardware speed limit under that of PS/2 mice. Also, serial mice have a small, but bigger than PS/2, overhead in windows.
That said, check you serial port driver settings and see if you can increase the speed up to at least 4800-9600 kps (sometimes the default is 1200 kps). The computer's serial I/O chips and the mouse need to be able to handle the higher speed for anything to be seen, though. How to change the settings differers between dos, win95-98, winME, winNT, (and I'm not sure how on win2000 or winXP, so they might be different than the others too).
AlanS17:
What version of Windows are you using??? I'm pretty sure XP lets you manually change your resolution (sample rate) in your mouse drivers.
TheManuel:
Hi Robin.
You may soon want to start charging me for answering all of my qustions. ;D
Thanks for showing up again.
--- Quote ---For the most part the PS/2 port is faster than the serial port (not including the really fast serials). Since mice usually don't use the really fast serial ports, most of the time the serial port mice has a hardware speed limit under that of PS/2 mice. Also, serial mice have a small, but bigger than PS/2, overhead in windows.
--- End quote ---
Considering I have a ghetto PC, it is pretty safe to say I have the crappier type of the serial ports.
--- Quote ---That said, check you serial port driver settings and see if you can increase the speed up to at least 4800-9600 kps (sometimes the default is 1200 kps). The computer's serial I/O chips and the mouse need to be able to handle the higher speed for anything to be seen, though. How to change the settings differers between dos, win95-98, winME, winNT, (and I'm not sure how on win2000 or winXP, so they might be different than the others too).
--- End quote ---
Well, the COM1 setting in my computer (which is the serial port in this case) is set to the maximum of 128000 bits per second. Changing this value to smaller ones, does not seem to have an effect on mouse behavior.
Here are other settings:
Data Bits = 8
Parity = none
Stop Bits = 1
Flow Control = none
By the way, its Windows XP.
Based on this, do you then think it's most likely a hardware limitation?
In that case, I will probably face the same issues with other serial mice.
Also check my answer to Alan's reply.
Thanks.
TheManuel:
--- Quote from: AlanS17 on May 27, 2003, 09:18:44 pm ---What version of Windows are you using??? I'm pretty sure XP lets you manually change your resolution (sample rate) in your mouse drivers.
--- End quote ---
It's Windows XP.
I checked if I could change those settings as you said.
It can be done for the PS/2 mouse but not for the serial.
It looks like I'm out of luck there.
Thanks .