Trackball Autism General

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Other urls found in this thread:

trackballmouse.org/best-trackball-mouse/
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/mouse_polling_rate
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Logitech_Marble_Mouse
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Logitech_M570
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mouse_buttons
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

For someone who never used a trackball and is on a limited budget, what's a good option?

So far my gaming experience with trackball is awesome. Such a great precision and easy maneuvereabilty!

/tag/

you can buy really good entry trackball fingers operated models such as:
- Logitech Trackman Marble
- Kensington Orbit

They are about 20$ to 35$ depending on vendor at the amazon. If you are outside UK or USA price may differ.

This site seems reliable as far as my experience with trackballs tell me:

trackballmouse.org/best-trackball-mouse/

How is Elecom Huge trackball compared to CST or Microsoft Trackball Exproler? Any user here?

Are the trackballs with the ball at the center more precise than thumb trackballs? Playing an FPS with a Logi M570 is pretty hard.

no drivers

I have it, but it's my first trackball so I can't make a comparison.

Linux has drivers and full mapping for the Elecoms.

Well, generally speaking thumb trackballs are less precise in most cases as thumb is limited in it's range of movement and precision. WIth thumb trackball you use gust a thumb. It for sure limits your speed. With finger trackballs you use typically 2-3 up to 4 or even 5 fingers. That increases precision and your input reaction speed as with more fingers you can change directions more rapid - just by moving ball with another finger. Like for example you rolled ball to the max with your middle finger and have to rapidly turn ball in another dorection. How to do that? Just stroke ball with your index finger that is already rised above ball and ready to perform instant stroke. Et voila. It may sound complicated at first as you have to learn to coordinate movements of your fingers but it took me just about 2 weeks to learn controlling ball with all my fingers. If that still lefts you unsure if finger ball have any adventages in speed, precision and coordination just ask yourself is it faster to use WSAD keys with one finger or with at least 3? That's pretty much it IMHO

>no drivers

Under your PlebOS maybe. GNU/Linux supports it out of fhe box.

Do you think it was worth your money?

>inb4 mom bought it for me

No plebs allowed

elaborate - it looks like thisw has no ergonomics. Does it?

It's big enough that there's no ergo issues, I just rest my wrist at the base and my fingers are long enough to reach over it and fondle the ball. Not sure what would necessarily make it unergonomic, as long as you don't jam your wrist in some weird position I think it's about as good as most other trackballs even if it doesn't look like it. The bigass buttons help since you can easily press them from the natural spot your fingers would already be resting from using the ball. If you need to scroll, just reach your index finger up a bit and it's right above the ball. The fact that the front of the thing is just a huge wedge means that it's really comfy to rest your wrist on it, and can move your hand up a bit if you can't reach the scroll wheel, etc.
It's also got ridiculously good bearings and you can replace the ball with standard billiard balls. 'Nuff said.

You CAD with it? Game with it? Or just regular "desktop stuff"?

I have this. No scroll wheel really kills it. There's software solutions, but it feels awful compared to having a physical scroll wheel.

Games and desktop stuff, but obviously the range of games you'd want to play with it would be sorta limited. It's got really low friction so it's surprisingly good for clicking around/highlighting text if I'm coding shit. Never done any CAD stuff with it, so can't give input there.

What software did you use for scrolling?

I has it too, I dont miss scrollwheel at all. You must be really fresh to trakballs if you miss scrollwheel.

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you can get porn from it now

Thanks man I'll give them a try. I do have a bit of a shaky thumb which makes it harder to use.

That's like a creep shot what the fuck google

Use noscript captcha, far less shit, posts every time.
Pic related.

I'm with a laptop that I always use on my couch and it has a shitty touchpad, so yeah... it was definitely worth 45€ since I can't really comfortably use a mouse on my couch

I just figured out how to make captcha acceptable.

Someone was complaining about the prices of the sanwa trackball in the last thread. The model in question has been discontinued which is the reason for the current price spike. Do not buy this trackball anymore, it's not worth the current prices.

Pic shows price I got back in 2014.

does anyone use this? wondering if its good to switch from a mouse with. also considering the smaller model (both Elecom)

I've been considering it. The ability to use it as a standard mouse as well really makes it appealing.

>The ability to use it as a standard mouse
???

No, you can't use it as a standard mouse. It's like every other trackball.

The scrollwheel is shit and they didn't used high quality switches for the extra buttons. Except for this flaws, I feel pretty comfortable with it.
Extra buttons are overrated anyways. I rarely use them at all and most of them are not even bound.

that's a shame, I've gotten really accustomed to logitech's weighted scroll wheel, but this form factor seems a lot more suitable to me. I was also looking at the kensington expert trackball, with the scroll ring, but that form factor seems a bit like it'd be uncomfortable. I guess I could bind pgup/down to fn to replace that scroll wheel though

>I guess I could bind pgup/down to fn to replace that scroll wheel though
The scroll wheel is pretty shitty, but using buttons instead of an actual wheel would be much worse for sure.
I forgot to say right click is bad for gaming, but if you're using a trackball I suppose gaming is not really your thing anyways. Maybe thumb balls are better for it, but I'm not sure since I never tried.

I meant supplement the wheel, but yeah. I read on a couple other places that the huge is actually a top choice if you also game, which is why I was looking at it, not gonna throw out my g502 though

Considering how much of my browsing and navigation is done through the scroll wheel, I should probably try one of these out some time.

looks like its possible to bind one of the fn keys as a modifier to make the ball scroll, you might want to look into it

I've recently had a really hard time using regular mice in FPSs/other stuff. My accuracy has gone to complete shit and I blame my wrists and bad habits with hand movements. I've tried 3 different mice with perfect sensors and I'm still jittery and shaky as fuck, can't even click on things correctly. Would I benefit from trying a trackball?

in FPS probably not. in other stuff, yes.

Thanks, it works. I'll test it for a couple of days to see how comfortable it is, but to be honest I don't have much of an use for the extra button so I might just leave it there anyways.

>high quality switches for the extra buttons
Are they unusable mud or are they merely adequate clickers?

>Not sure what would necessarily make it unergonomic
It has quite a steep incline so it looks like it encourages bending your wrist up. And it"s symmetrical so your hand probably tends to be flat instead of resting in a more natural "handshake" position. (See: microsoft trackball explorer for proper trackball ergonomy)
Still, I haven't used it, so I'm only judging from the pictures and extrapolating my experience with Kensington expert. So I might be wrong.

I'm considering buying pic related, because I prefer wireless. Is it as good, or should I go with the bigger wired one?

>The ability to use it as a standard mouse as well
Are you sure about that? I don't see a mention of it anywhere.

The huge comes in both wired and wireless.

I'm bretty happy with it...perfect for laying and bed and doing autocad/solidworks.

At first I was disappointed with it because it felt cheap and chinsy--but it has proven itself very reliable and responsive after I started using it.

can confirm, the m570 is a legit trackball. i used the logitech trackman for a while but never got over the poor scroll workarounds.

>At first I was disappointed with it because it felt cheap and chinsy
Yeah, this thing is somehow indestructible. I work on manufacturing and drop my trackball all the time, even though I've hot glued a few magnets to the base. I fell on a concrete floor definitely more than 20 times, no cracks, no problems, just insert back everything that fell out. Buttons die after a while though, but you can get these switches from any other mouse.

there was this one user in one of the latest trackball threads whom I discussed trackball accel with, and who claimed to be very successful in playing fast-paced FOSS FPS on linux.

I'm trying to configure my trackball right now to attempt a CS:GO match, so, if you are here: could you spare me a ~1-2h googling session and send me your configs?

forgot pic

Has anyone tried MX Ergo from Logitech? Is it worth the price?

is there a trackball which lets you have a "no friction" mode where you can spin it and it won't stop for a good 30 seconds? kinda like wheels on some mice. i don't really see how i could use this in a constructive way, just think it would be cool to flick that marble and watch it go.

(this is the autism general, right?)

I bought one to replace my Microsoft trackball explore and it's really nice. It did take some getting us to because it is so much wider then any trackball I have ever used so it might not feel great the first few days but I'm enjoying it. The only problem I'm finding with it is that the place you rest your hand is a memory foam like material and it can soak up the sweat and grim from your hand so I have to clean it quite a bit.

Trackballs are awesome for FPSes. Especially when paired with minimum possible sensitivity and highest acceleration. WHy? ZERO jitter. I takes a while to learn navigation in fos with acceleration but benefits are mindblowing - I started to get instant multikills by the ability to do lightingfast instant 180 degree turns.

>what are applications of trackballs with less friction where ball rolls for a while

1. large multiscreen setups - you just spin your ball and pointer travels trough multiple displays with minimum efort on your side. To stop pointer just touch ball to make it stop.

2.I guess that may be also usefull in games where you are controlling some vehicles like spaceships, planes etc. I think it would allow really crazy manoeuvres in 3D space

>with "average friction"

- FPSes - allows really crazy manoeuvres while still having good precision ballance - you may want to set lowest possible sensitivity and set highest acceleration ( for finger trackballs, I have never tested thumb trackball in FPSes )

>application of trackball with ball with low friction

Where you need highest possible precision and can pay the price of losing speed that comes with decreasing inertia.

1. CAD
2. Computer graphic

Bigger = better, as you have more precision. The smaller one is quite small for a trackball; however, the tradeoff is balanced by improved portability, which I assume you might care about if you're specifically looking for wireless, because normal trackball can be pretty big.

>normal trackball can be pretty big.

True, my Logitech Trackman Marble is longer tham my hand. And I have freakin long vampire fingers.

somebody please give me a xorg config for linux. Also, my gayming mouse has 1000ms polling rate, while the trackball doesn't. How to solve that?

My experience with trackball so far

Kensington Expert Pro
+wrist rest
+nicely big trackball
-flimsy scroll ring

Kensington slimblade
+better sensors
+nicely big trackball
-no wrist rest

Elecom Huge
+more ergonomic button placement
+wrist rest
+more extra buttons
+dpi switch
-sideways scroll wheel placement makes middle mouse clicking awkward. I bound it to one of the extra buttons.

First of all what model are you using?
If it's cheap model you may be not able to change polling rate.

There are instructions on Arch wiki how to set polling rates

wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/mouse_polling_rate

How are ball bearing systems in them? I mean how long does ball roll after being push? What's the order form longest to shortest time?

You may also find this interesting:

wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Logitech_Marble_Mouse

wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Logitech_M570

wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mouse_buttons

Thanks for the rundown. Portability isn't that big an issue for me, I just don't like being shackled with wires.

cool

I forget the name of it, it might be 3dmouse or something, but there's an input device that's a spring mounted disc made specifically for 6dof, it's about $100 though

Yes, there are even made 3d trackballs

I got pic related. Also, tried the thing on archwiki, but didn't work.

ask at geekhack, maybe someone succeded in changing polling rate, there are truckloads of trackballs users there with high enough dose of autism to set many things manually in xorg

xorg is not responsible for the USB polling rate, it's up to the kernel. The wiki article linked says exactly this; You need to set a parameter for one of the kernel modules - which is what I did - but with no success. I'll lurk moar, tho

ye, right

anyone got any rare trackballs?

Shortest to fastest :

Expert = huge < slimblade

thx!

>rare trackballs
why? are you collecting them?

I've always used mice. I currently use a g502 for fps genre videogames.
Is there a single reason for me to switch to a trackball, given my use case?

What are some to recommend if I'm not concerned about budget? What kind of attributes should I be looking for while shopping for these?

>not concerned about budget
then buy the 3 or 4 highest-rated ones. as far as I've seen, the highest-quality trackballs are in the $25-$60 range, and user preference is VERY subjective with trackball.

The two biggest features I'd recommend are a button or switch to adjust DPI on the fly and making sure it has the right buttons and scrollwheel. You're going to be using it alongside a normal mouse and you want the same buttons and to not dick with settings to get it working. I recommend a finger trackball, where the ball is on top of the mouse instead of the side. Thumb trackballs sperg out if you can't hold your thumb perfectly still and good luck with any kind of precision.

That was me and I talking about the $60 (~6,000 yen) model that amazon says is the newer model.

Any opinions on pic related? For left hand. Have used Logitech Trackman Marble previously. Lack of a proper scroll wheel annoyed me. Back and mid buttons are needed. Any other good options?

>You're going to be using it alongside a normal mouse
I am? why not use just the trackball?

I've got it, it's great. Only real issue is that the scroll wheel isn't the best. Left click's locked to the bottom left button in TrackballWorks but that may swap if you change the system settings to left handed mouse. The other three are configurable

the scroll ring is notoriously shit in this. I bought one as an upgrade from my orbit and I gave it away as a gift to a non trackball user because the scroll ring was so bad. It is unusable in my opinion. The scrolling is crunchy and rough like there is sand in the scroll ring. It is awful 1/10.

lol track balls