[section_title title=”Synthetic Tests”]Synthetic Sensor TestingÂ
This section is an evolving endeavour to improve the objectivity of mouse reviews here at Play3r, it shouldn’t necessarily be used to compare mice apples to apples but it should help us get a better feel for the quality of sensor implementation. The programs being used here are homebrew, so these results should always be taken with a pinch of salt but I think it is essential to supplement the subjective content of my reviews with some (slightly) more scientific testing.
All my testing is done on an OcUK Mega Mat XXLÂ
Enotus Mouse Test v 0.1.4
Enotus mouse test can give us a few bits of sensor information such as DPI and polling rate. The methodology used in this benchmark is to always run it at the maximum DPI the mouse supports and also at 1000Hz.
Starting with Enotus as ever, we can see first of all that the tracking speed is very reasonable for an optical sensor at an indicated 3.13 m/s or 120 (ish) inches per second which is really a very decent speed for type of mouse it is and is bang on the 120 inches per second that Logitech claim.
The G302 did well in the acceleration test too, with no acceleration that I could measure at all. Finally we have the smoothness measurement which is rated as ‘ok’, this could be due to the lowish frame rate of the sensor, but I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in matters that technical!
It’s a strong showing here though, proving that the AM010 is a perfectly capable little sensor.
Mouse Movement Recorder
This benchmark gives us a direct feed of sensor reading versus pointer movement and it also gives us an approximate polling rate. This benchmark is done on an open and run basis at 1000Hz.
The polling rate is very stable for an optical sensor with no variances that raised any concern from me and we also have no pointer movement errors so the G302 gets the all clear in this test.
Paint jitter testing
This test is a bit less scientific, but drawing lines in paint gives a good visual representation of any jitter present. The methodology here is to perform the test at 1600 DPI, 3200 DPI, and finally the maximum DPI of the particular mouse which gives us means to keep results more consistent between optical and laser sensors. All tests are run at 1000Hz.
1600 DPI
3200 DPI
4000 DPI
The G302 looks good jitter wise in the 1600 and 3200 DPI tests, but the extra 800 DPI of the 4000 DPI test seemed to make a noticeable difference with visible jitter present. In fairness the mouse is so light that moving it accurately at low speeds is a challenge unto itself which is likely a contributing factor to the jitter seen here so I’m not too concerned by it.
On the next page I’ll talk about my real world experience with the mouse.
