My new Razer mouse is too slow even with tracking set to max in macOS

Now that I have been working in IT for a year and a half, and I’m also doing more creative work as part of this job (I’m in this weird situation where I do as much communications as I do information technology helpdesk, writing, graphics work, video tutorials, etc), I’ve noticed I think I am developing RSI.

So I drove down to the corner computer store and picked up a wrist rest for my mechanical keyboard (JP macOS layout from Fujitsu) and a new mouse. I chose the Razer Basilisk X Hyperspeed because it felt the best of the 30 something mice I tried and it was reasonably prices.

On my Linux box, which is my main machine except for Adobe stuff (which is the MacBook Pro 2015 15" I purchased from @jaysee), it didn’t even require any adjustment. I barely need to move to fling the cursor across my 4K screen. It’s definitely going to decrease strain…

Not so on macOS. Even when I turn tracking speed up to full, it’s too slow. I was using magic mice (first gen) and a Microsoft intellimouse from so long ago it has turned completely yellow (but still had a good ergonomic curve), and I never saw any difference between macOS and Linux. But with all the adjustments I need to make in graphics and editing work on macOS, this is going to drive me insane if I don’t find a way to fix it.

Okay, I figured this out, for any future folks:

If you don’t have XCode, get it. Then go to ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist in finder, and open it in x code. Scroll down to where com.apple.mouse.scaling is and change its value to something 5 or above (it is set as 3). I tried 5, 7, and 10. There’s a big jump from 3 to 5, but maybe only small jumps from 5 to 7 or 7 to 10.

I also had an enlarged cursor size which despite my 4K monitor, I decided to shrink, thinking perhaps that had something to do with it… and that also improved the tracking speed. For some reason, having a magnified cursor slows the tracking speed down, even if you adjust it. Maybe as it is an accessibility feature it thinks slowing the tracking will also help someone see the cursor?

Just guessing here though.

It’s still not as smooth as Linux. Shocking that Linux may actually be better at this than one of the two major commercial operating systems.

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