Razer might have just changed gaming mouse settings forever

Razer has just announced two new features coming to some of its top-tier gaming mice that could make it easier for some gamers to optimize their mouse setup to suit their play style. Razer Mouse Rotation and Dynamic Sensitivity are software additions that open up the ability to change how your mouse reacts when you hold your mouse at an angle and how its sensitivity changes depending on your movements.

The two new features are only available currently on the Razer Viper V3 Pro and Razer DeathAdder V3 HyperSpeed – despite the feature seemingly being just a software/firmware addition – and if they prove to be useful they would see Razer’s two most recent flagship gaming mice further cement their positions at the top of our best gaming mouse guide.

Razer Mouse Rotation

The first of these new features is Mouse Rotation, which quite simply allows you to compensate the mouse’s tracking to account for the angle at which you hold your mouse.

Many gamers tend to hold their mouse with a slightly inward slant, for instance, that then would ordinarily require them to move the mouse in a diagonal direction to produce a flat horizontal movement onscreen. With Mouse Rotation you can have the mouse recognize that when you move it sideways while holding it at an angle you actually want the cursor to move sideways.

It’s potentially a great addition for some gamers, though there are three obvious caveats. The first is that many gamers will change their mouse position depending on if they’re gaming or just using the desktop so it could be inconvenient to switch between the two ways of the mouse responding. The second is that you might essentially have to relearn how to move your mouse to not automatically try and compensate yourself for the angle.

The third is a variation on the second in that many gamers may start off holding a mouse pointing at one angle but then during sideways movements the angle of the mouse will change – like how a car’s wiper blade moves in an arc, not a straight line – with the user adjusting their grip to compensate for this.

Having given the feature a go with his Razer Deathadder V3 Hyperspeed – using the settings shown above – our resident mouse reviewer Niall Walsh was “very impressed” by the new setting, finding it fit in with their play style surprisingly quickly.

Razer Dynamic Sensitivity

Don’t call it mouse acceleration… Yes, Razer’s second mouse innovation today is essentially a more refined version of the classic mouse acceleration (actually called Enhance pointer accuracy) setting that you’ve been able to find in Windows for decades, and which we’ve always advised people to turn off to improve their gaming accuracy.

What makes Dynamic Sensitivity different though is that rather than just increasing your mouse’s sensitivity as you move your mouse faster – so you can cover larger distances quicker but retain accuracy for small movements – with few parameters available to control that change, Dynamic Sensitivity provides a range of ways to fine tune the response of your mouse. Also, the Enhance pointer accuracy setting interrupts your movements in other ways that Dynamic Sensitivity doesn’t do.

By default there are three main options, called Classic, Natural, and Jump, plus you can define a Custom response curve. Classic is essentially similar to Windows mouse acceleration but it should provide a more natural/manageable-feeling response than the Windows setting.

Natural has the mouse’s sensitivity rise quite sharply but smoothly at lower movement speeds then plateaus at a ratio of 1:1.5 for input movement versus output movement. Intuitively, this option doesn’t seem like it would be very useful as it would mean your mouse has rapidly changing sensitivity just when you need it to be accurate for smaller mouse movements, but we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve tried it.

As for Jump, this seems like a more obviously useful addition. Here, the mouse retains a 1:1 ratio of input to output sensitivity up until a roughly 10 count/ms movement speed then it accelerates rapidly up to a new 1:1.5 ratio. In theory this would be useful for ensuring that large flick movements respond in an accelerated way while smaller precise movements retain a lower sensitivity. It would almost be like an automatic version of the “sniper” buttons you get on some mice that dynamically reduce you DPI when pressed.

If none of those options suits you, you can also setup a custom curve that could, for instance, offer an even higher increase in sensitivity change or provide a more gradual or stepped change at different rates of movement.

In our tests, Niall reported that they’re “not 100% sure there’s going to be a widely adopted gaming application” for Dynamic Sensitivity, with the step change in sensitivity not feeling as immediately natural as the mouse rotation setting. Much like with Razer’s new Snap Tap keyboard tech, there could perhaps be a learning curve before the new input method starts to feel natural.

We would love to hear your thoughts on both new features too. All you need to do to get them is downloaded the new version of Razer Synapse and install the firmware updates for your mouse. Then head on over to our Facebook or X (formally Twitter) pages to let us know your thoughts.

Otherwise, you can find out why we think two of Razer’s latest mice are among the best you can get by reading our Razer Viper V3 Hyperspeed review and our Razer Deathadder V3 review, both of which offer excellent gaming performance for surprisingly low prices.

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