Quote Originally Posted by TurcoLoco
Also, when you decide on a mice, whether optical or not (though I again suggest optical), make sure to test it on various pads. I had different experiences on different types of pads. The ones that have a foam or felt layer on top and soft rubber at the bottom seems to work the best. Another factor is the color, one optical(red) IBM mice worked way better on a black pad where the other one (blue light) performed better on light colored surface/pad.

I do not like keyboards that make too much noise, it should be quiet and smooth and as you mentioned it should have a good response. The newer keyboard will definitely be a lot different (muchier) than the older ones but with a little getting used to you might like it better as I did. I also do not like input devices with lighting around them, it might become distracting and affect your gaming. There are bigger and more important potential bottlenecks in a system than the FPS of the mice such as physical memory, CPU speed, Video Card specs, stability of PSU, HD performance, case cooling, upgrading to an EAX supporting decent sound card instead of the cheesy, inadequate sound card that comes with all mobos, bandwidth (if using it for online gaming as well)...

Bottomline, get whatever that feels right and works for you the best!
Afterall, it is not the tools that will win the game, it is the hacks....ehem, I mean, it is the player himself!
LOL all the haxor's pwn UT face classic, a fun sniper map is ruined!! but wait thats not all!! The ISP ARP's pwn All game traffic; again Game=ruined...

LAN gaming is where it's at now...

I've also had problems with different color LED optical mice on different surfaces.. RED was more sensitive, suppose because they use a CCD chip that's more sensitive to NIR?

When I switched the RED LED in my logitech optical wheel mouse over to a ultra bright BLUE LED, it didn't work as well on smooth surfaces"black desktop" but worked better on the black mouse pad than the RED LED would..

I've since made a 20" by 24" mouse pad out of a sheet of 3/4" foam pad from OSH, wrapped in an old gray Tshirt. Works great with mechanical mice and optical mice regardless of the LED color.

I didn't glue the shirt material down, that way if it gets grimy I can throw the material in the washing machine and bingo bango... I'm also a fan of trackballs and digitizing pads but haven't used either with any games, the optical trackman is very nice!!

A laser mouse will work with pretty much any mouse surface.