As there is no way to accurately measure motion delay absolutely, it can only be done by comparison with a control subject that has been determined to have the lowest possible motion delay. The goal here is to have as little smoothing as possible. The main thing I'll be looking for in this test is sensor smoothing, which describes an averaging of motion data across several capture frames in order to reduce jitter at higher CPI values, increasing motion delay along with it. Any further sources of input delay will not be recorded in this test.

Motion Delay'Motion delay' encompasses all kinds of sensor lag. In order to account for the measured deviation, adjusted steps of 400, 800, 1500, and 3000 CPI have been used for testing. As you can see, deviation is massive across the board and exclusively positive. I've restricted my testing to the four most common CPI steps, which are 400, 800, 1600, and 3200. However, please keep in mind that said variance will still vary from unit to unit, so your mileage may vary. In this test, I'm determining whether this is the case or not. It is impossible to always achieve a perfect match, but ideally, nominal and actual CPI should differ as little as possible. There are several factors (firmware, mounting height of the sensor not meeting specifications, mouse feet thickness, mousing surface, among others) which may contribute to nominal CPI not matching actual CPI. As such, results obtained on earlier firmware versions may differ from those presented hereafter.ĬPI Accuracy'CPI' (short for counts per inch) describes the number of counts registered by the mouse if it is moved exactly an inch. Out of the box, five pre-defined CPI steps are available: 400, 800, 1200, 1600, and 2000.Īll testing was done on the latest firmware. According to specifications, the TrueMove Air is capable of up to 18,000 CPI, as well as a maximum tracking speed of 400 IPS, which equals 10.16 m/s. Sensor and PerformanceThe SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless is equipped with the TrueMove Air sensor, which I believe to be based on the PixArt PAW3335 (custom SROM).

Rival 3 wireless review