mouse virgin buys G500 - help!

The background….
Until a few weeks ago I used the mouse I have always used, one of those with a little ball inside that collects gunk and 2 buttons, then my daughter moved out and I inherited her mouse, I was terribly suspicious as it had no ball but I was soon converted as it worked so much better. Then my husband told me the mouse was not ours and took it away replacing it with the old desktop hoover mouse. I was a little annoyed, so when I logged in to GW and told my friends my woes and someone said get a Logitech 500, I just went into amazon and bought one

The question…….
Now I have to justify spending money on this mouse but Hmm, I have no idea what the very small manual is talking about. My question to anyone who uses this mouse is how do you use it? Why would I want an ‘onboard memory’ , what is a DPI setting or USB support rate? What does it mean when it says I can store keyboard macros on the mouse?

Thanks in advance for any info, please remember that if you use technical terms I will not understand. Oh and it is entirely unnecessary to tell me that this or that mouse is better.

First of all, there is probably a .pdf of a more extensive manual on the CD that came with the mouse. If not, there' should be one on Logitech's site.

Some of the features on that mouse, you might never use - such as the macro thing, for example. I don't have that specific mouse so I can't help with some of the features.

But I can say that the DPI (Dots Per Inch) setting may be useful to you, depending upon what sort of stuff you do with it. The DPI setting basically affects the "speed" of the mouse - that is, how far the mouse cursor moves relative to how far you physically move the mouse. You basically set up the DPI (usually to a mid-range setting) and adjust the sensitivity in Window's Control Panel so that the cursor behaves the way you want on the Desktop.
Then, when playing a game, you can switch the mouse to a faster DPI setting to, for example, turn faster or with less wrist movement, or slow it down to take more precise sniper shots - and you can switch it "on the fly".
In apps, you can, for example, slow the mouse down to do more precise work in Paint Shop or Photoshop, on the fly, without using the control panel.

For the keyboard macro thing - there should be software with the mouse, that would allow you to record a series of keystrokes and assign them to a button on the mouse. Then, when you click that button, the entire series of keystrokes is performed.

You shoulda bought some other mouse.

The G500 is a very nice mouse, probably overkill for you, but nice nonetheless. In GW you should be able to set the two side buttons to whatever skill you want F11 Options Menu ingame. For Example I have the back button auto target the nearest enemy and the front button target the closest drop/loot. In Windows I have the same two buttons set as back and forward in my web browser, which is amazing once you get used to it. Now the double button a little in front and above the one I just mentioned is for adjusting DPI, which basically means "How fast do I want my mouse to move" - if you have been using a trackball (shudders) mouse then you will be amazed at how fast this thing is, even at a lower DPI setting and you may want to put more weights in it. The little button behind the scroll wheel is for changing the scroll wheel from single click to faster. It's a pretty sophisticated mouse, but take your time and get used to it and you will like it.

ps don't worry about macros or onboard memory at this point... you don't need them for GW anyway.

If you install the Logitech drivers, you can remap buttons of the mouse.

The rest is not that useful. I've remapped my DPI settings button to other things, and it's always set to max.

I don't find the freewheel that useful either. I just never touch the button. I never bother with macros, user profiles, and all that jive (the G500 as profiles? ). I don't use the weights either, I like it light.

The rest, you shouldn't need to worry about. Set the mouse sensitivity to what's best (it's gonna be pretty sensitive), the acceleration, bind the buttons to whatever you prefer, and you should be good to go. It's pretty much plug and play.

If you want a simpler mouse, you have the MX518, which is very similar, a tad heavier, and without the gimmicks.

Thanks everyone, there is plenty of useful info to stop me panicking and get me started working it out.


I will have a better look, However even if I find it, going by the mini manual I have I will have difficulty understanding it. Luckily I think I have everything I need in this thread.

Thanks Quaker that was all very helpful and pitched just right

I should have just cleaned that little ball!


Sounds cool – I will try that today

Yeah, I was all over the place in FA yesterday , I guess I will get used to it.

I would be interested to hear what settings ppl use for GW.

Ew! Ball mice are so last century. Some people actually prefer the dynamics of a (working) ball mouse, but for most of us there's no going back.

Btw, you'll find that going back and forward in a browser, with the thumb buttons, is the default condition in windows.

In XP, or just Vista & 7? I used to have a MX518 (wife has now) and in XP I had to set it that way with the included software, but my new mouse, a CoolerMaster Storm Sentinel (big as a real life rat btw) was all set up out of the box (Windows 7).... of course it has been a few years now and I may be misremembering about the MX518 in XP.

Um, I think it may depend upon whether or not you install the mouse software. After having many problems and conflicts with a driver a few years back, I don't install any mouse driver or app unless I specifically need/want it. At the moment I'm using a G9 mouse (and W7) and all I did was plug it in.

Oh yes, Its not yet natural for me to use the thumb buttons but I tried it and you are right

Elder....why does your wife have the old mouse and you have the rat?

Well, she wanted a new mouse (er actually I told here the old one was junk for gaming and I was getting her a new one) so I got a new gaming mouse at a very discounted price due to a combo purchase I was making on some other hardware. She liked my old mouse allot and the new one was too big for her, so I gave her mine and kept the new one. Plus the new one has different lights that I have set to match the leds on my case, so that was a bonus for me.

*yes I am a geek*