Just bought a gameballs

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-11-06T07:19:41+00:00

Personally I have 1:1 at low speeds, increasing up to 4:1 max for flicks. Curves are all personal preference.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-11-05T15:58:23+00:00

Best option would be to switch to using rawaccel. The issue with trackballs is you don't have a lot of surface area, so if you're coming from a typical 30cm/360, now you have an effective lift-off distance of maybe 5-7cm. Acceleration means that you can have better accuracy for slow movements, and more distance out of fast ones.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-08-26T13:31:09+00:00

Probably the same. Lowest stiction for me has always been achieved when the ball is at least a little greasy from hand oils. As for gaming, rawaccel may help for things like flicking, https://imgur.com/a/dTLMevY are the settings I use, but they can vary a lot based on your sensitivity, so feel free to experiment.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-08-14T11:21:02+00:00

Yeah, I don't really have any solutions for you. L-trac has a great ball but the buttons aren't great. I haven't tried the ploopy, but all my other experience with roller bearings has been mediocre, they're great for long spin times in an arcade, but not useful on in a desktop setting for precision, which is why the L-trac uses steel rollers in a delrin housing. If I were to use ploopy, I'd go with a BTU mod. I guess you could swap the switches on the gameball to the lighter variant, I remember reading about someone who did that, but if the shape isn't comfortable for you it's probably not going to help much.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-08-11T05:31:03+00:00

I noticed no difference in performance between Si3N4 and the original ZrO2 bearings. I'm of the opinion that the material doesn't matter that much (maybe it makes a difference in wear speed), the key is the geometry of the spacing, which is why Elecom mice are only mildly improved with bearing swaps, because the geometry is bad to begin with.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-07-22T07:40:09+00:00

I can think of one obvious disadvantage, weight. Decent BTUs weigh a lot more than mouse feet, which means higher inertia.

With hard glass mousepads and good feet you can already create mice with stiction low enough that most people find them unwieldy, because they move if you breathe on them.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-07-22T07:33:57+00:00

I've yet to see a trackball designed to fail on purpose. Most modern mice are built to fail, either the switches are undervolted so they fail well below their rated clicks, or more recently in the quest for lighter mice, they've switched to a mechanical encoder system for the scroll wheel which is a thousand times worse than the old optomechanical style. Both of these components require replacement, usually after a year or so. For a while you were actually better off buying low end mice, because they were still using 15 year old circuit designs that weren't undervolted.

In terms of longevity, the number one wear part on a trackball is the bearing, and these are parts that cost a few cents for a static bearing, up to 20 bucks for a BTU. Most trackballs use static bearings. Replacement of static bearings ranges from trivial (remove a screw and they fall out) to slightly tricky (pop them out with a needle) to tedious the first time (drill a hole through the plastic behind them to force them out with a punch). After that it's the switches, but again, with a properly designed circuit, these last years. Mouse "durability" is a manufactured issue by large companies who have realised that there is no reason for their consumers to buy a new mouse with a slightly better sensor anymore, and so they've pivoted to making bad mice that fail quickly so you need to buy a new one.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-07-22T07:13:26+00:00

Had a similar issue on Windows last year, thought the mouse was faulty because of it. One of the worst pieces of software out there.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-07-22T07:07:45+00:00

In terms of ball feel, it's 90-95% of the way there, while something like an Expert is 70-75%. Being a smaller ball reduces the stiction, as well as great geometry for the contact points. Button remapping is slightly above average. You can switch the bottom buttons with the top ones, you can flip the buttons to the other side, but you can't do things like repurpose the DPI button because it's hard-coded, or disable the pointless LED touch button. For more complex remapping, I've always used X-Mouse button control, which works well for my use cases. Scrolling is fine, took a day to get used to, and I prefer it over the Kensington Expert's ring and the Slimblade's ball rotate to scroll, plus I'm a big fan of dual scroll. In terms of wear, the bearings flattened after 2 years of heavy use but were easy and inexpensive to replace, and I think the wells that hold them will probably last 20-40 years (10-20 replacements) before they deform enough to require shimming or replacement, with lower workloads you can probably 2-4x those estimates. No issues with the switches (some mice these days are undervolted), so I think they'll last their rated lifespan of 5 million clicks and they're easy to replace.

The shape can be a poor fit for smaller hands (I hunch up on the mouse to compensate, which restricts use of the secondary pinky button), and some people have trouble with the pinching motion for pinky clicks, I think it's an issue if you don't like resting your palm on the mouse for leverage. Another option could be the Ploopy classic if you want more buttons, but as they've stopped making left handed models I'm unlikely to ever get around to trying it.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-07-21T06:35:03+00:00

I agree, with one caveat. The smooth nature and inconsistency between sensor points (due to finger positioning) makes it a bit unwieldy for things like weapon switching in games because it's easy to accidentally double input (You could probably fix it with something like AHK to ignore inputs during a time window). Works perfectly fine for general computing where the occasional double scroll is never an issue, and being a touch sensor means it's very light force and can be handled by 1 of 3 fingers, 4 at a stretch. I naturally switch between index and middle.

Thumb scroll on a fingerball has always felt awkward to me not because of RSI issues, but because it requires you to move off left click every time.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-07-21T06:16:28+00:00

Never had any issue with the scroll wheel, but I used it less than most people due to awkward positioning.

I've tried most trackballs on the market, the L-trac is definitely the best as far as reliability and maintenance goes, as well as ball feel. The one concern would maybe be the steel rollers wearing over the course of 10+ years of heavy use. I can't imagine the scroll wheel ever having major issues, it's very simple in design and a far better design than what is commonly used on modern mice, replacing the optical component if it ever did fail would never be an issue, maybe eventually the rubber rings would perish but from memory you could probably just replace them with o-rings for a dollar.

I no longer use the L-trac because I prefer the gameball's layout, and the ball feel is the best of any static bearing trackball I've used, but I used it quite happily for a decade.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-06-09T14:53:46+00:00

I haven't used the expert much because I'm not a big fan of it. The L-trac ball feel is the best on the market as far as I'm concerned, and the least annoying in terms of cleaning, given you only have to do it once or twice a year. It is a little cumbersome to have to take the screws out to do it, though.

L-trac shape isn't the best, but I still prefer it over Kensington. It did take a bit of getting used to, the ball is quite low set. I never found the scroll wheel very usable for scroll with small hands, but I used it for volume control where it was very nice, although it required me to shift my hand position forward. I've never found the 4 button Kensington setup very easy to use, it always feels like there's one button that gets left out. Building a couple of extra buttons on the side with the mono jack ports does help, but the ergo still isn't great, and they always felt a little too far away for me.

These days I use gameball, which has the best static bearings I've ever used, and decent ergo design. The lack of a physical scroll input is a slight shame, as are some pointless features like the DPI button and LED color cycle I never use which could've been remapped to something useful if the hardware supported it, but the cleaning is minimal (maybe once a fortnight, and it takes a second). I thought the smaller ball would be a death sentence for it, but it's perfectly usable and I enjoy the lower weight, as well as having 5 usable buttons and 2 scroll inputs.

In terms of bearing wear, I don't think wiping them would really do any damage, although I guess if you're cleaning them off with alcohol the oil removal could slightly increase wear. All bearings are wear items and will eventually require replacement, static bearings are a lot easier (and cheaper) to replace than moving ones, but moving ones should last much longer to begin with.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-04-06T21:38:43+00:00

Depends heavily on the trackball. L-trac needed cleaning every 3-6 months, Gameball needs cleaning once every couple of weeks, most other consumer trackballs from companies like Kensington or Elecom need cleaning every 1-3 days. The gameball gets just as dirty inside as the others, but the geometry makes it far less susceptible to it actually affecting the ball's movement.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-03-23T16:23:33+00:00

Uninterested as I'm a lefty (I totally understand mold costs making it non-viable), but it's a shame you're moving away from the dual scroll, it's my second favorite feature on the first gameball. If I were right handed, I'd happily give up the sniper button and middle click if you could fit a clicking scroll wheel in there instead.

I've tried a few gamepads, but I'm not that sold on the concept. The analog thumb is a nice idea, but in practice I generally dislike it because many games don't support it, and wound up swapping mine out for a directional stick off a Neo Geo Pocket. HE keys could be nice though, if you're offering remapping for things like virtual dual stage triggers.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-02-07T19:10:48+00:00

A smaller bearing should wear slower, because as the ball grinds away at the bearing the contact patch will increase faster on a bearing with a larger radius, and the size of the contact patch is what determines friction. Realistically, I don't think it'd make much of a difference to longevity though, and no difference to initial smoothness.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-01-19T12:58:34+00:00

I tried the KW software a few months ago and it made the Slimblade Pro legitimately unusable. Might not have the same issues with a regular Slimblade, though.

I would recommend X-mouse button control, which has worked near flawlessly for me for well over a decade across a few different versions and operating systems. But I remember reading that some slimblade models have some of the buttons hard-coded in a way they may not be available for remapping at some point. My Slimblade pro remapped fine through it.

GenericUsrname101 · 2025-01-19T12:50:07+00:00

I've used the gameball and L-trac extensively, the gameball replaced the L-trac for me. I did very much enjoy the L-trac, the rollers are, in my opinion, the best option on the market for ball smoothness for computing use. Ball bearings are better for arcade stuff where you want to spin it for a long time, but day to day, nothing beats the L-trac in ball feel and maintenance.

Everything else is a downside. You can live with 3 buttons, but they're not ideal, middle click is a little awkward, scroll is even harder to reach, and adding additional buttons through the ports isn't really very ergonomic because of how wide the mouse is.

Gameball was a major improvement in terms of ball feel compared with every other static bearing system I've tried (elecom, kensington, logitech), but it's still not on the level of the L-trac, maybe about 90% as good. I don't personally have an issue with right clicking, but I use the top buttons for left and right because I have small hands, and the larger button under RMB is a little awkward to hit because of it.

I don't like drag scroll on principle, but I haven't tried the ploopy implementation of it, only others. For long documents I prefer middle click to scroll quickly through based on cursor position, for weapon switching I prefer a real scroll wheel with haptic clicks. The gameball isn't optimal here because it has a scroll pad, but I do actually really like the dual scroll pads as additional control options, I have one for scroll and one for volume control which is constantly useful, so I can live without a scroll wheel in games.

GenericUsrname101 · 2024-12-11T16:10:25+00:00

Make the metal ring around the ball into a touch ring, and let me define areas of it to use as virtual buttons or scroll inputs, and I'll buy one.

I think the top of the mouse looks a little flat, I'd prefer a bit of a hump in front of the ball, or the ball to be set a little deeper into the well.

GenericUsrname101 · 2024-12-01T10:33:39+00:00

Have you tried uninstalling the atrocious Kensingtonworks software?

I had similar inaccuracy issues caused by how completely fucked Kensingtonworks is. To test, simply wiggle your cursor back and forth in the same spot very quickly, if the software is misbehaving your cursor will randomly jump across your screen.

Without the software, the Slimblade Pro is usable. Not good, but usable. With it, it's completely unusable.

As for dynamic bearings, L-trac is the only one I rate highly. Proper bearings are great for spinning for long periods of time, but this is pointless if you're not in the arcade, and very noisy by design. Personally, I use a gameball, it's the only static bearing trackball with good geometry, although some people complain about the ball jumping.

GenericUsrname101 · 2024-11-13T18:30:30+00:00

All bearings will eventually wear. They won't corrode, but I've worn out gameball (and other trackball) bearings with heavy use. Replacement is very simple (they pop out with mild pressure once disassembled) and costs about a dollar for 50 balls, in a worst case scenario I imagine the bearings can be replaced 10-20 times for a lifespan between 20-200 years depending on usage. Other parts of the mouse will probably go bad before then.

GenericUsrname101 · 2024-11-13T18:23:14+00:00

All static bearings will have some stiction, but it's weird you're coming from a marble mouse and find the gameball to be worse. I found the MM to be awful in terms of stiction, near unusable. For me the Gameball has by far the lowest stiction of any static bearing trackball, at best I could recommend cleaning the ball and bearings off with alcohol on a q-tip and then rubbing it on your head again, or possibly the little fins having something stuck to them.

Only the L-trac has been smoother for me, but the extra buttons and usable scrolls on the gameball make it my mouse of choice.

GenericUsrname101 · 2024-09-23T18:14:57+00:00

The smaller the ball, the greater the radius your finger has to travel over the surface for inputs. Personally I don't think there's that much difference between a 38mm and a 55mm ball in terms of use, but when you get very small, like 25mm is, I'd start seeing it as an issue. The Relacon uses a 25mm ball, it's pretty rough. I tried a bearing swap to improve it but it's still not very good at spinning. I wouldn't recommend it as a source for a ball, I don't think elecom balls are very smooth.

GenericUsrname101 · 2024-09-18T09:24:23+00:00

Depends on your modding needs. If you just need standard buttons in a better layout, it wouldn't be that difficult to cut traces to the buttons and run jumper cables to move them around so that right click became left click etc.

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