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How can I measure the polling rate of my USB mouse on OS X (10.7.5)?

I am looking for something like this, but for OSX.

"...a lightweight program that can tell you how often the position of your mouse is sent to the other applications. This parameter is quite important when you are using tools or games with high frame rates..."

Basically, windows has a WM_MOUSEMOVE event that signifies that the system has detected cursor movement and the program displays that to the end user. Would a similar program on Mac tell me similar data?

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  • Often it's best to link to what you googled and how it didn't answer your question. That helps others know if they have similar problems and also helps us from suggesting something you already tried. See help center for more info.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 12:43
  • Can you bit more specific.
    – Ruskes
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 12:43
  • Edited the question with an example.
    – TylerAndFriends
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 13:15
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    @TylerAndFriends Awesome - that helps immensely. I tried to put some more detail in - let's see what people come up with for an answer now.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 13:37

3 Answers 3

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You can use Mouse Rate which is written in java and therefore runs on OS X, Windows and Linux .

Mouse Rate

The source is on github.

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I work with "TylerAndFriends". We know that the average mouse is polled every 8-10ms, but you can buy "gaming" mice that are supposed to be polled more often (1-2ms). If you plug in one of these better mice, is there a way on OS X to check the actual polling rate of the mouse?

For example, I know you can do this on a PC by running the freeware program mouserate.exe by Oliver Tscherwitschke, http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/Mouse-Rate-Checker.shtml

Is there an equivalent or simple way to check the rate at which your USB device (i.e. mouse) is being polled besides assuming that the device is doing what it's supposed to be doing?

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    This is not an answer.
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 13:53
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    Welcome to Ask Different! This would make a much better edit to the main question. Normally we delete non-answers, but let's leave this around for 24 hours to see what we can get for an answer. If you want to delete it sooner and incorporate the details here into the question - that would be ideal.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 13:59
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    @BartArondson You are correct, however let's let things slide for a few hours until jsalmon and tyler get used to edit tools and process. There's a great question here, and it's not clear to me there even is one set polling interval. The mouse itself has a poll interval. It marshals that data and tries to send it over USB (where it's subject to the USB controller and other traffic pre-empting it) and finally there's the layers of software between the human interface drivers and any app that registers for and gets mouse events. This isn't a simple question and more details will help us all...
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 14:02
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There is a OS X shareware App that can modify pooling rates for USB devices: http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/Devices.html

Supported devices:

The USB Overdrive works with any compliant input device so there's really no way to list them all. In general, the USB Overdrive should work with the following kinds of devices:

  • Mouse, Trackball, Trackpad and other pointing devices
  • Gamepad, Joystick, Racing Wheel and other gaming devices
  • External keyboards (built-in MacBook keyboards are not supported)
  • Many multimedia controllers
  • Many generic devices with compliant buttons and controls
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