Mouse without borders seems very laggy

[mholtmanns]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.70.0

Installation method

PowerToys auto-update

Running as admin

No

Area(s) with issue?

Mouse Without Borders

Steps to reproduce

Updated Power Toys on two PCs to the newest version.
Enabled Mouse without borders on both and connected them.
Enabled relative mouse because I have very different multi-monitor setups for each.

And I am seeing very laggy mouse movement on the connected PC when moving the host PC mouse a bit faster.

Both PCs are connected to the same switch.

✔️ Expected Behavior

Very low latency in mouse movements.

❌ Actual Behavior

High latency seen with fast mouse movements, experienced as laggy mouse movements on the connected PC.

Other Software

No response

[crutkas]

Did the original MWB experience the same issue? /needinfo

[mholtmanns]

What do you mean by "Original" MWB? I tried this feature for the first time with the current release.

[erik434]

Markus Hoff-Holtmanns (@mholtmanns) MWB has been around as a standalone program outside of Powertoys for years now. You might give that version a try and see if it has the same problem or not.

[Ev3rdown]

Having a similar problem of "laggy" mouse, I found that in my case it's related to the "Draw mouse cursor" option. It seems that the software isn't capable of "drawing" the mouse fast enough, which leads to this "laggy" render. I say "render", because the mouse actually is always where you want it (if you click), you just can't see it in real-time.
To reproduce, you need to connect MWB to a computer that doesn't have a mouse connected to it (e.g. remove the mouse from a desktop) and then use a high refresh rate mouse (like Logitech g502) from your remote. I specify "high refresh rate" because when using my trackpad I don't have this problem.
I suspect that something like a position buffer fills faster (1000 Hz with a g502) than what the renderer can update on screen (200 Hz maybe ?) and that would also explain why my "slow" trackpad doesn't lag, it's just not filling the buffer fast enough to cause a problem.

Markus Hoff-Holtmanns (@mholtmanns) Do you think this may be your case ? You can test by enabling/disabling "Draw mouse cursor" and leaving a mouse connected to your remote pc if you don't already have one.

Hope it helps

[bastian2001]

I have the same problem:

PC with 3 monitors (60Hz - 144Hz - 60Hz) and a 1kHz mouse (Corsair Harpoon RGB Pro). My laptop has a 60Hz screen.

Controlling my PC from my laptop's trackpad is lightning fast, much faster than 60Hz. A mouse polling rate checker reveals around 150Hz polling rate of my trackpad.

Controlling my laptop from my PC is super sluggish. Afformentioned polling rate checker reveals an update rate of 500Hz. That is 2x from the actual mouse. That roughly corresponds with my experience of the mouse moving roughly for 2x the amount ot time that I actually move the mouse.

[LordManhattan]

Same issue. Super smooth from laptop to desktop, but latency is super high from desktop to laptop. It's not just mouse movement, but also typing (on the desktop keyboard). Both are on 5 GHz WiFi.

[JorrinKievit]

Same issue, not laggy with the original MWB.

[GTGalaxi]

I've had this same issue, also super smooth from laptop to desktop but very laggy from desktop to laptop.

I found that changing the polling rate on my mouse for my desktop from 1000Hz to 250hz fixed the lag. Definitely seems to be unable to transfer the buffer of mouse inputs fast enough on a higher polling rate. I also tried on 500Hz which was better than 1000Hz but still a bit laggy.