Sensor and Performance

The AQIRYS T.G.A. is equipped with the PixArt PAW3370. According to specifications, the 3370 is capable of up to 19,000 CPI, as well as a maximum tracking speed of 400 IPS, which equals 10.16 m/s. Out of the box, six pre-defined CPI steps are available: 400, 800, 1600, 2400, 3200, and 6400.

CPI Accuracy

"CPI" (short for counts per inch) describes the number of counts registered by the mouse if it is moved exactly an inch. 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. It is impossible to always achieve a perfect match, but ideally, nominal and actual CPI should differ as little as possible. In this test, I'm determining whether this is the case or not. However, please keep in mind that said variance will still differ from unit to unit, so your mileage may vary.


I've restricted my testing to the four most common CPI steps, which are 400, 800, 1600, and 3200. As you can see, deviation is consistently positive and fairly low, which is a good result overall. In order to account for the measured deviation, adjusted steps of 400, 800, 1550, and 3100 CPI have been used for testing, which resulted in mostly near-perfect accuracy.

Motion Delay

"Motion delay" encompasses all kinds of sensor lag. Any further sources of input delay will not be recorded in this test. 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. The goal here is to have as little smoothing as possible. 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. In this case, the control subject is a G403, whose 3366 has no visible smoothing across the entire CPI range. Note that the G403 is moved first and thus receives a slight head start.

Wired testing

First, I'm looking at two xCounts plots—generated at 1600 and 19,000 CPI—to quickly gauge whether there is any smoothing, which would be indicated by any visible "kinks." As you can see, no such kinks can be observed at 1600 CPI. This continues to be the case at 19,000 CPI, which is due to smoothing being disabled by default on the T.G.A.


In order to determine motion delay, I'm looking at xSum plots generated at 1600, 19,000, and 19,000 CPI with ripple control enabled. The line further to the left denotes the sensor with less motion delay. There is no motion delay differential at both 1600 and 19,000 CPI, as smoothing (ripple control) is disabled by default. By enabling ripple control, smoothing is introduced, resulting in a motion delay differential of 2 ms at 19,000 CPI.

Wireless testing

Wireless tracking is quite curious on the T.G.A. For the vast majority of time, tracking will look like shown above. However, immediately after turning the mouse on or after changing CPI, polling-related outliers can be observed, which slowly disappear over time as shown below:


Curiously, this behavior cannot be reproduced consistently all the time, and at times, outliers creep in even after things have stabilized.


Once again, 1600, 19,000, and 19,000 CPI with ripple control enabled are tested. Keeping the motion delay in wired mode established above in mind, I can measure an isolated wireless motion delay of 1 ms at most. Ripple control behaves the same way as it did in wired mode.

Speed-related Accuracy Variance (SRAV)

What people typically mean when they talk about "acceleration" is speed-related accuracy variance (or SRAV for short). It's not about the mouse having a set amount of inherent positive or negative acceleration, but about the cursor not traveling the same distance if the mouse is moved the same physical distance at different speeds. The easiest way to test this is by comparison with a control subject that is known to have very low SRAV, which in this case is the G403. As you can see from the plot, no displacement between the two cursor paths can be observed, which confirms that SRAV is very low.

Perfect Control Speed

Perfect Control Speed (or PCS for short) is the maximum speed up to which the mouse and its sensor can be moved without the sensor malfunctioning in any way. I've only managed to hit a measly 5 m/s, which is within the proclaimed PCS range and shows no sign of the sensor malfunctioning.

Polling Rate Stability

Considering the T.G.A. is usable as a wired mouse as well, I'll be testing polling rate stability for both wired and wireless use.

Wired testing


All of the four available polling rates (125/250/500/1000 Hz) look nice and stable. Polling stability is unaffected by any RGB lighting effect.

Wireless testing
For wired mice, polling rate stability merely concerns the wired connection between the mouse (SPI communication) and USB. For wireless mice, another device that needs to be kept in sync between the first two is added to the mix: the wireless dongle/wireless receiver. I'm unable to measure all stages of the entire end-to-end signal chain individually, so testing polling-rate stability at the endpoint (the USB) has to suffice here.


First, I'm testing whether SPI, wireless, and USB communication are synchronized. Any of these being out of sync would be indicated by at least one 2 ms report, which would be the result of any desynchronization drift accumulated over time. I'm unable to detect any periodic off-period polls that would be indicative of a desynchronization drift.



Second, I'm testing the general polling-rate stability of the individual polling rates in wireless mode. Running the T.G.A at a lower polling rate can have the benefit of extending battery life. There are three distinct phenomenons that need to be kept apart. The first one is general polling instability observed at 125, 250, and 500 Hz. The second one is increased instability that happens right after changing polling rate, but gradually goes away similarly to the outliers observed in wireless operation at 1000 Hz above:


The third one concerns general polling instability when using one of three specific lighting effects at 1000 Hz. While 1000 Hz is generally perfectly stable, the Neon, Scrolling, and Colorful Breathing lighting effects introduce severe polling instability:


In short, there are only four scenarios in which the T.G.A. does not display any polling instability in wireless operation: No lighting, Steady, Breathing, and Streaming at 1000 Hz each. That said, if the option that disables illumination upon moving the mouse is enabled, one can use any lighting effect with stable polling when moving the mouse.

Paint Test

This test is used to indicate any potential issues with angle snapping (non-native straightening of linear motion) and jitter, along with any sensor lens rattle. As you can see, no issues with angle snapping can be observed. No jitter is visible at 1600 CPI. 19,000 CPI shows major jitter, which is due to the lack of smoothing. Upon enabling smoothing, jitter is visibly lessened. Lastly, there is no sensor lens movement.

Lift-off Distance

The T.G.A. offers two pre-defined LOD levels. At the "1 mm" setting, the sensor does not track at a height of 1 DVD (<1.2 mm). Using the "2 mm" setting, the sensor does track at a height of 1 DVD (1.2 mm<x<2.4 mm, with x being LOD height), but not at a height of 2 DVDs. Keep in mind that LOD may vary slightly depending on the mousing surface (pad) it is being used on.

Click Latency

Since mechanical switches are being used for the buttons in most computer mice, debouncing is required in order to avoid unintended double clicks. Debouncing typically adds a delay (along with any potential processing delay), which shall be referred to as click latency. As there is no way to measure said delay directly, it has to be done by comparing it to a control subject, which in this case is the Logitech G203. Using a debounce time of 0 or 1 ms, click latency has been measured to be roughly +1.3 ms when compared to the SteelSeries Ikari, which is considered as the baseline with 0 ms, with standard deviation being 0.54 ms. Using a debounce time of 4 ms, click latency has been measured to be +4.3 ms, with a standard deviation of 0.55 ms. The debounce time setting scales linearly up to the 30 ms value, with standard deviation remaining constant throughout. Comparison data comes from this thread as well as my own testing, using qsxcv's program.

The main button switches were measured to be running at 3.32 V. I'm not aware of the voltage specifications of the Kailh GM 8.0 (80 M) switches, but I consider it very likely that these are running within specifications.