SteelSeries Rival - can the Rival surpass the Sensei?

[Novus]

Can the Rival surpass the Sensei?
Of course it can.
The Sensei was a massive pos.

More

Engine 2.0 can be summarized by the following.
It's a terrible piece of ****.

1.   Slow.
2.   Delay when adjusting sliders/mouse settings
3.   Soft bricks your mouse every time it updates.
4.   Firmware updater malfunctions.
5.   Hogs resources.
6.   Malfunctions frequently.
7.   Doesn’t install properly (if you don’t click install as admin)

Yes, I know the majority of issues stemmed from Engine 2.0 not being Windows 7 early. The thing is they never actually bothered to fixed Engine 2.0. Hell, windows 8 came out and engine 2.0 was still a laggard pos.

The Steelseries Sensei, when paired with Engine 2.0, was an absolute disaster. The communication between the device and Engine 2.0 was poor. The Sensei had an onboard 32 bit arm process which actually clashed with Engine 2.0. You also couldn't tell which profile was active from looking at Engine 2.0 alone (I mean seriously what the **** are mouse drivers actually for then)?.
Originally you could set 5 custom profiles, this was later changed to 4 because the system had to reserve one profile. I suspect they did this to stop the clashing. When it comes to actually setting the profile, you have to create a profile within engine 2.0. This process takes forever, because of how slow engine 2.0 operates. Once you’ve painstakingly completed this task, you drag the profile over to the mouse’s onboard memory.

You can rename the profiles on engine 2.0 but you are not able to rename the profile names on the mouse’s onboard memory. This mouse’s onboard memory just list the profiles as profile 1, profile 2, profile 3 and etc. You can’t actually access a particular onboard profile’s settings from engine 2.0. Thus by extension, you can’t change the onboard profile settings directly from engine 2.0, you must write over the profile. Honestly, at this point you might as well not even have firmware and drivers.

Inserting and extracting profiles like this is a pain in the ass. Extracting profiles is even worse if you make on the go changes and want to synch it back to your existing settings. Let’s say you had a profile for Starcraft named Jack’s SC profile on engine 2.0. This profile corresponds to profile 4 on your mouse. Over the weekend, you made changes to profile 4 directly via your mouse at a lan tournament. Now that you are back home, you extract profile 4 to engine 2.0. Your engine 2.0 now has profile 4 and Jack’s SC profile. You delete Jack’s SC profile and rename profile 4 into Jack’s SC profile. This is also a pain in the ass if you forget what your profiles on engine 2.0 specifically correspond to the mouse. This is exacerbated by how slow the software is.[/font]

I’m glad SteelSeries stuck to the basics this time around.
Ergonomic right handed mouse should stick to improving the basics and working well.
That and the last time SteelSeries implemented something complicated, it turned out to be an unnecessary hassle.

SteelSeries Rival
•   Precise Optical Sensor
•   Right handed (ergonomic)
•   Suitable for larger hands.

This mouse is generally unsuitable for users:
•   With smaller hands
•   Prefer lighter mouse products
•   Need 20+ buttons.
•   That aren’t right handed.

The SteelSeries Rival appeals to the right handed, FPS gamer niche.

Build Quality:

Does the rival feel better than the cheap 10 dollar Logitech on your office desk?
No, but don't worry every gaming mouse fails this test.

Matt, Mattie, Matte
•   Dry, coarse, rubberized matte surface.
•   Rubberized Sidegrips with dimpled grooves.
It’s worth nothing that these different surfaces have contrasting feelings when you grip your mouse.

Smudges, stains and grease.
Your natural oils will discolor the mouse’s surface with grease and smudge marks (particularly where your index and middle finger rest). The darker finish of the Rival gives this mouse a nice, clean uniform look that hides any unsightly smudges at a distance. Upon closer inspection, you can’t help but wonder -why the **** did they decide to go with this surface?


Switches:
The left and right clicks feel like the bastard child of an omron and huano switch. The way the switch depresses and actuates is somewhere in-between an omron and huano switch. Also, yes I know that’s not how genetics works.
The side buttons (mouse 4 and 5) are stiff and require a bit of force to actuate – not unlike a Huano switch.  This is an unusual choice for thumb buttons.

Scroll Wheel:
The scroll wheel is notable for its pronounced stop at every notch. Due to this, the scroll wheel also creaks. This may or may not have been inspired by the IME 3 scroll wheel. You might not like this scroll wheel if you prefer a smooth scrolling experience.

Shape:
- Weight: 128 grams (0.28 lbs)
- Height: 45 mm (1.8 in)
- Width: 70 mm (2.76 in)
- Length: 133 mm (5.23 in)
- Cable Length: 2m (6.5 ft.)

How the mouse contours to your hand depends on your hand size, shape and preferences.
Some people might find the Rival to be a bit on the heavy side because it's 20-30 grams heavier than comparable mouse.
The rest of us, will just condescendingly smile.

Sensor:
Avago ADNS 3310 Sensor
If you aren’t using a stupidly high DPI:
•   No acceleration
•   No angle snapping.
•   No input lag

Is this an improvement over the venerated Avago 3090 sensor?

Well not really:
•   You can still feel that slight smoothing - which mouse devices with  the 3090 sensors had.
•   You can’t use high DPI without running into interpolation and jitter.

Furthermore, there's not a whole lot of info on this ADNS 3310 sensor.

To achieve a precise experience, we normally attempt to set our CPI value as close to the sensor’s native value. Setting a non-native value forces the device’s MCU to interpolate your values. This often results in jitter and may adversely affects your mouse precision (especially at high CPI values).We don’t know the ADNS 3310 sensor’s native values. We are told that all CPI steps of 50 are supposedly native to this sensor. New technology or not, we generally know this isn’t completely true.

6500 DPI wooaaaaaah baby!
We don’t really care if this mouse can go all the way to 6500. The values that we really care about are between are between 400-1500 CPI – these are the values that most gamers use in-game.
The Rival works well between these DPI ranges but so do mouse devices with a 3090 sensor.
The only advantage that I can think of is that you can use the Rival to game and also for some specific applications which require a higher DPI and don’t necessarily require precision.

SteelSeries Engine 3.0
Thank goodness, SteelSeries ditched Engine 2.
Engine 3.0 is easier to install.
Doesn't mess up your mouse when installing/updating device firmware

Dragging the DPI sliders is still slow and unresponsive - no unlike the feeling of Engine 2.
That being said, you can just type in your values directly without input lag.

Adjusting Colors:
Engine 3.0 supposedly lets you choose from 16.5 million colors. That’s great, but the LEDs on the mouse aren’t actually that nuanced.

Practical Oversight:
You can switch between 2 DPI’s easily thanks to a handy button on the top of your mouse. SteelSeries, in their eternal wisdom, neglected to allow you to set independent LED colors for each of the DPI settings. Lovely, I hope you don't accidentally switch DPI's and forget.

As we've discussed, the Rival has questionable design choices.
That being said, you might not actually dislike these choices.
Consider the following before you purchase this mouse, did Steelseries design particular aspects of the Rival like this on purpose OR are they cutting corners?
You might very well think that it’s the latter as opposed to the former but I couldn't possibly comment.



Half-Assed Comparisions:
I call this a half assed comparison because:
•   I recommend you try every product before you buy it.
•   I'm not tearing the device apart or doing scientific tests
•   It’s not easy to compare mouse products subjectively.

Oh and we all have different hands.

IME 3:

We have 3 devices which take their shape from the IME 3.
The Rival, the DeathAdder and the Zowie EC 1

The DA and EC 1 feel fatter than the Rival. The Rival is slightly heavier than the other two clones.
The DeathAdder uses Omron switches.
The Zowie uses Huano switches.
The Rival uses mystery switches.
The DeathAdder uses synapse 2.0 which apparently screws up your tracking and requires an internet connection.
The Zowie is driverless but you can only choose from 3 pre-set DPI settings.
The Rival uses Engine 3.0 which isn’t great but it works.

I hope you enjoyed this absolutely useless information.

Comparable products:

If you aren’t sold on the Rival, then consider the following mouse products:
Razer Death Adder series, Logitech G400 series, Zowie EC series, Mionix Naos 7000, the upcoming CM Storm Alcor and the upcoming Roccat XTD Pure optical.

All of these mouse products have good sensors. How you perceive the precision of each mouse will be based on the PCB and sensor implementation but not on the actual sensor itself. These sensors more or less perform the same. Generally speaking, you shouldn't be using anything above the 2500 DPI range and preferably you should be using a setting lower than 2000 DPI.

Ultimately, since these sensors are all great. The deciding factor should be the shape of mouse devices, the quality of their internals (switches, scroll wheel, pcb) and how well they fit your hand. Oh and price.
To misuse a popular phrase, if the shoe fits use it.

Personally:

I only bought this mouse because it was on sale.
Most of the stuff that I've talked about doesn't bother me. I don’t have a preference between omron and huano switches. The matte surface doesn't bother me, although it's not great. I hate how the scroll wheel creaks but it's not a deal breaker. I'm ambivalent towards the side grips of the Rival. I'm resigned to the overall cheap feel of this mouse.

That being said, I pretty much expected this mouse to suck.
However, I wasn't expecting this mouse to fit so well with my hand.
This mouse contours well with my hand and I can palm, claw and fingertip this mouse. I wasn't expecting this. This is a very comfortable mouse for me and perhaps a better fit than my EC EVO CL 1.
Never saw that one coming.

I've been fingertip gripping this mouse for the most part (as you can see from my smudge marks).
I can also claw and palm this mouse quite comfortably as well.

Fingertip Grip:



Hybrid Claw/Fingertip Grip:



Palm Grip:


Side by Side:

[Elrick]

I love this REVIEW..... 5 Stars  .

Straight to the point, it seems the major mouse manufacturers are letting the buying public down substantially with half-arsed implementation of technologies which are really not needed.  All people want especially gamers in general, is a reliable, comfortable, input device without any EXTRA required software/drivers needed to make it work properly (thanks Razer).

I have wasted a lot of money on most of the so-called popular mice available to buy right now and only a couple would represent true value.  The others are just a woeful waste of time and space, in fact I wouldn't even put them in any landfill site due to contaminating the valuable earth, worth more than some input devices.

Thank you for not pulling any punches when it came to the Rival, which I have grown tired of and moved onto something better.

[daerid]

I absolutely love my IE 3.0. Love love love.

The rival is an amazing mouse, worth of the IE 3.0 legacy.

However, my Zowie EC1 CL blows both out of the water.

[ComradeSniper]

Awesome review. I have been looking at this one for a while but I think I might go with a Zowie EC1 Evo instead now.

Just one question--what's wrong with using a DPI above 2500 or so? I do general PC work and most gaming at around 3000 DPI on both my Steelseries Sensei and Razer Imperator with no troubles. I am under the assumption that DPI is completely personal preference.

[Novus]

crap double posted.

[Novus]

Awesome review. I have been looking at this one for a while but I think I might go with a Zowie EC1 Evo instead now.

Just one question--what's wrong with using a DPI above 2500 or so? I do general PC work and most gaming at around 3000 DPI on both my Steelseries Sensei and Razer Imperator with no troubles. I am under the assumption that DPI is completely personal preference.

One thing to note is that the Sensei and Imperator use laser sensors. The avago 9500 and PTE sensor, respectively.
Lasers sensors have more native resolutions which means their performance across the DPI spectrum is more consistent. Although, they're still terrible once you push past a certain DPI level - especially if you use the interpolated settings to achieve high CPI on the Sensei.
Laser sensors are considered flawed because of things like built in hardware acceleration.
I remember that my sensei had positive acceleration, which was a bit of an issue for FPS games.
That's why enthusiasts tend to prefer optical mouses.

On most optical 3090 sensors, using (3000+ DPI settings) has been shown to adversely affects the precision of the mouse.
We know that higher DPI settings (like 3000DPI+) are generally non native to the sensor, achieved via interpolation and have been observed to have high levels of smoothing and lag.
Since, this is true on most mouse products that use the 3090 sensor and these newer optical sensors are variants of the 3090 - I highly suspect this is still true, despite the massive DPI gains these newer sensors showcase.
My guess is that these new sensors have different algorithms and tricks that attempt to help reduce smoothing.

There's nothing wrong per se with using high DPI but depending on your preferences and the mouse, you might run into excessive smoothing and jitter.

This also depends on what games you play and at what sensitivity.
I tend to think that smoothing affects your ability in FPS games more than RTS games.
It's harder to do snap shots in FPS games with high smoothing.
High smoothing isn't that bad in RTS games, at least until you have to micro intensively in a high apm situation.

[skuko]

i have the Rival and my only gripe with it are the side grips. my naturally greasy fingers leave the dust and grease in between the rubber bumps and it looks nasty and cannot be properly cleaned without damaging the rubber grip. any advice is welcome. will post photos later.

[daerid]

i have the Rival and my only gripe with it are the side grips. my naturally greasy fingers leave the dust and grease in between the rubber bumps and it looks nasty and cannot be properly cleaned without damaging the rubber grip. any advice is welcome. will post photos later.

I know I'm not supposed to, but I have the same problem and used a cotton cloth with a tiny bit of rubbing alcohol on it. Cleaned it right up. If the rubber dries out I have some Rubber Renue I can use on it.

[ComradeSniper]

Awesome review. I have been looking at this one for a while but I think I might go with a Zowie EC1 Evo instead now.

Just one question--what's wrong with using a DPI above 2500 or so? I do general PC work and most gaming at around 3000 DPI on both my Steelseries Sensei and Razer Imperator with no troubles. I am under the assumption that DPI is completely personal preference.

One thing to note is that the Sensei and Imperator use laser sensors. The avago 9500 and PTE sensor, respectively.
Lasers sensors have more native resolutions which means their performance across the DPI spectrum is more consistent. Although, they're still terrible once you push past a certain DPI level - especially if you use the interpolated settings to achieve high CPI on the Sensei.
Laser sensors are considered flawed because of things like built in hardware acceleration.
I remember that my sensei had positive acceleration, which was a bit of an issue for FPS games.
That's why enthusiasts tend to prefer optical mouses.

On most optical 3090 sensors, using (3000+ DPI settings) has been shown to adversely affects the precision of the mouse.
We know that higher DPI settings (like 3000DPI+) are generally non native to the sensor, achieved via interpolation and have been observed to have high levels of smoothing and lag.
Since, this is true on most mouse products that use the 3090 sensor and these newer optical sensors are variants of the 3090 - I highly suspect this is still true, despite the massive DPI gains these newer sensors showcase.
My guess is that these new sensors have different algorithms and tricks that attempt to help reduce smoothing.

There's nothing wrong per se with using high DPI but depending on your preferences and the mouse, you might run into excessive smoothing and jitter.

This also depends on what games you play and at what sensitivity.
I tend to think that smoothing affects your ability in FPS games more than RTS games.
It's harder to do snap shots in FPS games with high smoothing.
High smoothing isn't that bad in RTS games, at least until you have to micro intensively in a high apm situation.

Oh, right, I forgot about the sensor difference. Thanks for the info.

[wetto]

I've also been very curious about these new switches that the Rival has been using, mainly about their feedback.

The side buttons are IC, which don't have a bad feedback, but those are switches found in US$ 10 mice, not the usual TTC stuff that Steelseries normally uses. It seems many brands are using cheaper components on the side buttons nowadays, including Razer, Cooler Master, Steelseries...



While the middle button uses a TTC Red switch (thank heavens) and these new switches with Steelseries brand which supposedly should last over 30M times pressed, but I don't really believe much in that claim, it seems more to me like some sort of cheap way to counter the 20M switches from OMRON and still have something that doesn't costs as much. I'm not really sure who makes those, it could be HUANO or other brand, they don't seem bad but this "better than OMRON" thing smells like BS, especially coming from a brand that can't even identify themselves.



But I'm actually curious about the scroll-wheel. Is it a brand-less crap that may end up breaking in less than a year of use (like happens on Corsair M60 and M90 mouse) or a proper ALPS or TTC scroll encoder?

And another question, how is the surface tracking on the 3310? Is it better than the AVAGO 3090 or still doesn't works on most lighter surfaces? I know this doesn't seems like a bother for most people, but there are some who play on mobile devices such as laptops, so, carrying a mouse-pad around can be a hassle.

[Novus]

I don't think the surface tracking is better on the 3310.

My Rival doesn't track optimally (although you can get by) on my Roccat's "speed" surface which is graced with blue vomit.



I also tried using my Rival on my Himawari mouse pad and it tracks poorly.



Sorry for these poor pics, took these right before I'm going to conk out, but it should be good enough to see the surfaces.

It works decently on my wooden desk, though.

[wetto]

I don't think the surface tracking is better on the 3310.

My Rival doesn't track optimally (although you can get by) on my Roccat's "speed" surface which is graced with blue vomit.

Show Image

I also tried using my Rival on my Himawari mouse pad and it tracks poorly.

Show Image

Sorry for these poor pics, took these right before I'm going to conk out, but it should be good enough to see the surfaces.

It works decently on my wooden desk, though.

Can you adjust the LOD to a higher value and see if it tracks properly on those mousepads then? That always did the trick on the 3090 when it didn't track properly.

I thought the 3310 was an evolution from the 3090, but it seems some things are still the same...

[Novus]

There's no LOD adjustment for the Rival.
Huh, I remember they had LOD adjustment for the sensei but it wasn't that great and could potentially brick your mouse.

[cactux]

I love my sensei pro. I have tried most of the highend mice amd sensei pro is the king of the hill.

[yuktsi]

I regretted so much for selling my mlg sensei. still waiting for a sensei replacement from steelseries

[kishagi]

oh snap! there are 4 usb 2.0 ports on the Roccat Apuri. I thought there were only 2; thats what I get for not paying attention to my tech...

[riko]

Has anyone found out who makes this Steelseries switches on the Rival?