I’ve had this weird problem while playing games for the past couple years — at some indeterminate interval (admittedly, I haven’t attempted to measure the time because I’m usually very intent on the game), while moving or shooting… basically doing anything involving my mouse, my “character” is immediately turned around. In other words, I’m running North one instant and South the next. I don’t know if it’s exactly 180deg, but I do know that I often get killed because of this issue.
I searched around with various Google searches:
“mouse error jumps OR flips 180 degrees during game”
“mouse error jumps OR flips automatically”
“mouse error jumps OR flips automatically during game”
and so on… I found one possible hit that remarks it’s a Linux-only problem… obviously not since I’m running XP SP3.
I have had this problem with World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2, though I cannot remember (and have not played recently enough) if it happens with Half-Life or HL engine games.
If anyone knows what this is, please comment here. Thanks! I’ll also update if I find a solution.
Try a different mouse, or a different mouse-pad. Also, if you have another input device, like, I don’t know, a Wacom tablet or something, you may find your problem is with that device.
I know, with my Wacom, if I leave the pen resting on the tablet, it’ll “ghost” activate the mouse / cursor / pointer and reset the pointer to the center of the screen.
Update: More to preserve the link than anything, I did find this thread discussing a very similar problem http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1424377. I wonder if I would experience exactly the same behavior if I was playing TF2 instead of BF2 — BF2 captures your mouse in the primary monitor during game play, so a jump to the secondary screen may act like turning around… we shall see… UltraMon INCOMING!
Nope… UltraMon did not solve my problem… still looking…
Wait, so you’re playing w/ 2 monitors?
Yeah, I would think that when you flip between monitors, you’re going to 0 out your mouse position in game, then, when you come back, you’re probably going to be facing relative north or relative south when you come back into focus.
Are you playing in Windowed mode? if you go to full screen mode, you’re likely not able to move the pointer beyond the confines of that application window, in this case, your game.
Try playing the game in full-screen, and also, try removing one monitor in your display settings, and see if you still get that issue.
I’m already using full screen mode. UltraMon was supposed to magically fix the problem when I use it to disable dual monitor mode when I played BF2. I don’t understand why dual monitors would have created a problem, but that’s just something I read on a forum.
Which way are you dual-monitoring? Are you “extending” your desktop? Are you allowing Windows or your video card software manage your dual mon? And, for gosh sake, are you running xp or vista?