Glossary · polling-rate

Polling rate

How many times per second your mouse reports its position to the host.

Polling rate, measured in hertz (Hz), is the frequency at which a USB or wireless mouse sends position updates to the operating system. A 1000 Hz mouse reports every 1 ms; an 8000 Hz mouse every 0.125 ms. Higher polling rates reduce input lag at the cost of CPU overhead. Most gaming mice ship at 1000 Hz; 4K and 8K mice exist for esports.

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Related
DPI (CPI)
Counts per inch — how many position reports your mouse emits per inch of physical movement.
Input lag
Time from your click or keypress to the resulting pixel change on screen.
Jitter
Variation in the interval between samples or packets — instability around the mean.