pulling up an older article here, but this was talked about on alot of tech sites when USB mice were getting more and more popular... kinda an old topic now.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/faceoff/981108/
taking some quotes that pertain to the topics discussed
"Well, for the rich and mighty, or namely those who could afford Pentium II systems or AGP Socket-7 motherboards, this seemed like a dream come true. However, USB had its share of problems. As detailed by Microsoft's Support Online Knowledge Base, USB signals can be extremely processor intensive (taking up to 10% of the processor with heavy movement), and unfortunately they tended to be somewhat low priority when compared to other system events such as I/O access and video refreshes. On a Pentium 200MMX, a USB mouse takes up anywhere from 10-20% of the CPU during heavy activity. On a P2-400, it can still go up to 11%. From these numbers, it seems that using a USB mouse might actually hurt gameplay, especially on processor-crunching games such as Quake II. "
Ok, said here that USB can take up 10-20% of the CPU during heavy activity, now this article is on slower comps, 200MMX, P2-400, etc... So yes USB does take up CPU cycles, but its doubtfully noticable on anything faster than a P2-400
"It was at around this time that the USB Intellimouse came out, and when I saw the benefits of its incredible 125Hz sampling rate, I immediately jumped ship and switched to USB"
USB is capable of higher sampling rate, 100-125Hz I beleave, never herd anythign lower than that. I just looked through 10-20 pages on USB mice specs and they all said either constant 120hz or 125hz, not sure were you got that it was much lower than that... I sure have never herd of it.
The Mhz was a unconsious mistake, I had just talked to my boss about upgrading the cpus around here and had "Mhz on the brain"
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/faceoff/981108/
taking some quotes that pertain to the topics discussed
"Well, for the rich and mighty, or namely those who could afford Pentium II systems or AGP Socket-7 motherboards, this seemed like a dream come true. However, USB had its share of problems. As detailed by Microsoft's Support Online Knowledge Base, USB signals can be extremely processor intensive (taking up to 10% of the processor with heavy movement), and unfortunately they tended to be somewhat low priority when compared to other system events such as I/O access and video refreshes. On a Pentium 200MMX, a USB mouse takes up anywhere from 10-20% of the CPU during heavy activity. On a P2-400, it can still go up to 11%. From these numbers, it seems that using a USB mouse might actually hurt gameplay, especially on processor-crunching games such as Quake II. "
Ok, said here that USB can take up 10-20% of the CPU during heavy activity, now this article is on slower comps, 200MMX, P2-400, etc... So yes USB does take up CPU cycles, but its doubtfully noticable on anything faster than a P2-400
"It was at around this time that the USB Intellimouse came out, and when I saw the benefits of its incredible 125Hz sampling rate, I immediately jumped ship and switched to USB"
USB is capable of higher sampling rate, 100-125Hz I beleave, never herd anythign lower than that. I just looked through 10-20 pages on USB mice specs and they all said either constant 120hz or 125hz, not sure were you got that it was much lower than that... I sure have never herd of it.
The Mhz was a unconsious mistake, I had just talked to my boss about upgrading the cpus around here and had "Mhz on the brain"