Hi,

I've been working on getting rid of DirectInput for handling keyboard and mouse input.

On the keyboard side I'm all good, but my current RAW mouse implementation (1st attempt) has two strange symptons:

1 - terrible 'lag' in movement, like it's 'dragging along' after the mouse physically stopped moving

2 - interference with keyboard input

Here's the code I use.

Any input is really appreciated.

// setting up the mouse
bool CInputHandler::SetupMouseRaw(const HWND pHwnd)
{
	Rid[0].usUsagePage = HID_USAGE_PAGE_GENERIC; 
    Rid[0].usUsage = HID_USAGE_GENERIC_MOUSE; 
  
  Rid[0].dwFlags = RIDEV_CAPTUREMOUSE | RIDEV_INPUTSINK | RIDEV_NOLEGACY
    Rid[0].hwndTarget = pHwnd;
    RegisterRawInputDevices(Rid, 1, sizeof(Rid[0]));

	mInitialized = true;
	return true;
}

// updating the mouse
void CInputHandler::UpdateMouse(const int pPosX, const int pPosY)
{
	mMousePosX = pPosX;
	mMousePosY = pPosY;
	mMouseMoved = true;
}	

// windows messaging (WNDPROC)
		// MOUSE INPUT: RAW
		case WM_INPUT:
		{
	        UINT dwSize = 40;
		    static BYTE lpb[40];
    
			GetRawInputData((HRAWINPUT)lParam, RID_INPUT, lpb, &dwSize, sizeof(RAWINPUTHEADER));
    
			RAWINPUT* raw = (RAWINPUT*)lpb;
    
			if(raw->header.dwType == RIM_TYPEMOUSE)
			{
				_input.UpdateMouse(raw->data.mouse.lLastX, raw->data.mouse.lLastY);
			}
		}
		break;

// handling game input
			if(_input.MouseMoved())
			{
				_d3dcam.FreeLook(_input.GetMousePosX(), _input.GetMousePosY(), _player.GetLookSpeed()); // * _timer.GetDelta());
				_input.SetMouseMoved(false);
			}

First: Is there a particular reason you're using raw input rather than WM_MOUSEMOVE messages?

Second: You don't check for errors. The functions you call provide an indication of success or failure, which you don't check. I.e., RegisterRawInputDevices returns TRUE or FALSE. You should use that for your return value of SetupMouseRaw. GetRawInputData also provides a return value which can be checked for error.

Have you correctly defined your HID_xxx constants? Have you tried just just RIDDEV_NOLEGACY? I.e., do you need _CAPTUREMOUSE and _INPUTSINK?

Make sure you are using:

while (PeekMessage(...)) { }

instead of

if (PeekMessage(...)) { }

/psychic debugging off

Also, do you pass the message on to DefWindowProc?

The MSDN is a bit misleading here, in the description of WPARAM it says that the message should be passed on to DefWindowProc for cleanup.

Hi all. Thanks for the input.

- I've tried to use just the flag 'RIDEV_NOLEGACY', but unfortunately no difference

- WM_MOUSEMOVE I tried, but didn't work out because I'm trying to come close to using DirectInput in exclusive mode (also with the cursor outside the render window)

- my main message loop is:

	PeekMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0, PM_NOREMOVE);
	while(msg.message != WM_QUIT)
	{
		if(PeekMessage(&msg, NULL, 0U, 0U, PM_REMOVE))	
		{
			TranslateMessage(&msg);
			DispatchMessage(&msg);
		}

I tried to change it to a 'while' instead for 'for'.

That solved most of the problems! Great.

Can someone explain what exactly happens there and what the cons are of doing it with a while loop?
(will this cause delay when there are no messages, since if waits?)

The only issue left if that there's some strange interference left with the keyboard input. Will look further into that (some testing with the flags etc.)

Add; flags don't change things, but I did notice that without V-sync mouse 'spreed' is much better then with V-sync. Do I need to make that speed dependent on V-sync, or are there better options?

On the left 'interference' it's really strange, I only get it with the 'VK_ESCAPE' key, all other input is OK. When I change back the the message loop to a 'if' instead of 'while' loop, the VK_ESCAPE reaction is back. Strange?