Installation & Performance

The Viper attaches easily with its gold plated USB interface, and the install program is quick and painless as well.

So, I eagerly began playing with my new toy. The body of the mouse turned out to be a dark smoke, and it shines a deep red and gets significantly brighter when you begin to move it around. The lighting is provided by the single LED used for tracking.
 

Three Teflon feet make up the contact between the pad and the mouse itself, and these are incredibly slick. Combined with the lightweight of the Viper, this mouse is very sensitive to any twitch. I’d almost be cautious with ingesting too much caffeine! I pulled out three pads…two generic pads, one with a cloth surface and one with a plastic surface, and an Xide Pad II. At maximum DPI, the Viper was a solid performer on both the generic pads, but it didn’t slide as nicely on the cloth pads. The Viper was incredible on the Xide gaming pad however, and the extra texturing resulted in a substantial increase in sensitivity. The lesson here is that if you get this mouse, put serious thought on the pad you’ll be using it on. If you can’t decide, Razer makes several recommendations on their website.

The provided “Razer Customizer” software enables the user to access almost every aspect of the Viper’s performance. There are three main windows: Sensitivity, Scroll Wheel, and Buttons.

Sensitivity

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This first menu allows you to customize the DPI, as well as the double click speed and the “on the fly” sensitivity. Enabling this function allows you to adjust the DPI by holding down the scroll wheel and adjusting. This is a very useful feature, meaning you can constantly control the Viper’s responsiveness without having to leave your applications, either CAD or gaming. The sensitivity selector also has an advanced menu, where you can change the speed of each axis independently and control acceleration.

Scroll Wheel

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This menu gives you the option to control the rate at which the wheel moves you through a page. It also allows you to control universal scrolling.

Buttons

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This menu gives you drop-down menu access to a number of functions for the various buttons on the Viper. This includes anything from a macro to any key on the keyboard. You can also configure the Viper for right or left handed users in this menu.

I spent a lazy day putting the Viper through its paces with a selection of games that rely heavily on the mouse: Hitman 2 – Silent Assassin, Mechwarrior 4 Vengeance, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and just for grins, Civilization III. The on-the-fly sensitivity was used in all these selections, and worked beautifully. I found that sniper mode gets a little interesting on maximum sensitivity, but the precision and speed of the Viper are the best I’ve ever had in a mouse, bar none. There is a little bit of an adjustment period as I got used to the massive buttons, and I also found myself hitting the right mouse button unintentionally when pressing the left. I’ve got a big hand anyway, but I found that if I just moved my hand back some and just used my fingers the problems were solved. The two rubber rails become even more important when the Viper is used this way, as they provide almost your entire control surface.
 

Next: Conclusion