Hey everyone,
First off hello, because I'm new to the forum (first post! woo!)
As a player who doesn't have a desktop, tablet nor comfortable mouse to use at home, I've become used to using my laptop trackpad. My osu!-playing friends sometimes laugh (not in a mean way, just jokingly) about my using such a strange device (I don't think anyone else I know uses one, everyone I know uses mouse except for maybe one or two tablet).
For me it's been quite good for easier maps, but on harder ones especially the ones where I have to move around a lot, accurately, I'm a bit worse at those. I think I'm better at easier maps, with mods, than on harder ones because I can't really move fast enough to hit stuff. Now of course one factor is that I'm fairly new to the osu! scene, and I don't play all that much (6 months since I started, almost 3k plays, rank ~120k), and that does mean that my timing accuracy isn't too great. That being said, I have 2 top 50s (http://osu.ppy.sh/b/80335 and http://osu.ppy.sh/b/75923) and a few scattered SS/SSHs but nothing special. In case anyone's curious, I use 1.4x sensitivity. I'm able to hit fast shapes/single notes sometimes, and sometimes not, but spinners are generally hard (I'm barely able to hit low 300s, and fast or long spinners I can't do as I don't have the sheer speed/finger perseverance to do them).
Anyway, that's enough about me (do I talk too much?) I was wondering, are there any other players here who regularly use trackpad, and if so what techniques or advice would you give (apart from practise)?

As a former user of the trackpad, yes I would agree that easier diffs were well, easy. As for the harder diffs, I was able to do pretty much hards and some easy insanes with a trackpad. Got a lot of S/SS ranks with mods. My sensitivity was set at 1.0 though. Movement was definitely hard to do on insane jumps and such (take "Times like these" for instance, I got close to clearing it a few times) Other than that, I got multiple top 50s on mostly easys and normal (a few hards) but nothing really special. I was able to spin pretty good actually, hit an average 370 spin. But yeah, I never actually tried raising the ingame sens while I used the trackpad back then. I only used it for like 3 months then got a new mouse lol. Just saying, it's possible to do hard maps with it, but it's pretty damn difficult to do.

And no you don't talk too much XD lol

It's possible to play with a trackpad. Do a bit of googling for the right forum here and there should be a software in one of the threads has a program that makes your trackpad like a tablet.

http://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/515

I was able to play majority of hard songs with this program. However, my touchpad apparently wasn't made for such extensive usage and some of its areas stopped working, which basically made it impossible to play on touchpad.

Yeah, I saw that link a few days ago when I searched the forum for any discussion on trackpads. I think that program seems really interesting, but sadly the download link doesn't work.

rev3rsor wrote:

Yeah, I saw that link a few days ago when I searched the forum for any discussion on trackpads. I think that program seems really interesting, but sadly the download link doesn't work.

That's a real pity. I guess you could just go googling laptop trackpad and the feature tablet has that mice don't (forgot what it was called). Though even without a program like that it is still possible to become good with it as long as you keep practicing.

Here is the zip folder from the trackpad absolution program: http://puu.sh/7vQAy.zip (all credit for its creation goes to TiZ)

Ah, thanks! I'll try it out and see how I like it
On another note, anyone ever used one of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick
I have one on my older laptop (one I bring to school, so I've tried using it as a joke). With it, it's incredibly hard to play osu! because I find it tough to change direction quickly and be accurate (i.e. getting to the circle but not overshooting). I'm sure it gets easier with practice but I'm not going to try; too frustrating

rev3rsor wrote:

Ah, thanks! I'll try it out and see how I like it
On another note, anyone ever used one of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick
I have one on my older laptop (one I bring to school, so I've tried using it as a joke). With it, it's incredibly hard to play osu! because I find it tough to change direction quickly and be accurate (i.e. getting to the circle but not overshooting). I'm sure it gets easier with practice but I'm not going to try; too frustrating

If you know it'll be difficult and you're not even want to try, why are even bothering with it?
Using the pointing stick would be as difficult and stupid as this. Maybe streaming won't be as hard. But if you're not going to pursue it, I don't think you should be wasting your time thinking about that so much.

Haiii this may be a lil old but im a trackpad player yes its hard and crazy but its possible im working on playing ar9 why i didn't choose mouse you may ask well because i never
Intended making this long term but here i am a year later. Its fun

Hello!

Considering this post was made before I even joined osu!, I'm not sure how much this will actually help.
But, the first thing I did when I started to "seriously" play with trackpad was mess around with the trackpad settings. Can't play the game if it doesn't control properly.

Settings:
There's a icon in the bottom toolbar generally left to where the clock is. It should be something like "Synaptics Pointing Device", or something similar.
Right click it and go to "Pointing Device Properties". Then "Device Settings". I disabled basically all of the "trackpad" commands since they more a less just get in the way. You can disable them in the "Scrolling>Pinch Zoom" and the "Tapping" categories.

Next I went into the "Pointing>Sensitivity" category to set the "TouchCheck" and "Touch Sensitivity".
I personally set mine to Minimum & Light Touch respectively that way it is hyper sensitive. Of course it depends, for other people it may be too uncontrollable since it tends to multiply the affects of the osu! in game "mouse speed" settings, even if you just bob up it just a little bit.

After all of those are done, you find the osu! "Mouse>Sensitivity" settings I mentioned earlier. No tips there, just trial and error there, keep messing with it until you find the sensitivity you are most comfortable with. Personally mine is at 1.58x.
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Actual Gameplay Tips:
What I'm currently doing is have a set of songs to practice as many attributes as I can and to warm up to.
DON'T go to your hardest song you can pass right off the bat. That's how you can really mess up your hands. Just like any other competitive game, or "exercise", gotta do the warmups before the real deals.

Basically 1 or more warmup songs to do when you first play osu! for the day or you can mess your hands up.
I usually do this one in particular since it also has a fair amount of variety in it's patterns and to me personally it doesn't destroy my hand by the time its done https://osu.ppy.sh/b/254203

After finding your warmup song(s) that don't bust your hands, like I said, find songs that are heavy in certain attributes, be it streaming, jumps, or so on. Once again it is ultimately up to you to find them.
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/308009 [Insane] in particular covers pretty much all of the bases, streaming, modest jumps, strange patterns that you really need to have your aim on point to hit, etc.

Then just keep "upping" these as you gradually get better. Like for streaming, once you get to that point, you can probably spam Freedom Dive to "practice" streaming.

If you ever feel as if you can't do it, you can, its just osu!, it can be extremely unforgiving at times. Its okay to just take a break from osu! as you would with something like a MOBA game, it can be mentally straining than just physically so it is perfectly fine to recenter yourself after a day or more.
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TL:DR;
Mess with trackpad settings from the computer itself, and in game afterwards.

Get specialized songs for specific things you want to practice. Spam said songs for x amount of time until you can properly hold a combo in them. Then just "up" whatever you're practicing.

Also play a warmup song before you do anything to begin with or your hand can get messed.

I've been playing trackpad since I started osu, because my mouse didn't reg well. I am starting to S slower songs, but my biggest issue is more the streaming hand z+x. I can aim pretty well over 5 stars like https://osu.ppy.sh/b/237576 and some 6 stars like https://osu.ppy.sh/b/126645 but after about 2 minutes I lose the stamina. I am currently working on really streamy maps like Blue Zenith and Goreshit maps.

Once the feel for the trackpad becomes more natural, extreme and easy are allthe same difficulties.

I map the entire pad, shift my fingers a lot. My sens is around 5-6.

My warmup is mostly jumpy/streamy songs like the extreme difficulties at least 5-6star + and some really old 3-4 star maps due to high reading difficulties.

Tips for getting good at trackpad:
1. Using a trackpad will take more muscle memory. The finger touching the pad causes friction and becomes incredibly unreliable. Keep this in mind.
2. Your fingers can be flexible. The great thing about using a trackpad is the fact that the armature is your body.
3. Accuracy-> Control -> Speed. Good form leads to good accuracy leading to more control over your arm and finger placement so you can start speeding up and practicing stamina.
4. Find a higher sens. Your fingers are precise, but the control depends on you. Although you might use different areas, there are times when you might need to reposition your fingers. Having that higher sensitivity allows you to reset faster.
5. Practice. I have a lotof plays, and I am still behind other players with more common play styles. But practice helps me to get used to the trackpad so that its less vision and more feel.
6. Should I warmup? If you are going for pp, the definitely warmup the same map styles as the maps you want to fc. If youre just practice or for fun, find a map with at least a degree higher than your usual maps. (ie. Ar10, OD12, CS6, 260 bpm, 7Star etc.)

Hope these tips and reviews help to alleviate the pains of using a trackpad. Although one of the more difficult playstyles, it is also incredibly versatile and will also be more rewarding. Welcome to the less than 1%!

Um... hi I am new to trackpad osu! because I just broke my mouse (by throwing it against the wall) and now I have to play using trackpad. THEY NEED TO ADD A SYMBOL FOR TRACKPAD PLAYERS, I FEEL LEFT OUT. But really, Mouse, keyboard, tablet, and touch. But no trackpad . Loving this game so far! <3

what the heck is this necro.

Giant necro aside...

I tried playing on my friend's laptop with his trackpad just for S&G. It was bad. There can't seriously be people who play on trackpad and actually enjoy it?

Sir Oxorsid wrote:

I tried playing on my friend's laptop with his trackpad just for S&G. It was bad. There can't seriously be people who play on trackpad and actually enjoy it?

I think it also depends on which trackpad you use. I use a mac, so everything i do aside from osu, i do with my trackpad and i'm fairly comfortable with it. there's less friction on these types of trackpads so I don't get burns / skin peeling off... etc either, which some trackpad users go through. I've been quite happy with it, but here I am stuck on 1.5k pp........

kai99 wrote:

Sir Oxorsid wrote:

I tried playing on my friend's laptop with his trackpad just for S&G. It was bad. There can't seriously be people who play on trackpad and actually enjoy it?

I think it also depends on which trackpad you use. I use a mac, so everything i do aside from osu, i do with my trackpad and i'm fairly comfortable with it. there's less friction on these types of trackpads so I don't get burns / skin peeling off... etc either, which some trackpad users go through. I've been quite happy with it, but here I am stuck on 1.5k pp........

Are your top plays on trackpad? If so then that's crazy, mad respect. Playing easy songs on the pad made me want to cut my hand off xD

Playing osu! with trackpad?

https://osu.ppy.sh/u/car

SirOxorsid wrote:

Are your top plays on trackpad? If so then that's crazy, mad respect. Playing easy songs on the pad made me want to cut my hand off xD

They are. I've been playing with it since 500 pp, and it's more comfortable than using a mouse. There's also a few more users-
https://osu.ppy.sh/u/trackpadeasy
https://osu.ppy.sh/u/8208289