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Full Area Tablet Questions

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Topic Starter
XGeneral2000
So I've hit kind of a slump recently, and I'd like to try something new. I get random misses all the time, and I use a small tablet area, so I've been thinking of trying a larger (or full) tablet area. I know it's "all preference and what's comfortable for you and practice more," but with so many people that claim full-area is better, I figure the least I could do is try it out. The logic behind it makes sense, at any rate.

With bigger areas, however, I get a problem with my hand sticking to the tablet. I rest my lower-left hand bone on the tablet (right-handed), and if I leave it for more than a couple seconds, sweat on my hand makes it stick to the tablet, and moving it causes a jerk in my cursor motion. This makes it really hard to do small-mid jumps, and is why I've been using a tablet area that requires no hand/arm motion, just my wrist and fingers. Is this an issue that's unique to me, and if not, how do you full-area users deal with this?

Also, I've heard a typical pencil grip is bad for full-area, which is what I've used for a few months now (less wrist pain than the claw grip I used to use). Is there a better one that doesn't kill my wrist?

Finally, what's the point of windowed? Is it just preference? I don't really see the difference between full-screen + larger area and windowed + smaller area. Either way, it's the same active area for osu, right? I've used full-screen 1920x1080 on a 26" since I bought a tablet, and I've never had an issue reading maps.
buny
If you want to get better, then improve rather than trying to find other reasons to not being good.
Giralda

buny wrote:

If you want to get better, then improve rather than trying to find other reasons to not being good.
I second this.

XGeneral2000 wrote:

So I've hit kind of a slump recently, and I'd like to try something new.
In regards to this, I highly suggest you don't try new things if you're on a "slump". The best thing to do at this point is go back to the basics, go back to what was already working for you to begin with.
Topic Starter
XGeneral2000
I am not new to slumps. Indeed, I've found that I've subtly gained the most skill over periods I thought were slumps. I post this because I have literally not gotten better in the last 6 months - I am still missing in the same spots in the same songs. I have 20k+ playcount - I know that practice is more important than anything else. I simply want to try something I have not tried before to see how I feel about it, but I have some questions. All I want is some input from other people who already do this. If it doesn't work or help, I will stick with a small tablet area.

I am not asking "how do i get gud fast." I'm not trying to be top 50 in two months by asking for magical skill cheat codes. I'm just asking how other people who use a certain playstyle deal with things I see as major obstacles so I can expand my horizons a little. Please don't condescend to me and tell me I'm making excuses for sucking, because I'm not. I just don't want to play another 10,000 times to find that I still haven't reduced my random miss factor.
theowest
I remember sticking to the tablet a lot too, but you will most definetly get over it. You will get over most tablet problems by just playing more and getting more and more comfortable with it.
Nekoroll
I've been playing with full tablet area since I started the game years ago and play windowed so hopefully sharing how I play will help you find your own way of feeling more comfortable while playing with tablet.

I usually hold pencils weird to begin with so it wasn't too hard for me to hold the tablet pen weirdly as well. Basically when I hold the pen, the bone joint thing in my hand where my pinkie connects to it that juts out just a little bit is the only part of my hand that makes the most contact with the tablet. Of course my hand is going to be laying on the tablet but it only softly rests on it while my pinkie joint is the main sort of pivot.

I loosely hold the pen between my thumb, index, and middle finger and bend my wrist only to the point where I can easily make quick and accurate swipes of the pen across the tablet just by using my middle finger to apply force. My thumb is there to stop it if it gets too far to the bottom-right and my index is there to keep the pen stabilized and upright in my hand. With this, I usually make X-shaped swipes across my tablet to ensure that I'm able to cover all corners of the osu! window.

Having your skin stick to the tablet is a problem for sure but with the way I described, a lot of your skin isn't going to be resting with enough pressure on the tablet that it would stick to it. I know this will sound nasty and it totally kind of is but back when I played a lot of osu!, I would notice the area of my tablet where my hand usually was would get a bit dirty and gross but leaving it there instead of cleaning it off helped reduce the friction between the tablet and my hand.

If you are desperate in reducing the stickiness of your hand and find that adjusting your hand positioning isn't working too well, you could buy something like a SmudgeGuard to help your hand glide more easily. (Pic in the spoilerbox below)


As for windowed mode, it's mostly preference. I like windowed mode because a smaller window size helps my eyes catch approach circles more easily so that my hand can react. While I know that I play windowed mode while my tablet is on full area so it probably doesn't seem as if playing on full area is as effective but that is my preference. I previously used my tablet for drawing so having it on full area is just something that I'm used to so I can naturally pin-point where on my screen is where on my tablet.
theowest
Just don't hold the pen like the guy in the image there. It looks like a pretty unstable grip. Try to support with your thumb against the pen too.
Topic Starter
XGeneral2000
Yeah, I don't hold it like that lol. I'm trying a modified version of my old claw grip, and it seems to be working okay so far. I didn't know they sold things like that SmudgeGuard, but I'll just practice like owest said and see if I get over the sticking that way. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't the only one that had that problem and that I wasn't doing anything stupidly wrong.

Thanks guys, much appreciated :)
JAKACHAN
Full area mapped to your osu! screen master race!
Loves
Full size is too big for many people
TakuMii
Full area+windowed is a slightly more consistent way of setting active area, but it also changes how much your eyes have to move when playing. I'd recommend making your window at a comfortable size where you don't need to use your peripheral vision to look across the screen. Full-screen on a 26" wouldn't be ideal unless you're sitting further away from the monitor.
VoidnOwO
Hi

Oinari-sama
A cheap snooker glove may help with your sweat problem too
JAKACHAN

BRBP wrote:

Hi

Best way to play.

Also full area isn't "Too Big" for people it's just that people are too impatient to learn how to play it.
enik

JAKACHAN wrote:

BRBP wrote:

Hi

Best way to play.

Also full area isn't "Too Big" for people it's just that people are too impatient to learn how to play it.
Depends on resolution I think. Full area was totally fine for me when I was playing window 1280x800 but on 1920x1080 fullscreen it's pretty impossible to do fast diagonal jumps. I would like to know if someone successfully plays like this though.
JAKACHAN

enik wrote:

Depends on resolution I think. Full area was totally fine for me when I was playing window 1280x800 but on 1920x1080 fullscreen it's pretty impossible to do fast diagonal jumps. I would like to know if someone successfully plays like this though.
Ummmm...... Me?

During my best time last year I played full area full screen 1920x1080. Now I play at full area mapped to the largest square screen (Which is still essentially the same.)
enik

JAKACHAN wrote:

enik wrote:

Depends on resolution I think. Full area was totally fine for me when I was playing window 1280x800 but on 1920x1080 fullscreen it's pretty impossible to do fast diagonal jumps. I would like to know if someone successfully plays like this though.
Ummmm...... Me?

During my best time last year I played full area full screen 1920x1080. Now I play at full area mapped to the largest square screen (Which is still essentially the same.)
:o I honestly checked your profile before writing my previous post but not thoroughly enough seems like. Nice to know it's possible on that high level of play, think I'll give it another try somewhen.
TakuMii
Resolution really doesn't matter. It's possible to calculate the DPI of the tablet, and even at 1920x1200, full screen-area+full tablet-area will still be 330dpi, which is lower than even what people consider "low DPI mice". And if you look at pro players' liveplays, at least some of them are using full screen-area with windowed instead of having the screen-area match their osu! window.
Also, I can't play with full tablet-area without using full-screen area+windowed (the area I use on my desktop is equivalent to this when playing fullscreen on my laptop) without sliding my wrist around, and I don't see much benefit from increasing my area by like 10-15% if I have to learn to move my hand differently.
EDIT: Nevermind, I was actually unconsciously using full area on my laptop so I take back what I said.
Amefuri Koneko
Never seen a complete answer to this question - do I actually need to turn force proportions on or off for Osu? I have force proportions enabled and up and down movements feel a lot faster than left and right ones, could it be the reason I fail a lot on fast star jump patterns or slightly angled back and forth patterns?
enik

Ami Furi Koneko wrote:

Never seen a complete answer to this question - do I actually need to turn force proportions on or off for Osu? I have force proportions enabled and up and down movements feel a lot faster than left and right ones, could it be the reason I fail a lot on fast star jump patterns or slightly angled back and forth patterns?
I think it doesn't matter especially if you're using full area (since you posted in Full Area thread), force proportion option just makes your current area proportional to your monitor resolution hello Captain Obvious which helps your mind to understand easier where are the area borders. Horizontal and vertical cursor speed would be the same only if you use square area. It's even possible to play with something like area below if know how should you move hand to draw straight diagonal line.

So failing on complicated patterns is about your snapping abilities only.
RBRat3
I have an enormous tablet where have no choice but to drag my hand across 216sq inches of space, This became an issue when using the tab as well as playing due to my palm sticking & dragging along the surface. The simple solution that I used was to get one of those cheap ass polyester gloves that never keep your hands warm and cut the fingers off and that has worked well for years ;)
carljcdc
Hey, I use full area, no forced proportions, and I really like to DT, is having a full area a disadvantage in DT mod?
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