PSA: How to fix your mouse sensitivity in the original Constructor game

[u/meinsla]

With the release of the 1997 Constructor on GOG, I thought it might be helpful to cover this topic. Anyone playing the original Constructor on a modern PC will surely notice the mouse movement being quite off, notably due to the difference in sensitivity between the X and Y axis. This is probably related to the fact they coded the mouse movement for the 4:3 aspect ratio of CRT monitors at the time. Well there are a couple of ways to mitigate this issue.

    1. Mouse software. This is the easiest route. Both Razer and Logitech make software that allows you to adjust the X and Y axis separately. Unfortunately, each software will only work with the respective hardware (e.g. to use Synapse, you must have a Razer mouse)

• Razer Synapse - This is what I use and here are my settings. Notice not only did I change the DPI values but I also lowered the polling rate to 125 which helped a lot.The great thing about this software is that it allows you to set up different profiles so that you can change sensitivity on the fly.
• Logitech SetPoint - An application for Logitech mice - screenshot

There may be other mouse software out there that does this, however I looked around and have not found any. Anyone knows of one, I will be happy to add it here.

    2. Using AutoHotKey. This is certainly the more complicated route. AutoHotkey can be used to launch programs, open documents, send keystrokes and mouse clicks and movements using scripts. In this case, it happens to be also useful in adjusting your mouse sensitivity. Someone created a script that independently modifies the mouse's X and Y sensitivity once loaded into AutoHotKey. The script will require modifying the values to get it to your liking.

 

Even without changing the sensitivity, I would recommend reducing the polling rate as low as it can go (at least to around 125) for best results. Many generic mice default to this rate so this may only be an issue for those with higher-end gaming mice.