Or baby oil.
Or both.. smoooooth.

I love my RatPadz XT. Best mousepad ever.

I bought a RAT7 and I've been loving it. It took me a few hours to customize all the pieces to how it felt most comfortable but now It feels perfect.

Strange that it didn't fit your hand dimensions tho. Didn't yours come with the box of parts you can use to swap out or adjust pieces?

EDIT: Also, for a mouse pad I'm using the Razer Vespula with the control side up instead of speed side.

Nope. The RAT5 has no interchangeable parts, and is barely worth the bother, IMO. Just for comparison, RAT5 is worth €70 here, and the 7 is €100. I really tried to make it work, but at the end of the week I felt a camp in my arm. No thing on earth could keep from returning the damn thing. Looked nice though.

Razer Imperator, on the other hand, fits fine in my hand and is no bother to use. I'm sure someone will find that the former doesn't suit him and the latter is a dream come true. That's how these things work.

I have the same mouse as you. A lot of the issues you'll find are with games that are not properly designed for pc (namely ones that are ports from the 360) these have sensitivity sliders which are a total arse to get right.

My G500 is set up at the following:

SETPOINT SETTINGS:

DPI: 200,600,2800,4800,5700 (I use the highest by default but go with what's comfortable for you.)

Speed: OS
Acceleration: OS
Report Rate: 1000

OS SETTINGS (mouse menu):

Sensitivity: Midpoint
Hardware Acceleration: On


As you can probably see, you don't really need to adjust any settings. It's not the mouse it's the games. For older games simply use your buttons on the mouse to lower the DPI (I use 600 or 2800 for much older games. 4800/5700 for shooters.) As for a mouse mat. I've had a few gaming mats in the past but nowadays I use the inside of a cheap pizza box, it has a huge variety of texture and is smooth enough not to inhibit the movement (plus at 5700 dpi you barely need any movement anyway.)

As for the weights, it's personal preference again but I've got: (front 3: 1.7g each. Middle 4.5g and nothing at the rear.)

Edit: You may wish to have one of your settings as 800dpi or 1600dpi for the ones with crappy sensitivity scales (Bioshock 2, Metro 2033 etc.) then you can set them to 1.0 sensitivity and they should work, me though I tend to use a 360 controller as they're clearly set up poorly for windows & gaming mice.

Wow, that sucks. I got the RAT7 for $75 USD since Fry's price matched it with Amazon, otherwise I would have paid $100 USD. The thing that set the RAT7 apart from the Razers, for me anyways, was the little red thumb button that lowers your DPI to whatever setting you want for sniping. It makes games like ARMA II a breeze, snap to your target, hold the button to steady your aim, and fire.