For some reason in certain games, my cursor slows way down in the menus. This has happened to me in Tower of Guns and in Dust, which I just purchased yesterday. The gameplay of Dust runs pretty well, but in the main menu and in the dialogue sections, my cursor lags quite a bit. I lowered the resolution and it improved slightly. I am using a laptop with an APU. Could someone help me understand what's going on and if I can fix it?

That happens to me in some games too, but some I got here and some I didn't. I've always just attributed it to a quirk and so long as it doesn't effect the actual game play I've never given it much mind.

Interesting. I'm not sure if my processor just isn't that great, or if some indie games just aren't greatly optimized, or if it's something to do with my integrated graphics.

Well the worst one for me is Doom 3 which ain't no indie! :P It's menus are beyond horrific but as soon as the game gets going it'd great.

This is on a desktop?

Yeah.

That's not unusual. It it all depends on how optimized the code is and the cpu/gpu (for the most part).

APUs have been stripped and down-sized to be more economically cheap. Some games are worse than others, and while APUs "CAN" be used for games, they are more optimized for 1080p video, office, and light tasks in mind. Their performances (gaming wise) are even worse on laptops.

But, it all depends on the model. My Sempron 2650 (desktop) is fantastic for Blu-Ray 1080p video, streaming and light gaming. Like F.E.A.R. and others. But it is utterly HORRIBLE with netflix's type of browser-viewing and flash. The menus on some games are also sluggish.

One of my worst cases I believe were Deus Ex 2. Morbidly enough, it killed everything and was a pure hell to nav in the menus. tinyE mentioned Doom 3, even my laptop with i3 + R5 can handle Doom 3 with absolutehd, but the menus -are- still a bit slow. :-D

Thanks for the reply. So in theory, if I build a gaming desktop with seperate CPU and GPU, I shouldn't expect menu slowdown, at least as much? I'm new to PC gaming, and one thing that scares me about putting the money into a new gaming pc are these random slowdowns or problems I experience on my laptop, but I know that laptop gaming isn't ideal.

It can literally be anything that is the cause. Even buggy driver, mouse or background services. In essence, you just have to try different things, or just live with it. So no; it won't necessarily go away, especially if the game itself is the culprit.

Never waste money on hardware you would never use its full potential, or need.

EDIT: My laptop is right now the only gaming "rig". So far it can take whatever I throw at it (not very difficult since all my games are considered "retro" or "old").

The main problem is the use of software cursors instead of hardware cursors.

Here is how a software cursor works: the game first hides the operating system (OS) cursor. Then every frame it asks the OS there the cursor is and then draws its own cursor at that position. The problem with this approach is that the software cursor will always be lagging behind the OS cursor. The higher your framerate, the lower the discrepancy, but it is always there. It feels like you are dragging the cursor with a rubber band.

Hardware cursors on the other hand use the OS cursor directly so there is no lag. The menu might still lag and buttons only register your cursor with a delay, but the cursor itself is not delayed.

So you have most likely two problems: the use of a software cursor itself and low framerate in menus on top of that. Software cursors should not be used at all anymore.