The mouse comes with an installation CD with the configuration software. It's perhaps the most comprehensive software of the kind we've ever seen, due to the choices the peripheral has to offer. It can be daunting at first, but it's not so complicated to use. It's possible to create three different profiles and the mouse comes with a pre-defined, non-reprogrammable basic profile called the CM Storm. The profiles are stored in the 128 KB internal memory, so you can change computers but it still retains your preferences. You can change the pointer speed, scroll wheel speed and button response time, and also, as we've said before, nine of the eleven buttons.

click to enlarge
Figure 4: The configuration program

You can set five different dpi levels up to a maximum of 4,000 dpi per profile. Anyone who is familiar with our reviews knows that we advice to keep a lower setting for precision shooting in FPS games and MMORPG titles with several icons to close to click on. High values are good for slower weapons like tank cannons. The fun resides in discovering which setting is best for your gaming needs according to your particular style of play, the enemies you face and how you grip your mouse.

click to enlarge
Figure 5: Storm Tactics

The Inferno's biggest differential is the Storm Tactics feature. If you are a casual gamer that only likes to set your mouse buttons according to your weapon choices, we recommend that you avoid the feature altogether. It's big boy's turf: the system allows up to 32 extra mixes of commands, keys, macros and scripts, letting the mouse ready to perform combos, like evoking powers and abilities in some games and even some tasks in work-related software as Photoshop. To better grasp the notion, think of the Storm Tactics button as one of the function keys of the keyboard that, once hit with some other key, performs a special task. Although it's hard to master such a vast array of options, the software is pretty straight forward when it comes down to recording macros.

As we see it, it's worth your while checking out the Inferno's extra possibilities, but in the simple button for button comparison, the mouse is ahead of its competition as it features more reprogrammable buttons. But maybe being so complete made the software lack in options for managing more profiles – in most gaming-grade mice, you can store about five different profiles, but the Inferno only allows the creation of three.