XTracPads Ripper XXL

Testing

I have put this mat through its paces in FPS games like BF2 and CS:S. I was surprised that this mat didn't perform as well as I expected. At first I thought that it was just my imagination that the friction of the mat varied when changing direction, but after an extensive period of use I found out that this was probably due to the fabric stretching when moving the mouse around. This isn’t a big problem but compared to other high-end gaming surfaces like the SteelPad 5L and the Qpad this makes the XTracPads Ripper XXL the underdog.

I also found that the mat grip was limited and when playing FPS games it would move around a bit near the edges when there wasn’t much weight on it. Now this could be because I have a wooden desk but I can't see why this should limit the grip.

BF2
I play a lot of BF2 (medium to high-sensitivity) and I found myself being a little less competitive when using this mat compared to the SteelPad. It wasn’t much, but I decided to change back to the SteelPad 5L when playing matches where fast movements were required. I've tried playing some more with the mat, but I couldn’t get used to the surface friction and the wobble that the stretching produces. That is why I can't really recommend this mat to serious gamers, it's simply not consistent enough to give the gamer the competitive edge, that is needed in FPS games.
I've tried going low sensitivity for a while and this helped a bit since the movement has to be bigger in order to change direction, however I still don't find the mat is fast enough to be used by really hardcore low-sensitivity gamers.

PhotoShop
In order to test the mat working with a program which requires control rather than speed I decided to test it in PhotoShop, and here I found that it was very exact and the control was really good. So if you’re a Photoshop master and you value control and the looks of your desk over gaming performance I can definitely recommend this mat.