When I decided to play a round of Day of the Tentacle on my 486 again today, I had to struggle with random freezes on my PC. For no apparent reason, the game would stop accepting any mouse or keyboard inputs after a few minutes, so a hard reset was the only way out.
After spending some time troubleshooting, I managed to pinpoint the source of the problem: the CuteMouse driver. The version I was using, v2.1 beta 4, was causing the issue. As a test, I downgraded the driver to CuteMouse v1.9.1 and the problem was solved. Might be about time to look into a few other mouse drivers.
UPDATE 2026-07-06:
After several tests with different DOS mouse drivers over the past few days, I have come to the conclusion that two drivers in particular are the best choices for maximum compatibility and performance.
On one hand, there is the latest Microsoft Mouse Driver 11.0. This one boasts some of the highest compatibility and runs via Direct Hardware Access instead of through the BIOS. Its only downside is its high memory consumption, though the driver can be moved into the upper memory area using LOADHIGH.
Alternatively, you can go with the CuteMouse 2.0A driver. This driver is also highly compatible and stable, features Direct Hardware Access as well, and has a significantly smaller footprint when it comes to memory usage.
I would recommend to use the CuteMouse driver first and keep the Microsoft Mouse 11.0 driver as a fallback. With that setup, you shouldn’t encounter any more issues in DOS games and applications.
Downloads:
Microsoft Mouse Driver 11.0
CuteMouse 2.0A