Customizing your own mouse cursor on Windows is a fun little appearance change that only takes a little bit of legwork to change the mouse to whatever you like.

If you're having a hard time working out when the cursor on your Mac's screen moves or changes to an insertion point, crosshair, hand, or other shape, it's worth making it bigger.

Both surfaces on which the mouse physically move are smooth. <P>So, based on that I deduced that the mouse cursor movement on the screen is software dependent.