Is My Mouse Sensitivity Really That High?

[Kavik]

I play games with my mouse's firmware sensitivity set to 1600 DPI, and, in Rainbow Six: Siege, the in-game sensitivity is set to 42, and, in DOOM Eternal, my sensitivity is set to 70 with sensitivity scaling set to 5 (whatever that means). A buddy I play with asked what my settings are after he spectated me the other day, and he thinks I'm a madman for having everything set so high. I don't move my forearm at all when playing, just my wrist. Is this not normal?

I've heard about Quake and Counterstrike players' using low sensitivity and sweeping their whole arms, but I always thought that was just competitive guys.

[yqqdrasil]

Yes you're definitely on the mid-high DPI spectrum of FPS gamers. Don't let this news make you think you need to change it however, as there are many professional players who are extremely good with high DPI/sensitivty (much higher than you, for example Ghostfreak66 was a R6 pro who plays with 4k DPI).

In almost every competitive FPS, players often use low DPI and low sensitivity, with a combination of wrist and arm movement. There are many reasons for this, one of the biggest being recoil patterns (like CS/Rust). Another being the fact that they started gaming with standard 400/800 DPI mice, and they got used to and never changed it.

Its not just the sweaty chads who use low settings, its preference. If you can hold steady aim with no jitter when flicking, tracking, spray-transferring etc. then you have no real reason to change. But there are a lot of players who come from MOBAs or RTS games where they never really cared about these settings and found it easier to pick up the nuances of FPS gaming and improving their aim after lowering their DPI. Myself included, I played LOL for 5 years with 1600 DPI and when I started playing Rust and couldn't aim to save my life, I moved to 800, then 400 and lowering my sensitivity in steps.

What most people do when they're trying to find the right settings is place your mouse in the default position (the center of your mousepad or whatever), and try to do a 180°. If you can comfortably do a 180° with extra space on the left/right of your mousepad then you're free to reduce the sensitivity until your at the end of your mousepad or comfort zone.

In the end, none of this **** matters. It's all muscle memory.

[Leslieann]

Depends who you talk to.
Some people play at 320dpi.

When monitors were 600x400 mice were 240 dpi, 320 DPI was created back when screens had 800x600 resolution, in both cases it's about 2-3 inches to cross the screen. This was when they actually researched this stuff to see what worked best, though it was probably not gaming related. To do that today on 1440 you would need a setting of about 1200-1600, any bets as to what modern upper end office mice default to? Right about at those settings. So no, you aren't crazy. I came up with old monitors so as my screens got more pixels so did the mice and I always tried to maintain that balance.

If what you use was odd, why would companies make sensors with 16k dpi. Your buddy would poop his pants if he knew what some of us use, in order to reduce RSI in my wrist I usually run around 7600 DPI on 1080p and 8700 on 1440p, granted I turn down the setting in the OS to reduce some of that because I want per pixel resolution, Windows by default skips about 3 pixels and in CAD or photo editing that can create issues.  Without tweaking the OS I tend to run around about 3k dpi less. So what happens when I connect that mouse to a laptop with 768 resolution and default OS mouse settings? Pure insanity.

By the way, low DPI seems to involve aiming with wist and elbow, by comparison, I tend to use fingers and wrist which is impossible with some grip styles, so it's also probably at least somewhat determined by grip style. This would also explain why some people are so bothered by heavy mice while others are not. A heavy mouse when aiming from elbow is going to exert far more leverage than if just pushing it with fingers and wrist a short distance at slower speeds.

But how do you game on this?
Like Yqqdrasil said, muscle memory. The reason I use such odd numbers is because I tune each mouse to what I'm comfortable with and have been accustomed to. As a result my mouse feels about the same as it did to me years ago despite a resolution bump or two and multiple mouse changes. I can flip around with a small flick and head shot someone well enough to get banned for aim botting.

[tp4tissue]

I use 1900 dpi, my wrist barely moves, mostly finger,  it's not accurate for AWP in CSGO, but I'm too old to play that stuff at this point anyway.

[Kavik]

This makes sense. I've always based my sensitivity on how easy it is to move the cursor on the desktop first, which presumably has changed as resolution has increased. Then I adjust it in-game so that I can turn 180 degrees (or maybe a tad bit more) with my wrist without having to pick the mouse up. I used to prefer a little bit of mouse acceleration too (I know that is universally considered heresy), but, with the sensitivity high enough, I guess I don't need it.

[Leslieann]

This makes sense. I've always based my sensitivity on how easy it is to move the cursor on the desktop first, which presumably has changed as resolution has increased. Then I adjust it in-game so that I can turn 180 degrees (or maybe a tad bit more) with my wrist without having to pick the mouse up. I used to prefer a little bit of mouse acceleration too (I know that is universally considered heresy), but, with the sensitivity high enough, I guess I don't need it.

I HAAAAAATE when games mess with the setting. Seriously, blind rage, there's absolutely zero reason to do that. I don't mind the option but it shouldn't alter them.

I noticed years ago high dpi users do not seem to care about acceleration, I think it effects us a lot less. I suspect this is because the mouse doesn't move far enough to really ratchet it up, I don't mind it, enabled or not since I tune to my own feel anyhow, which also could be part of it.

My method of tuning is to aim for a spot on the screen, an icon or dot on the background and just try and hit it a few times in a flick from multiple locations. Once I hit that consistently and comfortably a few times it's good. It doesn't need to be perfect, I'm just trying to get it close. Since you can get there faster you now how time to actually aim while the other person is still lifting and sliding to get there.

[jamster]

I'm not heavily into gaming so perhaps this is old fashioned or something... the measure of 'sensitivity' that I've thought was useful for comparison purposes was something like:

How many inches do you have to move your mouse to swing your FPS character through a 360 degree circle.

Bypasses DPI->OS->internal game settings.Of course, this assumes no acceleration, which I also thought was the default way to do things.

[Leslieann]

Sensitivity is what you feel/how far it moves, DPI is just what the sensor is registering (this can get pretty deep due to how they operate but that's the basics).
Typically only gaming mice allow you to alter that, a few office grade now offer it but of those few actually alter the firmware.

With dpi access you can tune down to insane levels of precision, not just 6 levels or whatever Windows allows.
Everything effects sensitivity, the dpi, the sensor acceleration, the OS, even the driver, even the mousepad can alter it. It's actually amazing just how much the mousepad can change it (20% or more) and certain levels are also not always compatible on the mousing surface (sort of like how your monitor looks better on some resolutions than others).

Basically what we're doing, regardless of method to achieve it is to make it feel the same no matter if anything among those was changed so we don't have to retrain my muscle memory anytime something changes. The higher the dpi the important this becomes.

[Lanrefni]

Damn,now I feel like a weirdo,I have 3 settings on my G600,1950,3500,and 5000 DPI,it's normally set for 5000 so I can swipe across 2 monitors with maybe an inch and half of movement,I go down 3500 for things like Cyberpunk and other FPS type games.

[Leslieann]

Damn,now I feel like a weirdo,I have 3 settings on my G600,1950,3500,and 5000 DPI,it's normally set for 5000 so I can swipe across 2 monitors with maybe an inch and half of movement,I go down 3500 for things like Cyberpunk and other FPS type games.

Not weird, I cross dual 1440p screens in just under an inch.
When I played a lot of fps I used about what you use when not gaming.

The only weird part to me is having dual sensitivity, I stick to one so I'm always using the same setting.

[yui]

don't worry, you can do much stranger than that try playing with a trackpad with maxed sensitivity in most games and acceleration enabled, then peoples that you beat at FPS games will really not understand what is happening
(that was my setup when i played a decent amount of games, nowadays i do not play so i could not do it anymore)

[Darthbaggins]

Sensitivity depends on what I'm playing, most FPS I vary between 650-800 dpi - and make my adjustments in the end game settings where needed.  most other work and casual non shooters I use 1200 - 1300 dpi. I used to play with higher dpi till I swapped to a lighter mouse with a better sensor (also swapped to a hard mat over cloth).

[Leslieann]

I used to play with higher dpi till I swapped to a lighter mouse with a better sensor (also swapped to a hard mat over cloth).

My experience between the two was hard mat had about 15% higher dpi, without changing any settings.