What’s your go-to mouse DPI for FPS games?

[wheresmycar]

Multiple selections enabled. If your DPI varies by game, weapon type, etc - feel free to choose all that apply and share in comments.

Damn it, messed up the last poll selection, its "1300+". Tried editing, didn't work.

 

[lexluthermiester]

My mouse can run at 1000hz, but I have it set for 500hz mostly because I can't see/tell any difference. 250hz is something I can notice. So 500hz is the sweetspot, for me anyway.

 

[Drash]

I'm currently running 12,000 dpi at 1000Hz although I cant tell the difference between that and 500Hz so might reduce. What's with all the low number choices - amidoingitwrong?

 

[LabRat 891]

I'm currently running 12,000 dpi at 1000Hz although I cant tell the difference between that and 500Hz so might reduce. What's with all the low number choices - amidoingitwrong?

Lil misjudged on the options.
Even back in the day, 1600dpi was my go-to setting on MX518, G5, etc.

Looks like these days I've gotten used to 2800dpi. 'Stock' preset-ranges were mostly another decimal place over. 32k dpi, 16k dpi, etc.

I've settled into using this Attack Shark R3 wired w/ a Dream Cables USB-C cable. Wireless was nice but it's extremely noisy here, and the battery life was disappointing @ high polling rates.

 

[Frizz]

Razer Viper Pro V3 user here and Val/CS2 player.

800 DPI @8000hz Polling Rate seems the most appropriate and 0.16 sensitivity in Valorant. Mouse Precision & Smoothing off.

Most games I play now mainly single player games have too high of a sensitivity, Val & CS2 really refine mouse accuracy that no other game can!

 

[Athlonite]

12000DPI and 1000Hz poling rate on my Logitech G502

 

[Apocalypsee]

Whatever the Deathadder Essential comes as default, I don't install their software. From Google it says it was 1600DPI by default

 

[lexluthermiester]

What's with all the low number choices - amidoingitwrong?

No. For everyday general computing, polling rates of 125hz is just fine. It's only when one gets into gaming that polling latency starts to factor in and then only with games that require faster reaction times, like Doom, CSGO and OverWatch for example. For sim, rts and other slower games, faster polling rates will not make a difference. Hell for those games, the 60hz polling rates of older optical mice work fine.

The reality is if you don't need the extra response rates, turn it down to reduce USB bandwidth load/use.

 

[Chomiq]

What's with the DPI selection in poll

1600 DPI at 1000 Hz.

Should have made the poll with just 2x of previous value, i.e. 400, 800, 1600, 3200

 

[Onasi]

1600 DPI. For everything in general. In-game sensitivity multiplier varies on the game. Usually I used something that gave me ~30cm/360 rotation, but nowadays with lighter mice I lowered it to 35cm for a tad more control. Recently ordered a Heavy Bee Redtail pad, will see how that affects things.

@lexluthermiester
Lex, thread is about DPI/CPI, not polling rate. Different things.

 

[lexluthermiester]

@lexluthermiester
Lex, thread is about DPI/CPI, not polling rate. Different things.

True. People often mistake DPI for polling rates. Given the poll selections, that is what they seemed to be talking about. Let's clarify.

@wheresmycar
Which did you mean? Dots per inch optical resolution or the polling rate of the mouse?

 

[Chrispy_]

For a long long time, all the mice I used were 400dpi, and I built up muscle memory at 400dpi

When USB mice came along, 800dpi was the norm, so I used that for years and simply halved my in-game sensitivities which worked for most games.

I've become accustomed (ie, developed accurate muscle memory) to 400dpi per 1024pixels of horizontal screen space, and in the early days of DirectInput, there were multiple modes developers tended to pick: raw/filtered/relative/positional/absolute. Whenever a game offered it, I would take raw @ "400dpi per 1024 pixels wide" and then scale it to the screen resolution I was running. Even if games didn't take positionalal/absolute cursor coordinates, having a cursor behave exactly the same way for in-game menus as the way my cursor behaved on my desktop was still important to me (because many FPS games tend to have mouse-driven menu elements).

So I use:

• 800dpi @ 1080p
• 1100dpi @ 2560p
• 1600dpi @ 4K

 

[lexluthermiester]

I've been using 1600dpi since I got this mouse, it's been nice, especially for image editing.

 

[Chrispy_]

True. People often mistake DPI for polling rates. Given the poll selections, that is what they seemed to be talking about. Let's clarify.

@wheresmycar
Which did you mean? Dots per inch optical resolution or the polling rate of the mouse?

If you're the one person who voted 500 thinking it was 500Hz, then the 3 people who voted for 1000 aren't necessarily assuming it's 1000Hz, since 1000dpi is an exceptionally common DPI for office and budget gaming mice. I can't be sure which manufacturer sells the most mice, but most of the non-gaming mice are 1000dpi these days.

 

[Vayra86]

600-800 DPI is optimal for me, combined with the right sensitivity which tends to be around the neutral slider position (5~6 / 10).
With these settings I have the right arm/wrist movement to not get much fatigue, keep accuracy, and be able to reach every corner of the real estate quickly. Regardless of game/type.

Polling 1000hz - which is fine regardless, don't need more, shouldn't be much less.

 

[Chrispy_]

I'm currently running 12,000 dpi at 1000Hz although I cant tell the difference between that and 500Hz so might reduce. What's with all the low number choices - amidoingitwrong?

I've never understood people who run at high dpi counts, you must have your cursor sensitivity in windows cranked all the way to the left, rather than its default middle position because if I put my mouse on 16000dpi, I can cross an entire 4K desktop in 1cm of mouse movement, which makes clicking on things accurately quite difficult for me.

0 (the middle of the slider in windows) was traditionally the only accurate position; Moving the slider introduced rounding errors and count-skipping which hurts your muscle memory, accuracy, and can be felt at low speeds (careful aiming) so I've always left it at zero in the middle and disabled mouse acceleration to ensure that what my mouse reports to the game is accurate.

as for amidoingitwrong? - I'm not doubting that 12,000 dpi works for you but do you use that natively, or do you have to compensate for that by turning down sensitivity in windows and game settings? If the answer to that is no, are you one of those people who would spin several times on the spot if you suddenly moved your mouse a couple of inches to the right?

 

[lexluthermiester]

If you're the one person who voted 500 thinking it was 500Hz, then the 3 people who voted for 1000 aren't necessarily assuming it's 1000Hz, since 1000dpi is an exceptionally common DPI for office and budget gaming mice. I can't be sure which manufacturer sells the most mice, but most of the non-gaming mice are 1000dpi these days.

I changed my vote to 1300+ as I'm running 1600DPI. The OP is experienced enough they likely meant DPI as stated instead of HZ. I may have presumed a bit much there.

 

[Drash]

I've never understood people who run at high dpi counts, you must have your cursor sensitivity in windows cranked all the way to the left, rather than its default middle position because if I put my mouse on 16000dpi, I can cross an entire 4K desktop in 1cm of mouse movement, which makes clicking on things accurately quite difficult for me.

0 (the middle of the slider in windows) was traditionally the only accurate position; Moving the slider introduced rounding errors and count-skipping which hurts your muscle memory, accuracy, and can be felt at low speeds (careful aiming) so I've always left it at zero in the middle and disabled mouse acceleration to ensure that what my mouse reports to the game is accurate.

as for amidoingitwrong? - I'm not doubting that 12,000 dpi works for you but do you use that natively, or do you have to compensate for that by turning down sensitivity in windows and game settings? If the answer to that is no, are you one of those people who would spin several times on the spot if you suddenly moved your mouse a couple of inches to the right?

Using this https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Mouse_Settings + internet to work out why the hell they sell 40,000dpi mice, yet if you select more than 1000dpi every time you cough you spin like a dervish.

So, thinking "I paid for it, I'll get max value", I found, for me, MPP on, 12000dpi with mouse setting 2 (12000/5=2400?) seems smoother than just running 2400dpi and center position. That gives me roughly 1 inch to travel across my 1080p screen. I do have to occasionally/often-ish change according to game-de-jour, and I also have Deathadder clutch mode set to 6000dpi if I need to snipe. I wish they did the clutch setting as a % of current dpi. Those settings are way too fast on a smooth mat but work great on the "Control" (textured) side of my ancient aluminium eXactMat.

Not 100% sure that article has MPP the right way around, but...

Just what I got used to I suppose. I think high DPI might be better for mitigating RSI, but clutching there maybe.

 

[authorized]

I've never understood people who run at high dpi counts, you must have your cursor sensitivity in windows cranked all the way to the left, rather than its default middle position because if I put my mouse on 16000dpi, I can cross an entire 4K desktop in 1cm of mouse movement, which makes clicking on things accurately quite difficult for me.

I thought that's the whole idea? Low sensivity for smooth and precise aiming.

 

[Chrispy_]

Using this https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Mouse_Settings + internet to work out why the hell they sell 40,000dpi mice, yet if you select more than 1000dpi every time you cough you spin like a dervish.

So, thinking "I paid for it, I'll get max value", I found, for me, MPP on, 12000dpi with mouse setting 2 (12000/5=2400?) seems smoother than just running 2400dpi and center position. That gives me roughly 1 inch to travel across my 1080p screen. I do have to occasionally/often-ish change according to game-de-jour, and I also have Deathadder clutch mode set to 6000dpi if I need to snipe. I wish they did the clutch setting as a % of current dpi. Those settings are way too fast on a smooth mat but work great on the "Control" (textured) side of my ancient aluminium eXactMat.

Not 100% sure that article has MPP the right way around, but...

Just what I got used to I suppose. I think high DPI might be better for mitigating RSI, but clutching there maybe.

I mean, if it works for you then it works.

I honestly don't know if Microsoft have fixed the rounding error and count-dropping that has been around if you moved the sensitivity slider away from the middle position in windows, but it was a known issue since Windows 95 and it persisted all the way through to Windows 7 at least.

Because there's 20+ years of it being broken, I've just built "do not touch the slider" into my mouse settings, which isn't very hard to do given that many modern mice have adjustable DPI and almost all games allow you to change the sensitivity at the game engine level, without having to touch the OS mouse settings.

 

[Onasi]

Just what I got used to I suppose. I think high DPI might be better for mitigating RSI, but clutching there maybe.

DPI doesn’t really matter for this, what actually matters is the real in-game sensitivity which all normal mouse enthusiasts express in cm/360. Unless we talk purely desktop use. In any case, extremely high sensitivity of any sort pretty much enforces pure wrist aim, which is mostly agreed to be WORSE in terms of RSI than involving your arm more.

Can I just reiterate that the whole premise of the thread is a bit scuffed? It talks about DPI for FPS games, but again - DPI doesn’t actually matter. 1600 at 2 in-game is the same as 800 at 4 or 400 at 8. There are SOME benefits to higher DPI in terms of THEORETICALLY faster registration of STARTING the mouse movement, but it’s minor at best. That, and using higher DPI makes some sense with higher (above 1000Hz) polling rates in order to actually properly saturate them.

 

[bug]

This poll is invalid by design, you can't consider dpi without considering monitor size and resolution.

Personally, I haven't played a shooter in years, but what I like about my Logitech G502 is that it has an "aim" button that will reduce the dpi so you can do precise movements much easier. It's useful even outside games, when you want to scroll more accurately or something like that.

 

[Drash]

DPI doesn’t really matter for this, what actually matters is the real in-game sensitivity which all normal mouse enthusiasts express in cm/360. Unless we talk purely desktop use. In any case, extremely high sensitivity of any sort pretty much enforces pure wrist aim, which is mostly agreed to be WORSE in terms of RSI than involving your arm more.

Can I just reiterate that the whole premise of the thread is a bit scuffed? It talks about DPI for FPS games, but again - DPI doesn’t actually matter. 1600 at 2 in-game is the same as 800 at 4 or 400 at 8. There are SOME benefits to higher DPI in terms of THEORETICALLY faster registration of STARTING the mouse movement, but it’s minor at best. That, and using higher DPI makes some sense with higher (above 1000Hz) polling rates in order to actually properly saturate them.

My mat comes with a gel wrist rest, I can remove it but that seems so wrong - the little rise it gives with my forearm on the desk seems so comfortable. But with the rest all I can do is wrist movement - the CAD guy at work has stupid low DPI setting and moves his whole arm around like he's raving. Looks super daft.

This poll is invalid by design, you can't consider dpi without considering monitor size and resolution.

Personally, I haven't played a shooter in years, but what I like about my Logitech G502 is that it has an "aim" button that will reduce the dpi so you can do precise movements much easier. It's useful even outside games, when you want to scroll more accurately or something like that.

Sounds same as Razer Deathadder clutch button - super useful sometimes.

 

[Kovoet]

I run two settings mainly for the likes of when running around with my character I usually run it at 900 but when in the likes of a helicopter I slow it right down when on the gun

 

[wheresmycar]

Oops, what a numpty - a case of classic tunnel vision on my part. Over 6 years deeply immersed in 1440p and just in that moment living in that bubble, I forgot the rest of the world exists. Yep the poll is boshed to the bone, blanking all you 1080p die-hards and 4K pixel-loons. Thats what happens spending all Sunday with the fam and finally at midnight getting a quick game in. The next thing you know its 2.30am and you're still pissed about the constantly shifting DPI OCD and then the pixel numpty decides to jump on TPU with a bubble bursting poll (AT THE GLOBAL LEVEL).

With default Windows mouse settings (mid-point cursor speed), I can't for the life of me stretch beyond 850 DPI (1k PR) at 1440p. I'm occasionally cycling 50 increments between 700-850 DPI. It wasn't always like this, until shifting to Win 11... usually you'd just select the setting which best compliments your gameplay, give it time and muscle memory does the rest. Nowadays, its tight knit adjustments on the fly and when the need arises finding that sweet spot can be annoying... OCD-level annoying!

My second gaming setup is linked to our living room 4K tele. I'm a close-up distance junky for the occasional 4K game when no ones around. DPI for this resolution is set to 1200 and then +50 increments up to 1600 (well, somewhere in that region).... I'm am wandering though, those of you who are reporting considerably higher DPI configs, are you using stock OS settings? maybe some shifting in gears with in-game mouse sensitivities or perhaps some sort of preconfigured game-mode? For example, at 1440p, for me anything above 1000 DPI (1K PR) is nothing short of a Houdini Mice Act, playing hide-and-seek magic tricks. A little flick of the mice, GONE!