2,5-3cm is ridiculously high. I would suggest to stick to smth like a 18-20cm/360. Will need time to adapt to such a crucial change,but at the same time this value wont requere changin aiming style too much since most of the movement would be still controlled by fingers rather then whole arm. And as for qck its standartized variant you wont go wrong with. Medium friction for cloth pads and must work for sens like that too.

Thank you for that! Would 18-20cm/360 still be considered low sens or would it be considered about in between low and high?

Depends on the game but that'd be about medium in ql.

Upper mid if you look at good players' configs, dead low if you take in to account tier 1-3

To me, 18-20 is approaching the upper limits of high sens. I don't think faster than 20 cm/360 is advisable, and I definitely do not think you should exceed 15 cm/360 under any circumstances.

I am unable to edit my OP, and just wanted to add that when referring to in-game performance, I meant, specifically, I feel as though my accuracy in-game needs more work, is using a high sensitivity compromising this or do I just need a mousepad?

Furthermore, to add insight into how much of an uncompetitive gamer I am currently, I have never used a headset before when gaming but have been looking into it recently.

I'd say that both are handicapping you significantly.

The mousepad is important for protecting your mouse's mousefeet to preserve a smooth consistent glide. A consistent glide will help you build the muscle memory needed to aim well.

A lower sens is important because I don't think the human body is capable of fine motor control at your current speed in the short window of time that you have to react.

Headphones will also help you a lot. They are required for playing well. And, the good news is that they don't have to be expensive either!

I would say ~20cm is the lower end of mid sensitivity or higher end of high sens. You can hardly find pro with smth <20cm. But at the same time this doesnt mean you should go for smth like 30-50cm since as mentioned before its completely different technique with much of forearm movement. One of the best aimers in ql stermy,or toxic in q3 times used around 22cm etc so nothing to worry about.
Atm your mouse sens is your limitation in performing good accuracies. Mousepad isnt such a big deal but having one wont hurt. And ye get some headphones for sure.

Well, there are some people with really high sens like dronsu or latrommi. And both of them have beastly aim.

Ofc there are. But those are more like exeptions imo. And since this setup didnt work for a guy guess he should try going to more reasonable values.

This at least gives me some hope in that perhaps I am better as a high sensivity player, and I would only be compromising my performance by deviating away from that? Then again, I would not know unless I try low sensitivity, so I will be soon implementing somewhere between 20 (or 15) and 45cm as suggested.

Low sens is when you play tenis with your mouse (and often be homosexual).
Mid is when you move your arm slightly.
High is when you look like paralised potat.

You are much higher than High so you can get much slower and still be high sens player.

that's a suave way to sum it up I guess!

actually, using a mousepad makes kinda a lot of an improvement, specially with the tracking guns (like LG).
But then again, it also depends on the quality of the surface you have below your mousepad (if you have a really smooth surface it could also work as a "mousepad").

imo

Regardless of sensitivity, you absolutely should have a mouse pad. They protect your mouse's mousefeet, which keeps the mouse gliding well and consistently. I recommend a big cloth single-colored (preferably black or a dark color) mousepad.

Lower sensitivity will absolutely benefit you in the long run. I recommend that you make an instant switch to some sens between 20 cm and 45 cm per 360 and stick to it. Do not change gradually. It will just waste your time because changing your sens all the time is one of the worst things you can do.

Thank you very much for that advice. My question now lies with my latest post, in that, do you maintain this same sensitivity outside of gaming? How do you cope with having to move your whole arm for general PC usage on a 24" screen? Or is it just something you just get used to?

Thanks!

If you play different FPSes or third person shooters, you should use the same sensitivity for all of them. This consistency will keep your muscle memory (and aim) strong.

When using the desktop, it's kinda hard to match sensitivity with the game because in the game you're turning around in a 3D world, and the desktop is 2D. What I do in the desktop is use a CPI where my arm/wrist movements are roughly the same as what I need to use for the game. Again, this is for consistency.

I use 400 CPI on a dual monitor setup. You cope with it by using the large mousepad, and also eventually you get used to it and it feels completely natural. Along the way, you'll teach yourself to lift your mouse up a lot, which reduces the work you have to do considerably.

Here's Cooller showing nice mousing technique with a mouse shaped similar to your Deathadder and a much lower sens. Note how he lifts the mouse a lot (even if ever so slightly). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYHZ1QNymrE

You can play with a high sensitivity and still aim really well. I personally use 37cm/360 but there are players like rapha, dem0n, latrommi, q50 who can aim really well on under 20cm and some have accel. I think you can aim really well on anything above 15cm without accel, don't need to make really precise shots most of the time in quake, it's more important to be able to turn quickly and get rockets off

I have noticed a lot of posts framed around Quake, I have never played that game before (although of course have famously known the Quake Engine built around many games). Currently I play CS:GO and BF3/BF4.

This might complicate the issue a little.

I believe these games generally benefit from lowerer sensitivities than you would use in Quake. So maybe you should go no faster than 30 cm/360 rather than 15 or 20.

Also, do these games have some sort of gun weight system? Do they require aiming down the sights, and does that change the sensitivity? These are common (terrible) "features" in games that might mess with how fast your aim can improve.

I see, thank you for that.

Yes CS:GO does, however BF3/BF4 does not use a gun weight system. Aiming down sights, yes, the sensitivity is reduced by a particular percentage which I am not so sure of my self, however I don't think it is an issue much (coming from my extreme high sens perspective of course), or does it become an issue with low sens?

As you might guess, these features end up giving you different sens for different weapons, which hurts consistency and should make improving your aim take longer.

In those games 30cm/360 is considered high/medium, I'd suggest to go for something between 40 and 50cm in CS because you never have to do a 360 but you should still have a little speed with that sens when you need it. Friberg is one of the best aimers in CSGO and he has 48cm/360.. Basing your settings on some of the top players is one of the best ways to go.

Also this guy cuadicles is right, lower dpi (under 2000) is better for FPS games. I have my mouse set to 800 and most pro players have between 400 and 1000. Also a 144hz monitor makes a massive difference for spotting people earlier and being able to track small movements.

Basing your settings on some of the top players is one of the best ways to go.

Pros have often retarded settings.

I'm not trying to say that lower CPI is better in general. It's just his particular mouse (DA 3.5G) that I think performs better at 1800 CPI or below (higher perfect control speeds, no jitter, no interpolation, or whatever). I'm not exactly sure what the benefits were because I haven't read up on that mouse in a while.

He could use 3500 CPI just fine with a mouse using those modern day 50 CPI increment sensors ( Pixart's 3310 and Logitech's 3366, I think.)

In this case, since you suggest not to gradually move from one end to another, is 30cm like you advise still a bit too high sens? Would perhaps 35cm be a good start and somewhere to stay playing at now? I know this is very arbitrary to ask ridiculous questions like this, but for me decisions are much easier when there is a 2nd opinion affirming it. Thanks!

I would try to find out what the top CS/BF aimers use. Create a range of all the different sens and pick something within the range.

Ardor says pick something between 40 and 50 cm. I would pick 40.

30cm isnt too high sens for cs. To provide examples:
-one of the best cs aimers f0rest use around this value.
-NBK 34cm
-get_right 35cm
-xizt 34cm
-hiko 30cm
-edward 29cm
All those make up top20 in cs according to this list http://www.hltv.org/news/11895-top-20-players-of-2013-ranking
So my point is go for smth like 28-35cm if you are cs/bf type of player,in order not to make that change too crucial. 3->30cm is allready x10 difference.

Yeah that's not really what I was trying to say. Native dpi is usually the best (the default the mouse has) from my experience so yeah that would be 1800 with his mouse :)

While we're on the subject, OP, we should really review ALL of your hardware. Post it for comments. It's important.

I don't think my PC specs or anything is relevant, but otherwise the mouse I am using is the Razer Deathadder (have been using this since 2007); I used to play on 1800DPI, now it's 3500DPI (after I RMA'd my first DA). I play on a 24" TN panel 1920x1200.

Do people who play with low sens, actually use that sensivity in general desktop computer usage? (i.e. whilst browsing the internet, etc)? I would find that horrendously slow. If not, I find that having them both be the same sensitivity would be more consistent, right? I believe that is how I developed my preference for high sensitivity.

For starters, you have a good mouse, but I would strongly recommend going back to 1800 CPI if not lower. The mouse performs better at CPI steps at or below 1800 (450, 900, 1800). Make sure the polling rate is 1000 Hz.

What's the refresh rate of your monitor? Ideally it should be 144Hz and 120Hz at least, and you should be getting at least 150 FPS or 125 FPS in all your games respectively. Lower your graphics or get a better CPU or GPU to meet the requirement. In short, this is to send clearer visual information to your brain faster, so you can react better and faster and improve your aim as a result.

A monitor is a big investment, so if you have a 60Hz monitor and don't want to switch, it's okay I guess, but I think you'll see a difference that's worth the cost going from 60Hz to 120 or 144Hz.

I don't know if everyone uses low sens in their desktop environment. I do because I think the consistency helps. You're right.

I have noticed a lot of discussion about lower DPI, however some of which comes back to that some players are used to the lower DPI from the mice they used to use a long time ago and have stuck with it, i.e. generally 400 DPI, is what I have seen from competitive gamers. That is, is it better to reduce the DPI/CPI rather than sensitivity and vice-versa (in other words, adjust CPI to some optimal level, and then adjust sensitivity accordingly)? Is there an optimal CPI? If not, how would one decide which is best?

Refresh rate I believe would be 60Hz; it is quite an old monitor now (~2008) however no dead pixels so I have not yet replaced it. 125+ FPS is what I do achieve in-game, most definitely. I think 144Hz is a bit extreme, however I am sure 120Hz would benefit, if marginally so? Would it really provide you a competitive advantage though? I suppose in pub matchmaking it would not matter, but would instead become more relevant in competitive clan matches or the-like. However this isn't much of a concern to me compared to the sensitivity matter.

use 1800, best dpi for deathadder

Can confirm, same with Salmosa.

Hmm, well my philosophy is to have the CPI at some (native) level that requires the same hand/arm movement style that you use in-game, so I would chose my game sens first (in inches/cm) and then adjust my CPI from there and then adjust my in-game sens. For CS type games, 400 CPI is a good value for the desktop that matches the mouse movement style.

Some people say just choose a (native) CPI level that you feel comfortable with in the desktop. This generally doesn't exceed 1800 CPI. I'd say the hot spot for people is more around 1000 CPI since that's what office mice tend to use.

Mouse sensors have CPI steps that they perform better at. These tend to be the native CPI steps (the steps the sensor was built for), and they tend to be not the highest CPIs available. You can do a google search for each mouse and its better or native CPI levels.

While we're on the subject, uninstall Razer's mouse driver software if you have it.

Thank you for all the help and information.

In regards to the drivers, is there any issues when it comes to using the Legacy drivers? I am not using Synapse, which I have heard, when uninstalled, allows the DA 2013 (this is not my mouse) to perform better but I have also heard comments saying that uninstalling it is a placebo. Does it enable acceleration or something behind the scenes?

I have no idea how their driver software works. I don't need 'em, so I don't install them.

This is very vague, but I'd bet that some of the options they offer in their driver software add processing to your input, which probably adds a couple ms of delay.

Other than lowering sens to something reasonable a monitor is the biggest and most important upgrade/piece of gaming equipment you can own.

144hz = huge upgrade over your monitor. You can get the best performance from a CRT from the dump. But they don't travel well.

LED monitors all have some lag that CRTs do not. The difference is minor between the best LED and any CRT (that can do appropriate refresh) practically speaking.

I would say desktop sens has little to no influence.
With good mouse and mousepad browsing your pr0n folders feels much better with lower sense though!

All these things about building muscle memory you can read on internetz (accel is wrong etc.) are very subjective.
You should try as many options as you can.

I think you are overcomplicating it. Matching desktop sens to game sens isnt necessery. Just lower your game sens as other mentioned to have atleast 20cm.

I agree, that makes sense, thank you.

High sens is fine, and low sens wouldn't necessarily benefit you in the long run. Yours is a bit extreme though, I'd say try anything higher than 15cm/360 at least.

Thank you. Is the reason that competitive players who play with low sensitivity are simply just adapted to such gameplay? And in other words, you could be just as accurate with high sens? From a rational point of view, I suppose it may be near implausible to reach the same degree of precision as if playing on low sens.

Common sense does say that low sensitivities allow for more accurate aiming. However, such accuracies can be achieved with a higher sens, it just takes more control over your mouse.

There's benefits to both high and low sens anyway. Movement often feels a lot better with high sens, for not having to move your mouse miles everytime you have to turn.

Extremely high sensitivities are problematic when every movement that registers skips too many on-screen pixels. If your sensitivity is as high as this guy's, there are some twitch pixel-rails that might actually be impossible to hit because he can't lock on to the specific spot needed to land it. I just played around with 1cm/360 in CPMA, and there was really noticeable pixel skipping. Even at that extremity it might not be enough to be a huge deal to any humans, but it's still not ideal.

Also, if you're playing on <10cm then you're undoubtedly playing from your wrist, which is a solid way to develop RSI. Play from the arm and you'll be a lot better off in the future.

Read my first post.

Yours is a bit extreme though, I'd say try anything higher than 15cm/360 at least.

Also, 'pixel skipping' doesn't make sense really, you shouldn't think of it as moving a pointer along a 2d screen, where pixel skipping makes sense, instead, think of the mouse as a manipulator of the viewing angle.

But at the end of the day, what you see is locked to the precision of the pixels on your screen. You can't see every possible view angle because of this. If you skip lots of pixels, that's equivalent to limiting the number of angles that you can see.

Just in increase your dpi and scale your sens value

sorry for jumping in here, but that's something i've personally been thinking about. Mouse manipulates view angle, and in such, high sens makes movement an integral part of "aiming" which is what i feel "low" sens players do not seem to understand. When moving about in a 3d world, you have essentially 5-6 axises(?) to manipulate(not true, how to describe, i'm not smart enough at this given moment) instead of 2 axises low sens players seem to "see" 3d worlds in.

I know i'm not describing it very coherently, but aiming is not a definitive answer, and therefore it could be another case of how brain interprets a 3d world, like with inverted pitch is related to that, dno.

So according to your logic. Lowsens should be benefitial here for aiming since you have to control only 2 axis/factors(or whatever we call it) instead of many and dont have to synchronize ur aiming with movement? Did I get you right?

no, just discussing that aiming can be done differently and does not have to be pixel perfect, since you can move which in turn also has effect on where crosshair is pointed.

or how to say, the other way around. When you see aiming as a part of movement, and understand that, it's another way of playing.

What your describing is when using a to low CPI step. Rauvz is right.

max dpi solves that problem... 3500 dpi+ for most new mouses.

try something between 20cm and 35cm.

use 1800dpi.

play with the same sens for weeks/months.

Thank you, will do that.

The very best aimers that ever lived (in any fps, since quake/doom/etc aim >>>> cs/cod/etc) all used below mid teens

What? Name them...

I knew some downgrade ESR would question the statement. I deleted the original comment cuz of some typos. Respond to the new one and i might bite, but better is Watch more demos/games, sir.

Or just take my word for it.

Btw, many of these are older players, but also when the scene was more competitive.

I won't take your word for it, and I won't watch some random demos from more than 10 years ago.

You make the statement, you bring the proof...

Holy SHIT Batman, u played cs with not inches, but 3cm to a 360???!?!??
???

I only know the "thresholds" in quake. As far as that is concerned, ignore every/anybody here sayin (my guess is, many more would also say it) under 20cm is too high or not ideal. The very best aimers that ever lived (in any fps, since quake/doom/etc aim >>>> cs/cod/etc) all used below mid teens, some with accel on top of upper teens/low 20s, which comes around the same feel. In quake3/QL i would say never go below 14cm, as a general rule of thumb. But in a special case, dependin on yr hands/grip/mouse/mode, maybe 12cm. 10 i highly doubt anyone would be better off vs somethin fine-tuned slower... But i cant say for 100% certainty.

If its qw/bunny hopping or doom etc, u can experiment going higher sens.

In cs, i dont know the thresholds of slow/fast limits etc... But i know u need a generally lower sens to spray well, and hit mid-long range headshots. 30 seems to be popular among good players I guess. Since yr so ridiculous already, i would say shoot for the higher end and go for sumthin like 20-23cms, at least at first. Or even upper teens before u try that.

Who knows, u may turn out to be the best cs aimer ever...


But play some quake (QuakeLive is an easy free DL), if u realy want to improve yr aim.

Well, if we look at pre-cpm vq3 lowering your sens didn't help aiming as much as it did after cpm vq3 took over because of the low tickrate on servers, heck even on lan the tickrates were low, also the setups aside from the monitors were generally worse.

btw don't listen to the guys saying that you need a diff sens for each different game you play.

you can just play with the same sens for ALL FPS.

something between 20cm and 35cm is good for ANY fps, csgo, bf, cod, quake, reflex.

Sure you can, but you'll also try to strafejump in CS and bunnyhop in ql. I do at least. For me, different settings across games tailored to my needs within those games works way better than one universal sense.

But not optimal.

I tested the FK1 vs the EC1a (arrived today) and the EC1a is ~10ms faster according to the bloody mouse test
-Z

SOMEONE TEST THE FK2 FFS.

someone test the EC1 evo FFS.

Before doing any changes, first try to determine what do you want to achieve and then experiment by changing your setup gradually.

Also, some may say that 3 cms per 360 is insanely high, but it is all relative - for example, if you use only wrist for the movement of the mouse, then it is regular high, not insane high. :)

Also, lower sens is not better or worse than high - it is just different and is a matter of personal preference.

Just thought I would add a comment after experimenting over the last 50 hours of gameplay. I recorded myself (handcam) and realised that at a sensitivity of about 18cm/360, my arm, or elbow, will not pivot to move around, rather I will unconsciously use my wrist. I believe this is because of a decade of being a wrist player. Must I somehow adapt? Or should I remain being what I have always played with, i.e. my wrists?

Clearly it is extremely difficult to play with my wrist at a lower sensitivity than what I have at the moment (which I consider a significant change from what I had before), as I tried that and during gameplay, I am constantly lifting my mouse in a small spot on the mousepad to move around. Not only do I feel this is disadvantageous, now I am wondering if there is any point in me continuing like this? It feels as though I will have to forcefully coerce myself into a learning curve to learn how to play with my arm/elbow to pivot around?
Right now, it is looking like this: http://imgur.com/PV9IT8W

So my question now is... since I am predominantly, or, for that matter, exclusively a wrist player, should I go back to my old sensitivity (or maintain around that kind of sensitivity, perhaps say +-5-10cm)? I don't think I have heard or seen any low sensitivity (20cm+) use their wrists only to play...

I have definitely noticed that my aim is more consistent with a lower sensitivity. However, playing like this, my wrists are getting more sore... so there is a trade off.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

p.s. I might create a new thread if no-one sees this comment...

sens at 18cm/360° doesn't force you to change ur style, if that's what you want.

Okay I'll keep playing and see what happens.

Can't really see much.

It looks like your mousepad is too small. Get a bigger mousepad. It's really important.

Also not sure about your posture. Elbow looks like it's too far away from your body.

Grabbed the QcK+ and it's massive. I'm only using 1/50th of it however it seems haha.

How far is too far? If it's too close, my elbow would be resting on the armrest of my chair, which I have heard causes issues in the long-run (rather the arm should be resting on the table, thus forcing the elbow to deviate away further from the body).

Look up computer posture images.

I'd say a good rule of thumb is that the elbow should not spend much time past the front of your body. If you want to rest your arm on the table, you have to really scoot in or angle your body/chair a little bit.

I don't really recommend resting your arm on the table for gaming. Supposedly it "compresses nerves and muscles", which can hurt after a while. Plus, it locks your arm in place. My personal style is more in line with those good posture images. It gives me the freedom to extend my elbow out to the side, which frees up my arm for mouse movements.

You could be right, thanks. I only started doing that from reading some comments recently, and will go back to having my elbows closer to my lats rather than in front. Moreover, out of curiosity, may I ask what is your sensitivity and how do you pivot your mouse mainly, using wrists or elbow?

I use 11.5 inches/360.

I think what I do is keep my wrist relaxed, but straight, and pivot with my elbow. I don't make any conscious efforts to lock my wrist or anything. It's loose. And, I guess I use a little bit of wrist when I make small flicks.

I think sometimes I pivot from the middle of my forearm, especially when I'm moving my mouse to the left. My hand will come towards my body while my elbow will flare out.

I don't lock my elbow in any position either.