How much dpi do you really need??

How much dpi do you really need??

Lets start with some basics.
Control panel sensitivity needs to be kept at the center so that the mouse movement being sent by the mouse
is scaled 1:1. i.e one unit of movement by the mouse makes u move one pixel on your 2d screen.
This is an important setting. Turn on windows magnifier and play around with the various cpanel sensitivities and see the smoothness.
Max smoothness will come at 1:1 scaling.
This normally occurs at notch 6/11 in windows i.e exact center.

Now after you have scaled your mouse sens to 1:1 in the control panel
lets get down to the game.

When you move your mouse 1 mickey (is what it is called, smallest movement that will result in the mouse saying i moved)
then this is passed on to windows. Windows scales it and passes it onto the game. Saying that the mouse moved x pixels.
The game then takes these x pixels and converts it to a movement in the world you are in
I am primarily into fps so lets talk about the fps genre.
The fps world is 3d.
So when you want to turn you are going to rotate in degrees
x/y.

Urban Myth #1: Sensitivity depends on resolution.
No!! IT depends on control panel sens, in game sens, mfix/accel settings and any noforce commands in games like counter strike.

The in game sens has nothing to do with screen resolution/fsaa etc in a well designed game.
The in game world is not 2d. Your turning is done in degrees not in pixels!!!
Don't believe me?
Measure your # of turns with sensitivity 3 in cs at one res/fsaa setting then change and try again!

The 1 mickey that comes from the mouse is going to result in
smallest movement allowed by the game engine in degrees * your chosen in game sens.

So if you really want smooth movement from your mouse ideally the max smoothness would be when the game is also giving you 1:1
scaling with respect to the smallest turn allowed in game
i.e you move the mouse smallest amount possible, 1 mickey and the game moves you the smallest amount possible.


Myth #2: Higher dpi is always better. NO!!

The question is how much dpi do you really need??
Well for the purpose of smoothness what you want to do is scale 1:1 in both windows cp and in game
So just figure out whether you are able to turn enough in game with these settings!!
If you aren't able to turn enough you need more dpi :)

Example from a theoretical perspective for low sens games like cs
lets say the game engine lets you move only 1/10th of a degree in any direction minimum

Now if you want to do a 1 degree turn your mouse will have to send 10 mickeys
to do a 360 turn we would need 360*10= 3600 mickeys

Now if you want to turn 360 degrees in 12 inches you would need
3600 (dots)/12 inches = 300 dpi

Concrete examples
pros using 400 dpi mice in counter strike cp mid
in game sens 1-2-3-4; 4-5 is usually the max that most pros will use
Some of these people could benefit by using higher dpi mouse.
How??
400 dpi * 1 sens = 800 dpi * 0.5?? no go in cs 1.6 game won't let you set that so the user would set control panel sens down effectively throwing away some of the dpi , total waste.

400 dpi * sens 2 = 800 dpi * sens 1 same turning rate but slightly smoother movement
400 dpi * sens 3 = 1200 dpi * sens 1 smoother movement easier to notice if u zoom in and see the smoothness there
400 dpi * sens 4 = 1600 dpi * sens 1 much smoother movement should be visually apparent even without the scope
400 dpi * sens 5= 2000 dpi * sens 1 visually obvious improvements in smoothness

So the way i see it there is hardly a pro cs player out there who needs more than 1600-2000 dpi.
Anything beyond that is marketing.
If you wanna fall for it fine :)

P.S: My settings for quake where one can use a much higher sensitivity.
I have bought a G9
my old sens = mx310
800 dpi * 5 , new sens = 3200 dpi * 1.25

For CS though
all i need is 800 dpi * 3
so 2400 dpi * 1 would suffice.
Right now still sticking with the old mouse because I am simply more comfortable with it and it is lighter.
i do a lot of mouse lifting/replacing in cs.

G9 weighs in at 115gms and mx310 at 100gms.

Mice I reccomend:
My experience with mice:
I have owned logitech wingman type old school mouse, intellimouse (ball mouse), intellimouse explorer, logitech second gen opti.
I am a big fan of logitech. They make gr8 products. I have also owned lots of razer mice boomslang 2000 dpi (ball would spin when lifting, not cool),
razer viper (it was a new gen mouse and yet it could not handle high accel) worthless mouse really for fps. It was worse than my 800 dpi second gen opti.
Subsequently i bought an mx310.
Later I had the urge to upgrade to 1600 dpi. Got the razer diamondback (had a minor clicking problem). Got it changed once, twice, replcaed with mx518, good solid mouse a bit big though. Very comfy for general use. Not perfect for my style though (hybrid claw/palm grip user)
Very recently bought a logitech g9.

My recos based on personal exp.
CS gamers
mx310/g3 (lefties/people who like smaller mice)
intellimouse opti/intelli 3.0 if u like medium sized mice.
g9 if you like heavier mice (again slightly smaller mouse)

If you like bigger mice
then mx518/g5/g5 refresh

If you are a razer fan then check out their site they have an excellent explanation of their products and they'll be able to answer your queries regarding
mouse size/fit/speed etc
Razer now seems to have a mouse for just about every hand type
small/mid/large
and every grip
fingertip/claw/palm

As for the dpi. I hope my small explanation will help some people to make an informed decision when splurging for a mouse. :)

P.S: This article doesn't take into account game engines which allow for < 1 sens
i.e inifinitely low turning rates.
ex. source engine your ingame sens could be 0.1 you could use 3200 dpi and still be a low sens player :)
i.e 320 dpi * 1
With these games one could easily use the highest dpi mouse available.
Just have to be careful about one thing.
You don't want a situation where moving your mouse results in no movement in game.
i.e weird scaling.
ex in windows if you set your cpanel sens at weird levels sometimes you would get a scaling
where 1 mickey=1 pixel then 1 mickey = 0 pixels. Now this just means that one piece of data is thrown away i.e you are using half your dpi. Even worse is when you do
1 mickey , 1 pixel then 1 mickey = 1 pixel and on the third movement 1 mickey=0 pixels
i.e every 3rd movement is thrown away. This will create jerky/weird movement.
I don't think however that any modern 3d engine game would scale the mouse sens in this fashion.
So in a perfect 3d engine? and if you had the perfect monitor. lots and lots of pixels
Then sure higher dpi would always be better.
But if you're running at low res that high dpi won't help you in your 2d mousing.
in game if you are running at already low sens levels and approaching the bare min movement the game will let you turn then the higher dpi won't help in game (ex. cs 1.6 min sens = 1)
Also there is probably a limit to how finely one can move their hand so beyond a certain pt maybe higher dpi won't help.
Have we hit that dpi already? I am not really sure about this look it up.
For general windows usage I feel comfortable with 1600 dpi
I have 2 24" screens, 1920*1200 side by side. So 1600 is comfy 2400 is also fine. 3200 feels too touchy. Maybe if the pixel density on my monitor was higher or if I had 2 more monitors in a 2*2 config then i would appreciate the full 3200 dpi.

Lemme give another example with cameras.
Higher megapixel always better?? Yes subject to
a) your budget :)
b) your subject. If you are photographing black and white pixels (printed text) (i.e scanning documents) you might not need insane dpi. (especially if the source document is a 300 dpi fax!)
c) If you are cataloguing/scanning a masterpiece (painting) you wouldn't want to skip
1mega mega pixel camera might not be enough for the purists in this situation :D
d) your rendering medium. If you're gonna capture a masterpiece then publish a 100*100 pixel jpeg i am not so sure its gonna really help. lower res camera would look just as good.

Cs Source Vs Cs 1.6
1) Source seems to have smoother movement especially on the net when one gets shot
in 1.6 you will get pulled back few feet. This affects a) your aim
b) the feeling of continuity/realism
Another side effect of this is that when you get shot you're still moving at a decent clip and you might be harder to hit especially for people who cannot aim.
For instance in 1.6 there will be the crouching people who will aim at a doorway. You try to strafe in, first bullet hits you, now you're stuck remainder will also hit. Only choice u have is to either jump or crouch. If you jump your accuracy goes to hell. If you crouch: 50/50 if your opponent was aiming for your head u live if he was aiming for your chest you're probably gonna get shot in the head now.
Just check how often people crouch and win in cs 1.6 and compare with cs:s :)

In CS:S I often end up outturning/out maneuvering my opponents. Running circles around people with a plain old deagle! To me that is fun. I am sure people who prefer to crouch and spray will disagree. But anyone who has played fps for a decent amount of time and knows how to circle strafe is likely to prefer the movement in CS:S over cs 1.6.

2) I think the weapon spreads etc have not really been tweaked that much, however the crosshair in source zooms in more. It becomes one tiny pixel wide in the center with ak/aug even when standing up. This is representative of the actual bullet that will come out.
I.e perfect headshot. While in cs 1.6 the crosshair is well always a little spread out.

Overall once you get used to it the cs 1.6 crosshair might actually help your aim.


Why are people still playing 1.6?
a) poor hardware
b) stuck in old times, emotional attatchment to cs 1.6
c) not willing to play at a slightly lower level for even a few days before reacquiring old aim or even surpassing old skill levels.
In cs:s you can totally dominate once you learn how to strafe.

Anyway around 4 months ago you would have found 0 players on the one and only indian cs:S server. The scenario is now improving a bit; the cs:s server is often loaded during peak hours at night and even during random hours you can find a few players on the server.
While the traffic on the cs:S server is still not as high as 1.6 servers i think that will change over time.

I'll post a video later to demonstrate the diff in getting shot while strafing in cs 1.6 vs cs:s