High mouse DPI, what's it for?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by Xendance, Mar 5, 2008.

  1. Xendance

    Xendance Guest

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    I've been thinking about this thing a lot, and came into that conclusion that it's actually quite awesome. In gaming that is.
    A lot of people seem to think that you adjust the DPI on the fly when you want to look around fast, and tone it down for more precise aiming. But wait, there's more also:

    I thought that the software mouse sensitivity is some kind of a multiplier for the actual DPI value of the mouse. Let's say that your sens. ingame is 2,4 and you want to pan your view around by 1920 pixels. Now let's assume that your DPI is 800. 2,4 times 800 = 1920, so the mouse moves to that spot you want. But there's a catch, it only moves there by 2.4 pixel increments, making it impossible for you to aim between those spots.

    If you want to aim between those spots (everyone wants to be more precise), you have to tone down the software mouse sens., let's say to about 1,2. Now your view pans around by 1.2 pixel increments, but now you'll notice that your view is panning around too slow, and you have to move your mouse like a maniac.

    To compensate this, raise your mouse DPI value. If you want to get to the exact same place as with your old 2,4 sensitivity, you're gonna have to set your mouse DPI value to 1600. Tadaa, now your view pans at a comfortable speed with more precision than before.

    This is just something I made up in my mind, I have no idea how it works in reality. But it seems quite rational to me.

    I experimented with the DPI setting while playing a game based on Unreal Engine 2.5 tech, with mouse sensitivity set to 25 and 0.75 INGAME.
    Obviously with the high sens. I had to tone down my mouse DPI. But this resulted in choppy panning of the sreen:

    Note: I exaggerated the values to give you a better idea of the situation

    http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/Xendance/RedOrchestra2008-03-0511-46-27-84.jpg

    http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/Xendance/RedOrchestra2008-03-0511-46-29-31.jpg

    The distance between those sights was the minimum distance I could pan my view around. I couldn't aim in the middle at all.

    So then I tried to set the mouse sens. to 0.75, which provided me the much needed precision in gaming. But then I also had to move my mouse about 1 meter in order to look around. So I figured that I could compensate this by setting my mouse DPI value to the max setting I could.

    http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/Xendance/RedOrchestra2008-03-0511-48-33-42.jpg

    http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/Xendance/RedOrchestra2008-03-0511-48-31-04.jpg

    Well check that out, veeeeery precise aiming and I didn't have to move my mouse around like a maniac. Now the aiming felt much, much more fluid than before.

    Thoughts? Ideas? Your own findings?
     
  2. Repo Man

    Repo Man Ancient Guru

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    yea thats more or less how ive been using mine and how ive understood it works. i have my mouse tracking set to the max dpi value wich i believe is 1800 or something on my mouse and then i just adjust the actual sensitivity from the ingame settings to my liking.
     
  3. Xendance

    Xendance Guest

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    Hehe, well then I'm not the only who sees that.
    All people I've talked to about this with other people, and every single one said that "it's there so you can adjust the speed of your mouse while playing".
     
  4. TroM

    TroM Ancient Guru

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    Uh i use a ball mouse and I still own. Good post though.
     

  5. tuco

    tuco Ancient Guru

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    I personally like a high DPI and low in-game sensitivity, better precision. I use 2000 DPI, it slightly varies from game to game but i use around 2.5-4.0 sensitivity. I never change DPI 'on the fly'.
     
  6. Lun@ticFringe

    Lun@ticFringe Member

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    Increasing the dpi is only half the solution to increased responsiveness,it will not do any good to increase the dpi if windows is only reporting it at 125 MHz.Here is a link which explains it much better than I can.
    http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/glossary/mice/polling-rate-of-mice-explained/

    Here is an additional link to download a program to increase you're rate.
    http://files.filefront.com/usbmrs11exe/;6313268;/fileinfo.html

    Oh...not recommended to set it to 1000MHz,tends to overload the processor and nullifies any gains you might achieve.I found that 500MHZ is a very good compromise and works well for me.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2008
  7. tuco

    tuco Ancient Guru

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    Ahh the benefits of dual core. 1000 for me, as tuned by mouse software control panel (copperhead) not USB rate etc.
     
  8. Terrorizor

    Terrorizor Ancient Guru

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    on my mx518/am2 system i use 1600dpi and 3 sens. in setpoint, no "on the fly" changing because thats retarded. consistancy brings more enjoyment.

    on my intellimouse explorer 3.0/core2 system i just lower sense -1 notch, its a 400dpi mouse.
     

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