Author Topic: [Guide] Background of Mouse Movement (Basic Mouse/Sensitivity)  (Read 3027 times)

Offline pysn

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I decided to create this guide in order to share my knowledge about the background of your mouse movement.

Lets start explaining concepts:

Mouse DPI/CPI

DPI/CPI stands for "Dots/Counts per inch. It's the value of how many pixels your cursor moves when you slide your mouse for an inch. A common misconception about this is that thinking your mice doesn't have a DPI because if it had, it would be written on the product, that's not quite correct. Your cursor moves when you move your mouse therefore there is a ratio of how many pixels are traveled per inch which is the definition of DPI. Another misconception is higher DPI means better performance/accuracy/quality/whatsoever, this is totally pointless.DPI isn't more than a ratio, it will just increase the sensitivity of the mouse, nothing else in theory yet things are even exactly opposite in practice because most mice actually perform worse in higher DPIs.They jitter, accelerate or freeze.

Native DPI

The sensor in your mouse allows you to scan the surface and it will display counts on the surface with the rays coming from the sensor's lens and matrix. Native DPI is the number of counts that could be displayed on the surface. Mouse drivers will multiply this in the mouse itself in order to let you adjust your DPI.

Windows Sensitivity

There is an option in Windows to set your mouse sensitivity. Type "Mouse" into your search bar to open it, click on "Additional Mouse Options" if you are on Windows 10, then finally click on "Pointer Options" to view the option, it is recommended that you use the 6th notch out of 11. This works right like your mouse drivers but it will multiply your mouse input in the operating system instead of in the mouse itself. Some settings will lead you to data loss and some will lead you to pixel skipping when used as input from a game, and angle skipping as well. You can see them below with the actual multipliers.

Multipliers

1st notch out of 11 = 0.03125
2nd notch out of 11 = 0.0625
3rd notch out of 11 = 0.25
4th notch out of 11 = 0.5
5th notch out of 11 = 0.75
6th notch out of 11 = 1
7th notch out of 11 = 1.5
8th notch out of 11 = 2
9th notch out of 11 = 2.5
10th notch out of 11 = 3
11th notch out of 11 = 3.5

Chart

8/11: 222222222222
7/11: 121212121212
6/11: 111111111111
5/11: 111011101110
4/11: 101010101010
3/11: 100010001000

As seen above, the 5th notch for example will cut one input in every 4 in order to get your desired sensitivity yet it will lead to data loss.

Ingame Sensitivity

Your in-game sensitivity as well works just like the mouse driver and Windows sensitivity. There is only one true in-game sensitivity that gets multiplied in-game in order to adjust your sensitivity. This leads to angle skipping if you will use a high in-game sensitivity. If the game is designed to turn 1 degree per 1 input for example, and you will increase your sensitivity to 10 times greater than the desired, your smallest possible movement will register a 10-degree turn and you will be skipping the angles between.

Jitter

Jittery, twitchy mouse movement due to sensor noise problem or similar. To test this, simply open up Paint and do the similar shapes with the smallest thickness possible (pencil tool), left ones are done in 500 DPI and the right ones are 4000 DPI in my Steelseries Rival mouse, as seen higher DPI jitters as expected.

Exact DPI

This is what you get when you multiply everything that affects your mouse sensitivity.I mean, mouse sensitivity so not mouse Hz or acceleration.

For example,
If you are using 400 DPI and 2 sensitivity while having raw input, your eDPI is 400 * 2 = 800
If you are using 400 DPI and 2 sensitivity while having raw input off and Windows sensitivity on 5/11, your eDPI is 400 * 2 * 0.75(Windows Multiplier) = 600

So the eDPI of someone with 400 DPI and 2 sensitivity actually equals someone else with 800 DPI and 1 sensitivity supposing their other settings are the same. Also, they are doing the same mouse movement(talking about starting and ending positions, otherwise the one that has lower in-game sensitivity will skip fewer angles) when they both swipe equally X inches, coincidence? I don't think so cause as their eDPI are the same, we could say they are actually using the same sensitivity.

cm/360

We use centimeters(or any distance units)/360 degrees as a shortcut to bypass calculations involving FOV (field of view) and such, it is simply how much distance you travel in order to do a 360 degrees horizontal turn. Don't forget that this indicates sensitivity so measuring this with acceleration will lead to inconsistent results.

Acceleration

Acceleration was created for everyday and office. When you have acceleration enabled from your mouse driver, Windows, or in-game; your mouse movement will get affected by how fast you move your mouse. For example, if you will swipe your mouse 1 inch faster, you will travel distance on-screen and if you will swipe your mouse very slowly for 1 inch you will travel less distance on your screen. There is a thing to keep in mind that Windows' acceleration is inconsistent. Most professional gamers, for example, don't use it so it's recommended to have it off yet there are some other amazing players that do great with it. If you are interested in using mouse acceleration, there are types of it like positive and negative ones, there are also great programs that create consistent ones so you should be searching for it on Google for more information.

How to test if you have mouse acceleration:

1. A good way to test if you have acceleration is to place your mouse somewhere that you can see its starting position.
2. Looking at a specific place in-game or putting your cursor on a specific place on the screen.
3. Swiping your mouse quickly.
4. Getting back to your starting position slowly.

If you end up in the same place, it means you don't have acceleration. Try to do the test with horizontal swipes only.

How to disable mouse acceleration from Windows:
1. Type "Mouse" into your search bar and open it.
2a. Go to the Additional mouse options. (Windows 10)
2b. Go to "Pointer Options"
3. Uncheck the box "Enhance pointer precision".
4. Click "Apply"

Raw Input

Raw input means getting the mouse input from directly the mouse itself. If a program has raw input on, it will get the mouse input from directly the mouse itself therefore your windows sensitivity, etc. will have no effect on your mouse movement.

Mouse HZ/Polling rate

This is how many times your mouse sends and inputs in seconds, common values are written below.

HZ & Delay(ms)
125 & 8
250 & 4
500 & 2
1000 & 1

Lift Off Distance

This is the distance the mouse needs to be lifted from the mousepad to make the sensor stop tracking. This is one of the very rare known tips for doing fast snaps, especially in Quake high-level players will lift their mouse at an angle and they won't stop moving their mouse after they lift it for a bit in order to do faster snaps. You can do a tape trick in order to lower your lift-off distance as seen.

Malfunction Speed

If you will swipe your mouse faster than this speed, it won't track. This speed is fairly low for low-sensitivity gamers at least in cheap mice.

Pixel Walk

At very low speeds, the mouse could not detect that it is being moved so even though you are moving the mouse, you wouldn't get any input. You can swipe for miles with this speed and don't do anything on the screen at all.

Prediction/Angle Snapping/Mouse Correction

This is a feature that exists in some mice which corrects your mouse movement to straight lines. It is not created for gaming and it could obviously lead to irresponsible mouse movements.

Conclusion and Reference:

This is way more than enough already. If you are interested, you can read the article below, if it will be too overwhelming you can also simply Google the terms that you wonder about, and always contact me if you would like to ask something (related to this post), thank you!

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/tech-support/333648-an-overview-of-mouse-technology
« Last Edit: 22 10, 2022, 01:46:18 pm by iFrank »


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Rexion

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Re: Background of Mouse Movement (Basic Mouse/Sensitivity Guide)
« Reply #1 on: 22 05, 2017, 07:07:50 pm »
Although mouse sensitivity are rare case not most players face it but it will come as handy in time, Excellent over all guide, well done.

Offline pysn

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Re: Background of Mouse Movement (Basic Mouse/Sensitivity Guide)
« Reply #2 on: 22 05, 2017, 10:04:53 pm »
Although mouse sensitivity are rare case not most players face it but it will come as handy in time, Excellent over all guide, well done.
Dunno if its unclear but this is not a solution for a problem or something, this is just the background of your mouse sensitivity and movement for those who wanna get aware of it, thank you.


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Offline iFrank

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Re: Guide: Background of Mouse Movement (Basic Mouse/Sensitivity)
« Reply #3 on: 22 10, 2022, 01:42:42 pm »
 :thumb:

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