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mouse dpi used by top level players?

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Mesita

ziin wrote:

on high sensitivity, no matter where the circle's center is, you will always be hitting the 4 corners of the screen, which means you can spin as fast as you want, and even move the center of the circle.

It probably is easier to spin in general on a low dpi, but it's easier to spin fast on a high dpi. Recovering after the spin is a different story.
you can always hit the 4 corners on low sensitivity too... u just have to know "how to play it", low sensitivity is all about wrist. Usually people tend to move the mouse with their arm, so they don't get the full potential of it.
kriers

Mesita wrote:

ziin wrote:

on high sensitivity, no matter where the circle's center is, you will always be hitting the 4 corners of the screen, which means you can spin as fast as you want, and even move the center of the circle.

It probably is easier to spin in general on a low dpi, but it's easier to spin fast on a high dpi. Recovering after the spin is a different story.
you can always hit the 4 corners on low sensitivity too... u just have to know "how to play it", low sensitivity is all about wrist. Usually people tend to move the mouse with their arm, so they don't get the full potential of it.
You mean, usually people tend to move the mouse with their fingers, as in a clawed grip?

Higher sensitivity is great for claw grip since the mouse can easily reach every corner of the screen, which is what I think ziin is referring to.
Lower sensitivity allows for, or actually requires, arm movement to fill in the spots that can't be reached with a clawed grip. You can also use a palm grip and mainly use arm/wrist for movement.

In my case I use 100% arm for up and down and about 50% wrist for left and right.
Mesita
My live experience (LAN tournaments) taught me that most players used palm grip and arm movement... but w/e. I use low sensitivity in FPS games + claw grip and i use my wrist to play :/ no problems so far.
kriers
with 9/11 windows settings, you can easily use a clawed grip, even if you use 400/450 dpi ;p
I actually move 3 times more than you lol
D33d
I'm nowhere near a top player, but my playing improved drastically after switching to 300-400DPI. It just gives me more control, regardless of which grip I'm using. 800+ just made it really awkward to keep the cursor moving steadily, especially with streams.
Mesita

kriers wrote:

with 9/11 windows settings, you can easily use a clawed grip, even if you use 400/450 dpi ;p
I actually move 3 times more than you lol
that was osu... i ment FPS gaming. I use 6/11 and very slow sens
ziin

Mesita wrote:

you can always hit the 4 corners on low sensitivity too... u just have to know "how to play it", low sensitivity is all about wrist. Usually people tend to move the mouse with their arm, so they don't get the full potential of it.
Low sensitivity is, what, 400 dpi?

on osu, standard resolution is probably 1024x768 right? So to get all 4 corners you need to move at least 2 inches. You're telling me there are people who spin in osu using a 3 inch diameter circle? Pardon me if I am in disbelief. Such a waste of energy.

By the way, I use a palm grip, though I suppose it's similar to a claw grip. I never move my arm, except when spinning, where it's necessary to get that vertical distance. My wrist stays on the mousepad and never moves.
Mesita
i used to play 1680x1050 fullscreen, 450 dpi, 6/11 windows, no mouse precision. And yeah it is possible to hit all 4 corners that way.
kriers

ziin wrote:

on osu, standard resolution is probably 1024x768 right? So to get all 4 corners you need to move at least 2 inches. You're telling me there are people who spin in osu using a 3 inch diameter circle? Pardon me if I am in disbelief. Such a waste of energy.
I just don't get why you're always putting so much focus on energy usage. You talked about not bottoming out keyboard keys for the exact same reason.
If this game is all about being energy efficient, then I really suck at it. At the same time, I'm probably several times faster than high sensitivity mouse users, obviously because I've trained my hand to tolerate my low sensitivity while giving me much better aim.

Players should do their best to challenge their own limits and increase their amount of energy.

ziin wrote:

By the way, I use a palm grip, though I suppose it's similar to a claw grip. I never move my arm, except when spinning, where it's necessary to get that vertical distance. My wrist stays on the mousepad and never moves.
This sort of play style is commonly used, but it's more like a solution for people who can't deal with lower sensitivity. You could ask aevv about this. He'd complain that he couldn't go lower and was stuck at his medium sensitivity.
Jaay-
1000 dpi, 4/11 windows, 1.1x osu, no mouse accel. The best for me :)
NixXSkate
i use 800 dpi (windows 6/11) and 1200 dpi (windows 7/11) for fast spinning on easier maps. if anyone cares... orz
i have a feeling people that use over 4000 dpi aren't finding their dpi amount correctly, sometimes mouse settings just make no sense until you install the silly drivers
Inaba_old_1
I use 1500 dpi with windows on 5/11. Osu on 1.0x, with mouse precision on.
Quite easy for me to do jumps, once I got used to it.
I'm an average player that is able to full combo hard songs easily in a few tries, it takes me awhile to full combo songs on insane (not the crazy ones)

Give it a try.
Sprobius
I use 4/800/1600/2400/3200dpi. 4/800 - Easy | 1600 - Normal | 2400 - Hard | 3200 - Insane/Lunatic |
It's still the same for me
Mukku
I am awesome and I use 1600dpi, 6/11 windows, 1.0x osu!


lol
thelewa
MUKKUPOST
Floks
So nobody uses high mouse sensitivity? I started playing 2 weeks ago at 4900 DPI. Currently I can pass insane maps and I bumped it up to 5300 DPI because I had trouble with some of the jumps.

At 1.0x in game.

I've been gaming at a high sensitivity for awhile now, but I figured with OSU it would be more common. Also from watching videos of tablet users, the main advantage seems to be speed? They move very small amounts to cover the whole screen. I kind of related high mouse sensitivity to a tablets speed.

I have not been playing long though...
Kanye West
I've gotten so used do default sens that when I turn it up, I always overshoot everything. If you're still getting used to things i guess you can play around with sens settings and stuff though
G0r

Floks wrote:

So nobody uses high mouse sensitivity? I started playing 2 weeks ago at 4900 DPI. Currently I can pass insane maps and I bumped it up to 5300 DPI because I had trouble with some of the jumps.

At 1.0x in game.

I've been gaming at a high sensitivity for awhile now, but I figured with OSU it would be more common. Also from watching videos of tablet users, the main advantage seems to be speed? They move very small amounts to cover the whole screen. I kind of related high mouse sensitivity to a tablets speed.

I have not been playing long though...
It is flat out impossible to play accurately at an incredibly high DPI like 5300. Any small motion would send your cursor flying. The slower the cursor moves, the more hand and arm movement is needed, and this means more ability to control your muscles and move with accuracy and precision. Larger motions will always be easier to handle for a human being than small motions. Just try writing in very small letters vs. very large letters. High speed of movement is nice, but the problem is that people can't easily control very fast moving things. A machine, however, might be able to be accurate at a DPI of 5300, and probably outplay a human, since it would have the advantage of a faster cursor.

The majority of professional gamers in Starcraft 2 play at DPI below 1000, but normally not below 400. I have heard that this is a trend in professional gaming in general. As I understand it the top Osu players are usually sub 1000 too.

For many people, myself included, playing with a high DPI initially feels easier than using a low DPI, because your hand is not trained to move quickly, so the long and fast movements confound your muscles, and the high DPI can make you feel like you have more control. However, as your muscles adjust better and your muscle memory starts to learn how to make precise movements you will start to feel how difficult it is to control the cursor when it moves with that little hand movement.

Lastly, using Enhanced Pointer Precision sometimes causes people to use high DPI because their small movements get converted into lower DPI reactions by the Enhanced Pointer Precision acceleration. Turn this off in windows, if you haven't already.
Floks

G0r wrote:

It is flat out impossible to play accurately at an incredibly high DPI like 5300.
Are you serious? Feel free to watch my crappy youtube channel, but honestly all it takes is hand control instead of arm control. Link is on my profile.

Edit: And yes, I have mouse acceleration and precision turned off, I've played video games before. I have base level 5300 DPI playing fullscreen at 1440x900.
kriers

G0r wrote:

It is flat out impossible to play accurately at an incredibly high DPI like 5300. Any small motion would send your cursor flying. The slower the cursor mover, the more hand and arm movement is needed, and this means more ability to control your muscles and move with accuracy and precision. Larger motions will always be easier to handle for a human being than small motions. Just try writing in very small letters vs. very large letters. High speed of movement is nice, but the problem is that people can't easily control very fast moving things. A machine, however, might be able to be accurate at a DPI of 5300, and probably outplay a human, since it would have the advantage of a faster cursor.

The majority of professional gamers in Starcraft 2 play at DPI below 1000, but normally not below 400. I have heard that this is a trend in professional gaming in general. As I understand it the top Osu players are usually sub 1000 too.

For many people, myself included, playing with a high DPI initially feels easier than using a low DPI, because your hand is not trained to move quickly, so the long and fast movements confound your muscles, and the high DPI can make you feel like you have more control. However, as your muscles adjust better and your muscle memory starts to learn how to make precise movements you will start to feel how difficult it is to control the cursor when it moves with that little hand movement.

Lastly, using Enhanced Pointer Precision sometimes causes people to use high DPI because their small movements get converted into lower DPI reactions by the Enhanced Pointer Precision acceleration. Turn this off in windows, if you haven't already.
I agree with everything here.

Also make sure you never adjust your sensitivity. There's no way you're muscles will ever learn how to use a mouse properly if you keep reseting it's memory. Like, really, the effects of sticking to one dpi are amazing. Just think of being able to accuractely snap your cursor at any point on your screen without even having to think about it. That's what you get for sticking to the same dpi and play lots of osu! for over a year!
Valentiino

kriers wrote:

G0r wrote:

It is flat out impossible to play accurately at an incredibly high DPI like 5300. Any small motion would send your cursor flying. The slower the cursor mover, the more hand and arm movement is needed, and this means more ability to control your muscles and move with accuracy and precision. Larger motions will always be easier to handle for a human being than small motions. Just try writing in very small letters vs. very large letters. High speed of movement is nice, but the problem is that people can't easily control very fast moving things. A machine, however, might be able to be accurate at a DPI of 5300, and probably outplay a human, since it would have the advantage of a faster cursor.

The majority of professional gamers in Starcraft 2 play at DPI below 1000, but normally not below 400. I have heard that this is a trend in professional gaming in general. As I understand it the top Osu players are usually sub 1000 too.

For many people, myself included, playing with a high DPI initially feels easier than using a low DPI, because your hand is not trained to move quickly, so the long and fast movements confound your muscles, and the high DPI can make you feel like you have more control. However, as your muscles adjust better and your muscle memory starts to learn how to make precise movements you will start to feel how difficult it is to control the cursor when it moves with that little hand movement.

Lastly, using Enhanced Pointer Precision sometimes causes people to use high DPI because their small movements get converted into lower DPI reactions by the Enhanced Pointer Precision acceleration. Turn this off in windows, if you haven't already.
I agree with everything here.

Also make sure you never adjust your sensitivity. There's no way you're muscles will ever learn how to use a mouse properly if you keep reseting it's memory. Like, really, the effects of sticking to one dpi are amazing. Just think of being able to accuractely snap your cursor at any point on your screen without even having to think about it. That's what you get for sticking to the same dpi and play lots of osu! for over a year!

Until something goes terribly wrong, and you lose all your mouseskills over one day. :(
excellions

G0r wrote:

Floks wrote:

So nobody uses high mouse sensitivity? I started playing 2 weeks ago at 4900 DPI. Currently I can pass insane maps and I bumped it up to 5300 DPI because I had trouble with some of the jumps.

At 1.0x in game.

I've been gaming at a high sensitivity for awhile now, but I figured with OSU it would be more common. Also from watching videos of tablet users, the main advantage seems to be speed? They move very small amounts to cover the whole screen. I kind of related high mouse sensitivity to a tablets speed.

I have not been playing long though...
It is flat out impossible to play accurately at an incredibly high DPI like 5300. Any small motion would send your cursor flying. The slower the cursor moves, the more hand and arm movement is needed, and this means more ability to control your muscles and move with accuracy and precision. Larger motions will always be easier to handle for a human being than small motions. Just try writing in very small letters vs. very large letters. High speed of movement is nice, but the problem is that people can't easily control very fast moving things. A machine, however, might be able to be accurate at a DPI of 5300, and probably outplay a human, since it would have the advantage of a faster cursor.

The majority of professional gamers in Starcraft 2 play at DPI below 1000, but normally not below 400. I have heard that this is a trend in professional gaming in general. As I understand it the top Osu players are usually sub 1000 too.

For many people, myself included, playing with a high DPI initially feels easier than using a low DPI, because your hand is not trained to move quickly, so the long and fast movements confound your muscles, and the high DPI can make you feel like you have more control. However, as your muscles adjust better and your muscle memory starts to learn how to make precise movements you will start to feel how difficult it is to control the cursor when it moves with that little hand movement.

Lastly, using Enhanced Pointer Precision sometimes causes people to use high DPI because their small movements get converted into lower DPI reactions by the Enhanced Pointer Precision acceleration. Turn this off in windows, if you haven't already.
what makes you think that? a vast amount of players use razer abyssus or the deathadder, which are mice that can reach up to 3500 dpi.
panning around using 1920x1080 resolution with that kind of dpi is really difficult and is just not worth it

for rts games high dpi = better but for rhythm game, like osu, lower dpi = better. i prefer playing osu with 450 dpi and find it funner, while i use 1800 dpi for sc2 since its more optimal

but i agree with the rest of your post :)
RaneFire
The argument for sc2 isn't the key issue here, he's just using an example. It's a fact in first person shooters as well that a majority of the best players use extremely low sensitivities. In a game such as quake 3 defrag also, there's a different scale for what's considered low, but the best players still use a "relatively" low sensitivity by comparison. Low is better and always will be, and there is always an exception to the rule, every time, but don't follow exceptions.

Edit: Regarding "energy wastage" I do not see this as a limiting factor at all, we don't burn enough energy playing computer games to even exhaust anything but the muscles we're using, and this is muscle stamina, not energy. Stamina can only be built up by actually exerting yourself, and your stamina will always improve up until the point that you don't need any more stamina. If you never exert yourself you never build stamina, simple. This is why high sensitivity players find low sensitivities "not optimal" because they don't have the stamina. eg. arms get tired, shoulder stiffness, muscle spasms... all stamina related, not energy related.
Sakisan
1350dpi * 1.0 osu * 7/11 windows * 1024x768 windowed

Currently at insane level, still getting better everyday.
I chose this sensitivity very early on and I've always found it to be the only sensitivity that fits me.
though I never tried going under 800...
G0r

excellions wrote:

what makes you think that? a vast amount of players use razer abyssus or the deathadder, which are mice that can reach up to 3500 dpi.
panning around using 1920x1080 resolution with that kind of dpi is really difficult and is just not worth it

for rts games high dpi = better but for rhythm game, like osu, lower dpi = better. i prefer playing osu with 450 dpi and find it funner, while i use 1800 dpi for sc2 since its more optimal

but i agree with the rest of your post :)
While it is true that in SC2 there are players who use DPIs up to 1600, I have personally questioned top level players, and have been told that they use DPIs in the range that I described. Remember, SC2 players come from a background of SC:BW in many cases, and are used to very low resolutions with low DPI settings to get maximum precision from their movements. Also, the benefit of precise movement in an RTS game is just as important as in Osu!, which is why players like Day[9] have publicly said that they use low DPI, and have suggested using hotkeys to compensate for having slower movement speed across the higher resolution screen in SC2, because high DPI is only good for giving you better snap scrolling abilities, which is why some beginning players favor it when they are beginning to practice and get good.

Ranefire is correct, though. Low DPI in SC2 is not necessarily the same as low DPI in Osu! or a shooting game. It's all about what gives you the best control, though, and the best control comes from the lowest usable DPI without sacrificing movement capability.

Also, the DPI capability of a mouse does not really tell you what DPI the player will use. I use a Deathadder, and I use only 800 DPI, despite the ability of the mouse to reach 3500. The reason I use a Deathadder is that it has superior tracking vs. a cheap mouse with 800 DPI, and the difference is very clear to me when I compare it to such a mouse. I also originally wanted the ability to adjust my DPI to find the perfect setting for me. It just so happened to be 800.

I can't argue that 1600 DPI may be optimal for you when playing SC2, but then I don't know what level you play at, and I don't know how you play. For many pros, however, this is higher than they are willing to go. Not all, though. It's certainly within acceptable range for playing the game. Personally I would never confuse my muscle memory by switching DPI between applications. That's just my methodology.
ziin
Ugh, I need a new mouse.

When playing at 400 DPI, the mouse steadily drifts down I'm assuming because of the mouse acceleration.

I may just go back to 1600 DPI because the acceleration is negligible then.
G0r
What do you mean by acceleration here, Ziin?
-Athena-
I believe he means hardware acceleration
Read: the kind you can't turn off (eg. Steelseries Kinzu)
RaneFire

ziin wrote:

Ugh, I need a new mouse.

When playing at 400 DPI, the mouse steadily drifts down I'm assuming because of the mouse acceleration.

I may just go back to 1600 DPI because the acceleration is negligible then.
You also need to consider that you are used to a high DPI. By this I mean the general function of a mouse, when you draw a straight line with a mouse, your hand moves in an arc shape, not a straight line. In gameplay it's a much more complex combination of hand movements. It took quite a while to subconsciously fix the way my hand wanted to arc to the left more as I played, causing my cursor to drift to the bottom left. I tilted my mouse slightly to the right about 5 degrees, and the reverse happened, it drifted to the bottom right.
kriers

RaneFire wrote:

ziin wrote:

Ugh, I need a new mouse.

When playing at 400 DPI, the mouse steadily drifts down I'm assuming because of the mouse acceleration.

I may just go back to 1600 DPI because the acceleration is negligible then.
You also need to consider that you are used to a high DPI. By this I mean the general function of a mouse, when you draw a straight line with a mouse, your hand moves in an arc shape, not a straight line. In gameplay it's a much more complex combination of hand movements. It took quite a while to subconsciously fix the way my hand wanted to arc to the left more as I played, causing my cursor to go to the bottom left. I tilted my mouse slightly to the right about 5 degrees, and the reverse happened, it went to the bottom right.
I realized recently that I'm not moving as much as I did before. It's mostly thanks to balancing the use of wrist and arm in both directions. If I were to use my wrist unevenly, I'd end up hugging my kb or stretching my arm out 45 degrees.
G0r
I used to notice an odd drift with my mouse at high DPIs. Back when I was still testing different settings I was using a really high DPI (I think it was around 1300-1600), and I noticed that when I would move the mouse quickly, such as while doing a spinner, it would actually have a small drift in tracking to the left. It was very strange. I would start out with the mouse on the center of my pad, but after two or three spinners it would be just about on the edge of the pad on the left. I really couldn't explain it except that the tracking must be faulty when the DPI is set high. The movements probably just don't get picked up very well when the speed picks up. At lower DPI (800), I have not noticed this problem, however. It might just be because any drift is too small to really feel until much movement has been expended.
excellions

G0r wrote:

excellions wrote:

what makes you think that? a vast amount of players use razer abyssus or the deathadder, which are mice that can reach up to 3500 dpi.
panning around using 1920x1080 resolution with that kind of dpi is really difficult and is just not worth it

for rts games high dpi = better but for rhythm game, like osu, lower dpi = better. i prefer playing osu with 450 dpi and find it funner, while i use 1800 dpi for sc2 since its more optimal

but i agree with the rest of your post :)
While it is true that in SC2 there are players who use DPIs up to 1600, I have personally questioned top level players, and have been told that they use DPIs in the range that I described. Remember, SC2 players come from a background of SC:BW in many cases, and are used to very low resolutions with low DPI settings to get maximum precision from their movements. Also, the benefit of precise movement in an RTS game is just as important as in Osu!, which is why players like Day[9] have publicly said that they use low DPI, and have suggested using hotkeys to compensate for having slower movement speed across the higher resolution screen in SC2, because high DPI is only good for giving you better snap scrolling abilities, which is why some beginning players favor it when they are beginning to practice and get good.

Ranefire is correct, though. Low DPI in SC2 is not necessarily the same as low DPI in Osu! or a shooting game. It's all about what gives you the best control, though, and the best control comes from the lowest usable DPI without sacrificing movement capability.

Also, the DPI capability of a mouse does not really tell you what DPI the player will use. I use a Deathadder, and I use only 800 DPI, despite the ability of the mouse to reach 3500. The reason I use a Deathadder is that it has superior tracking vs. a cheap mouse with 800 DPI, and the difference is very clear to me when I compare it to such a mouse. I also originally wanted the ability to adjust my DPI to find the perfect setting for me. It just so happened to be 800.

I can't argue that 1600 DPI may be optimal for you when playing SC2, but then I don't know what level you play at, and I don't know how you play. For many pros, however, this is higher than they are willing to go. Not all, though. It's certainly within acceptable range for playing the game. Personally I would never confuse my muscle memory by switching DPI between applications. That's just my methodology.
Day9 isn't the perfect example for low DPI preference, since he was only a competitive player in BW, but of course there are many pro who have played bw+sc2 that can vouch for using low DPI.
If day9 were to be a player in SC2 it might be a different story regarding DPI preference. When a player switches to a higher resolution, he can still change to a different DPI. It doesn't take very long to adjust, though it is likely that the player would prefer staying with the settings used up until then.

I play by using mostly the minimap + hotkeys and still prefer 1800 DPI. As for the level I play at, I play at masters level(sc2ranks). One of the main reasons I can't use lower than 800 DPI is because I'd have to change my grip to use it in either game. I hold the mouse somewhat loosely and can't really do that if I have to move my whole hand around, I guess it's just a matter of preference(I've always been a high DPI user). Because of this, I sacrifice some precision, but it isn't game-breaking unless I use like 5000DPI.

Of course it's bad to switch between DPIs and would mess with muscle memory, I play one game more than the other. Though it's fun as hell to play osu with 450 dpi.
Cyclone


At the 5700 dpi
Mukku

limneosgreen wrote:

i use 1600dpi for osu, lol
Me too!!!
BeatofIke
I play 400 dpi with mouse acceleration. Works best for me. :D
Floks
That awkward moment when you realize that switching to a smaller resolution changes the aspect ratio from 16/10 to 4/3...

Then I remembered I can set my mouses x and y axis to different DPI. So now I play at 4000x and 4800y at 640x480 resolution. Loving it so far. Of course I need to remember to change it back for things other than OSU XD
Utar_old
i am confused. i read here that the most of u players play under 1000 dpi. WTF?
sorry, but i cant understand how u can aim on some hard or insane songs. i play on 7/11 on windows, 2x on osu, and 7000 dpi on my mouse D:
is smth wrong with me?? :?
Icyteru
how do you aim with that sensitivity?
Sup A Noob
And I thought I was crazy
TakuMii

Utar wrote:

i am confused. i read here that the most of u players play under 1000 dpi. WTF?
sorry, but i cant understand how u can aim on some hard or insane songs. i play on 7/11 on windows, 2x on osu, and 7000 dpi on my mouse D:
is smth wrong with me?? :?
i can't understand how you aim with those settings
if you add the windows and osu multipliers together, you're using the equivalent to 21000 dpi
what even

serious answer: having a lower DPI means circles will cover more physical area, allowing for more accuracy/less room for error.
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