Sensitivity - 16,000 DPI - Why?

H

Hurin

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 8, 2003
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2,410
Hi All,

My hand aches unless I'm using a very particularly shaped mouse. So I've stuck with a Logitech G3 for ages and ages. I finally decided my aim needed some help against you jerk kids (heh) in Star Wars Battleforce. So I went out and got a similarly-shaped Razer Mamba Tournament Edition.

It features a generation 5 laser sensor with 16,000 DPI. But, I find the mouse is absolutely crazy jumpy at anything above ~2500 DPI.

So, my question. . . what on earth is the point of the higher DPI settings? Do people actually use those settings? I've googled it, but haven't yet stumbled upon the proper combination of search terms to find anything worthwhile. Will continue to read. But thought I'd get the [H] perspective while I do so.
 
Marketing, same as 1,000 rps polling.

It all goes way over what the human nervous system can do or perceive, but hey some people buy into it.

And then everything goes out the window with a +/- 50-100ms constantly fluctuating ping anyways.
 
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This Mamba is already causing some hand-aches (I know, wah!). Wish I'd seen the Logitech G303 prior. It looks like it's an updated/space-age-ified version of the classic Logitech ambidextrous mouse. Just ordered one. Best Buy has it for only $50. Newegg is $65!
 
Hurin said:
Hi All,

My hand aches unless I'm using a very particularly shaped mouse. So I've stuck with a Logitech G3 for ages and ages. I finally decided my aim needed some help against you jerk kids (heh) in Star Wars Battleforce. So I went out and got a similarly-shaped Razer Mamba Tournament Edition.

It features a generation 5 laser sensor with 16,000 DPI. But, I find the mouse is absolutely crazy jumpy at anything above ~2500 DPI.

So, my question. . . what on earth is the point of the higher DPI settings? Do people actually use those settings? I've googled it, but haven't yet stumbled upon the proper combination of search terms to find anything worthwhile. Will continue to read. But thought I'd get the [H] perspective while I do so.
Click to expand...

Super high DPI is pointless for desktop use. In theory you could take advantage of it with a super high DPI monitor, but monitors haven't scaled in DPI nearly as much as mice have.

In first person shooters you can take advantage of it by lowering your in-game sensitivity.
For example you may normally have 10 sensitivity and 1000 DPI. If you lower your sensitivity to 1 and increase your DPI to 10000 you would have 10 times the precision with the same turn speed.

I go into it with more details on my mouse guide.
 
My understanding is that the sensors in optical mice are CMOS sensors, similar to those in a camera. Delivering 16000 dpi effectively requires them to increase the sensitivity of the sensor, really sort of like boosting the ISO, or more directly the resolution. This article explains it well:
http://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-mouse-myths-busted/
Higher DPIs mean the mouse is sampling fractions of a pixel, resulting in more detail, but also indirectly introducing noise into the signal.
 
Futureproofing for 8K and 16K monitors. That's going to be a lot of pixels to move around in.
 
My G502 goes all the way up to 12000 DPI, it wasn't the ultra high DPI I was after though, but it was the button layout and fully programmable mouse buttons that sold me on it.

High DPI is what I consider "I most likely won't ever need it, but if I do, it'll be there" thing. Not a crucial feature, but not something I'd shun away either.

I have been getting used to 2400 DPI setting on Swift, but I probably will start using 3200 DPI on my 4k, the mouse feels a little slow otherwise.
 
It's an Illuminati false flag operation to seduce clueless thralls into wasting money on so-called latest and greatest mousing tech. I'm doing just fine with my Diamondback Blue Plasma at 1600dpi.

Sic Semper Tyrannis!!!!
 
With my triple monitor setup I like to go across all three monitors without flinging my mouse across the room. I have my logitech set to 8200 DPI and I seem to be fine with it. Personal preference!
 
Marketing. Bigger number has to mean it's better right?

My M65 RGB is perpetually set at 2600DPI (with a 400DPI sniper button, useful for precise movements), which I find perfect for working across 3 1080p screens.
 
The mouse DPI thing has always been misleading to me. When I first saw advertising for it I thought I meant that it can pickup the surface in greater detail resulting in a mouse that moves SLOWER across the screen for every inch of mouse movement. It seems completely counter-intuitive and counter-productive to even call this "DPI" when the mouse moves faster. It sounds completely backwards.
 
Cerulean said:
The mouse DPI thing has always been misleading to me. When I first saw advertising for it I thought I meant that it can pickup the surface in greater detail resulting in a mouse that moves SLOWER across the screen for every inch of mouse movement. It seems completely counter-intuitive and counter-productive to even call this "DPI" when the mouse moves faster. It sounds completely backwards.
Click to expand...

It's also known as PPI, or pixels per inch, which may sound a bit more intuitive. It's the number of pixels that the cursor moves per inch the mouse moves. Another way to gain a tiny bit of accuracy is maxing out the DPI, then scaling it down in software instead of slowing down the sensor itself.
 
Personally I have never found any benefit from having a super high DPI and then scaling it back down so you can actually use it. It just felt exactly the same as a regular mouse at 500 DPI.
 
I've had 400dpi, 1200dpi, 8200dpi, and 5600dpi mice. I think the only step where I actually noticed a difference was going from 400dpi to 1200dpi, and even that could have been placebo. My current 5600dpi mouse I use at 800/1600dpi most of the time. Being able to switch DPI on-the-fly is nice, but it doesn't really matter what that DPI is IMO.

There are limitations of the human brain/muscle fidelity/reaction time, limitations of a mousing surface, built-in input lag in every game, and input lag of your display. Then on top of all that you are dealing with network lag between you and the server/other players, and whatever funky netcode solution that game uses to try to compensate for the lag.

Super high DPI just doesn't matter, but it looks good on a box or specs sheet, and there are enough people that will just say "ooooh higher number" and buy it. At this point you almost have to buy a really high DPI mouse if you want something good with a DPI toggle button though.
 
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