DPI vs Sensitivity

DPI is a setting on your mouse that decides how many movement counts it sends per inch; sensitivity is a setting in the game that decides how far each count turns your view. Neither one alone tells you how fast you aim. Multiply them and you get eDPI, which does, and the same eDPI feels the same no matter how you split it.

That is the whole relationship, and most of the arguments about DPI versus sens come from treating the two as rivals when they are factors in one product. The rest of this article covers what each setting actually does, why "higher DPI is better" is only half true, where polling rate fits, and which of the two you should change when something feels off.

What does DPI do?

DPI, dots per inch, is how the mouse sensor reports movement. At 800 DPI, moving the mouse one inch sends 800 counts to the computer. At 1600 DPI the same inch sends 1600 counts. The sensor is not seeing more detail at the higher setting in any meaningful sense on modern mice; it is reporting the same motion in smaller units.

DPI is set on the mouse, through a DPI button or the manufacturer's software, and it applies everywhere: desktop, browser, every game. That is its defining property. Change DPI and you have changed the input to every program at once. The CPI label some brands use, counts per inch, means the same thing.

Because it is a hardware setting, it is also the one most likely to be wrong without you noticing. A DPI button press cycles to the next stage silently, and sensors drift a few percent from their nominal value. Measuring it with the DPI analyzer is the only way to know the number for certain.

What does sensitivity do?

In-game sensitivity is a multiplier the game applies to each count before converting it into rotation. The game also has a fixed internal constant, usually called yaw, so the rotation per count is yaw × sensitivity. In Counter-Strike 2 the yaw is 0.022 degrees; in Valorant it is 0.07; in Overwatch 2 it is 0.0066.

Sensitivity lives only in the game. Change it in CS2 and Valorant does not care. Because the yaw differs per game, the same sensitivity number means something different in each one, which is why a mouse sensitivity converter exists: it matches the physical turn distance rather than the number in the menu.

DPI vs sensitivity vs eDPI vs polling rate

The two rows that actually decide how far you turn are DPI and sensitivity, and only as a pair. eDPI and cm/360 are the same information written down differently: eDPI for comparing with other players of the same game, cm/360 for carrying a setting between games. Polling rate is a separate axis entirely.

Is higher DPI better?

In the game, no. Take a CS2 player at 400 DPI and 2.2 sensitivity: that is 880 eDPI and 47.2 cm per full turn. Move them to 1600 DPI and 0.55 sensitivity and every one of those numbers is unchanged. The flick that hit a head before hits the same head after.

Where higher DPI does help is granularity. At 400 DPI each count is scaled up by 2.2 in the game, so the smallest possible movement is 2.2 times larger than at 800 DPI with 1.1. For most people this is invisible, but at very slow sensitivities a few players report smoother slow tracking with a higher DPI and a game multiplier at or below 1. This is the real case for the high DPI, low sensitivity approach.

Where higher DPI hurts is the desktop and the extremes. Push DPI to 6400 or beyond and the cursor becomes hard to place on the desktop, in-game sensitivity values become tiny decimals that menus round badly, and some sensors behave slightly worse at the top of their range. Marketing numbers of 20000 or 30000 DPI exist for the box, not for use.

The practical sweet spot is 800 to 1600 DPI with sensitivity set to taste, which is where most competitive players sit. For a longer discussion of choosing the number itself, including desk space and monitor resolution, see what DPI should I use.

High DPI, low sensitivity: when it matters

The argument for high DPI and low in-game sensitivity rests on keeping the game multiplier at or below 1. If sensitivity is above 1, each count the mouse sends becomes more than one unit of rotation, and the game cannot fill in the gaps. Below 1, the opposite: the game has more counts than it needs and can represent smaller movements.

In practice the sensitivities that would make this visible are very low. A CS2 player at 400 DPI and sensitivity 2.2 has coarser input than one at 1600 DPI and 0.55, but the difference per count is about 0.05 degrees versus 0.012 degrees, both far below what a hand can deliberately produce. It is a tie-breaker, not a reason to rebuild your setup. If you are already comfortable at 400 DPI and the game feels fine, there is no measurable gain from moving.

Does polling rate replace DPI?

Polling rate vs DPI is a false comparison because they answer different questions. DPI is how finely the mouse measures distance; polling rate is how often it reports, 125, 500, 1000 or higher times per second. A mouse at 1000 Hz sends a report every millisecond, regardless of DPI.

Higher polling rate lowers input latency slightly and makes fast movements render more smoothly, but it does not change how far anything turns. You can run 400 DPI at 1000 Hz or 3200 DPI at 125 Hz. Leave polling rate at 1000 Hz unless your mouse supports more and your system has the CPU headroom, and keep it out of your sensitivity maths. If you want to confirm the rate your mouse actually delivers, a polling rate test measures it directly.

DPI vs eDPI

DPI is an input to eDPI, not an alternative to it. When a player says they use 800 DPI, you know nothing about how fast they turn until they also tell you their sensitivity. When they say 880 eDPI in CS2, you know everything about their turn speed and nothing about how they split it.

That is why pro settings lists quote eDPI. It also explains the one trap: eDPI is only meaningful within a game. A Valorant player at 280 eDPI is turning their view at a similar physical speed to a CS2 player at 880 eDPI, because the yaw constants differ by a factor of more than three. Use eDPI to compare with players of the same game, and cm/360 for everything else.

Which should you change?

Change in-game sensitivity. It is the setting that touches only the game you are tuning, it has fine resolution, and nothing else on your system notices. Changing DPI by contrast forces a recalculation in every game you play and alters the desktop at the same time.

Set DPI once. Pick a value that makes the desktop cursor comfortable without touching the Windows pointer speed slider, prefer the sensor's native steps such as 400, 800 or 1600, and then leave it alone. If you must change it later, say for a new mouse, use the DPI calculator to get the matching sensitivity for every game before you play.

Keep Windows pointer speed at the default notch with Enhance pointer precision off. Most competitive games read raw input and ignore the slider, but the desktop does not, and games without raw input would otherwise receive scaled or accelerated counts.

Checking where you stand

Once you have both numbers, the eDPI calculator below multiplies them and shows your position against the usual pro range for your game, along with cm/360. If the DPI you type is a guess, measure it first with the DPI analyzer; an eDPI built on the wrong DPI will point you in the wrong direction, and it is the single most common reason a copied pro setting does not feel like the pro's.

Related

• DPI analyzer measures the DPI your mouse actually sends, which is the number every calculation here starts from.
• eDPI calculator multiplies DPI and sensitivity and compares the result with the pro range for your game.
• What DPI should I use helps you pick the DPI value itself.
• Mouse sensitivity converter carries your cm/360 to another game.