When you are shopping for a new gaming mouse
then you will notice the insanely high DPI values supported by current sensors. But while the sensor can go up to 20 000DPI
or even more, many players have their mouse set to just
400DPI or even less for various reason. So how does the DPI setting affect your gaming
experience, and more importantly,
does it have an impact on the input lag of your mouse? If you have ever played around with different
DPI values then you know that it affects how strongly
an application responds to your input. Here I have restricted how far I can move
my mouse to the left and to the right. At 100 DPI my character does not turn very
far when I move my mouse. When I increase the DPI value from 100 to
400 then moving my mouse over the same distance
causes a stronger response. Which increases further when I set it to 1600DPI. So when you increase the DPI value you increase
the sensitivity of the sensor which tracks the movement of your mouse. Which then causes the game to have a stronger
response to your input. But how much or even if that affects the input
lag of your mouse has been a hot topic for many years. So to answer this question I used one of my
special input lag testing machines which you can find out more about in the video
I linked to in the description. For the first test I had the linear solenoid
push the plate below the mouse at the slowest speed possible. Which meant that from a stand still it took
the plate 99ms to travel the first 10mm Even though this is the slowest speed I can
get with my linear solenoid, it is not that slow when you look at it in
real time. In fact while gaming you will find yourself
moving your mouse even slower than that. Now, with the monitor set to 144Hz
and the LDAT Display Test Software running at 144 Frames per second,
I measured an average system latency of 42.72ms with the Razer Deathadder V2 Pro set to 100
DPI. At 200DPI the system latency was 10ms lower When I doubled the DPI value again to 400
the system latency was reduced by another 6ms Doubling it again to 800DPI lead to 3ms less
lag But doubling the DPI value 2 more times showed
diminishing returns. That said by simply increasing the DPI setting
from 100 to 1600 I could cut the system latency in half. When I then connect the average delays you
can see how the input lag is affected by the DPI value. The results also show that - at a specific
speed - there is a limit were increasing the DPI value further does not result in a noticeable
delay reduction. Now what happens when I have the linear solenoid
push the plate as fast as it can. Which means that it will move about 3 times
faster and only need 31ms to travel the first 10mm. That speed is quite fast as you can see when
you look at it in real time. I suppose this speed qualifies as a so called
flick shot. So when I pushed the plate with the slowest
speed possible, I measured 21.59ms on average at 1600DPI. But when I pushed it as fast as I can,
I measured 22.48ms on average at 100DPI Doubling the DPI value 5 times while having
the mouse move at that fast speed Only had a very small impact on the measured
system latency. So the speed at which you move your mouse
is a very important factor when it comes to how the selected DPI value affects the input
lag of your mouse. When you do a flick shot
then the select DPI value has a very small impact on the input lag of your mouse because
of how fast you move it. That said how accuracy is affected by the
DPI setting is an entirely different topic which I am not looking into in today’s video. Now, most of the time you don’t do a flick
shot, you move your mouse slower,
much slower in fact than what I used for my slow speed test. Going back to having the mouse move at a slower
speed with the monitors refresh rate set to 360Hz
and the LDAT Display Test software running at 500FPS
we see that the delays are lower than before at 144Hz and 144FPS But at that speed we again see that the input
lag of the mouse is strongly affected by the selected DPI value. However when I send the mouse flying across
the desk the DPI value again has a minor impact on the
delays. So based on my tests it is clear that the
selected DPI value has an impact on the end-to-end latency that you are subjected to. The slower you move the mouse the stronger
the delay is affected by the selected DPI value. And as I said the slow speed I tested with
is still faster than what you will move your mouse at while you are in example tracking
an enemy. And if I could move the mouse slower in my
tests then we would also see DPI values of 3200
and more have a stronger impact on the delays. Which then provides an argument to use DPI
values greater than 3200 to reduce system latency. Again, I focused on system latency in my video,
not accuracy. which depending on the quality of the mouse
sensor might be an additional argument for using even higher DPI values. So, I do not want to tell you what DPI setting
you should use nor do I dare to declare a specific DPI value
to be the Ultimate value everyone must use. But lest say that based on the data I provided
you want to increase the DPI setting on your mouse to 800 or 1600 which seem like reasonable
default values. If you do not like how strong a game responds
to a higher DPI value, then you can tone it down by adjusting the
sensitivity ingame. But the DPI value does not just affect games,
it also affects the mouse cursor on the windows desktop. Luckily you can adjust that as well. However, if you find that the sensitivity
option in a certain game, or the one in windows does not give you the
desired result. then most mice support DPI profiles or stages
you can switch between. So you could have one stage set to 400DPI,
which you use on the windows desktop And another set to like 1600DPI that you switch
to for gaming. Most gaming mice also allow you use a button
to switch between different DPI values, So switching between like 400 and 1600DPI
can be done on the fly. Well, and that is it for today! Shoutout to my awesome patrons who keep my
channel alive with their support – if you would like to join them then you can find
a link to my patreon in the description down below. If you enjoyed this video then please give
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and I hope to see you next time! Until then,
have a nice day and take care, my name is Chris
and this was Battle(non)sense
