High Sensitivity or Low Sensitivity?

[40oz]

I always found it strange that my brother plays fast-paced games like TF2 with such low sensitivity for his mouse aiming. He can't play with high sensitivity mouse aiming, but I on the other hand can't imagine enjoying the clunky-ness of having to lift the mouse to the other side of the mousepad one, two, maybe even three times to make a full rotation. What kinda sensitivity do you prefer?

[Krispy]

LOW=======MEDIUM=======HIGH
--------------------^
------------Right about here.

[Marcaek]

Depends. I use weird values for Skulltag, low sens for oda and medium sens for PrBoom.

[Acid]

LOW=======MEDIUM=======HIGH
-------------------------^

Here for me. I don't like low sensitivty yet I don't want to spin in circles just because I tapped my mouse.

[TimeOfDeath]

I use 20 in prboom-plus. I dunno how that compares to otherseses sensitivitieses.

[Fletcher`]

Depends on the game and my framerate. With doom its usually medium-high. For minecraft I have to turn it ALL THE WAY UP, or it feels like I'm not turning at all. Most other games (that aren't fps's) I tend to leave at default.

[Mr. T]

Low sens is better for FPSes. That's why dudes often have huge mousepads. I've never played DOOM online so can't say.

[chungy]

High sensitivity, I don't know how anyone can stand low.

[PRIMEVAL]

Low sensitivity with my wireless, high sensitivity with my trackball.

[DoomUK]

Very high.

[Kira]

High. My aiming was dramatically improved after years of low sensitivity once I changed.

[Phobus]

I'm quite low in all FPS games, from what I've gathered. I tend to work on very fine aiming at the expense of turning speed.

[DoomUK]

Mr. T said:

Low sens is better for FPSes.

[citation needed]

[Bashe]

I usually use high. I don't like to have to move the mouse too far to do a 360. It just doesn't feel right to me.

[NoWits]

High sensitivity! Although, lower than I used to have it. I too can't understand the mentality behind well slow mouse sensitivities. I like to be able to do a 360 with a small movement of the mouse, but not too small.

[gemini09]

LOW=======MEDIUM=======HIGH
-----------------------^

[Coopersville]

High.

[Master Bigode]

Sensitivity doesn't matter much in doom because of autoaim, but in games like TF2 you need to set it to a low value if you want to hit anything. The crosshair just feels too jumpy otherwise.

[Maes]

Mr. T said:

I've never played DOOM online so can't say.

That explains everything ;-) Going online with a slow mouse is like trying to win a F1 race with a steering wheel that needs 3-4 turns instead of the half-turn used in sports cars.

[abyrvalg]

To make a 360° turn i have to move mouse by 15cm (wtf that almost equals the size of my schlong!). It's easy to measure, and it doesn't require a knowledge of everyone's mouse speed (in OS settings) and dpi to compare our actual sensitivities. For example, my 2500dpi mouse died a few weeks ago, and i had to switch to a 8 times higher sensitivity after swapping it with an old ~100dpi mouse, even after raising mouse speed in system settings.

I guess my sens is pretty low, and in close-quarters deathmatch that must matter a lot. In coop it does not, i'm pretty comfortable playing most extreme wads on UV in survival mode. I've also used even lower sens earlier, but that was for quake3 (which highly relies on quick and close rocket/shaft action in some maps), and i managed to win a DM tournament in our city :p So i dunno, maybe it isn't that low. Sometimes people online even use to say that my sensitivity looks very high. Which is weird.

[TimeOfDeath]

For the 360 turn method: 2.7 inches / 6.585 cm (wtf that almost equals the size of my schlong!)

[termrork]

no sensitivity

keyboard only rules! :D

http://krawaserv.dyndns.org/images/DSC01696x.JPG

[j4rio]

Around 2-3 cm depending on how fast I twinkle with mousie (you schlong freaks, I don't want to hear it!)

[Pirx]

DoomUK said:

[citation needed]

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1048954#post1048954


there are some links in that post of mine to elaborate discussions on esreality.com about the mouse sensitivity used by pro gamers (quake 3 / quake live) and they're on average in the 25-30 cm / 360° interval. generally, the slower and more aim-based the game is (think counter-strike), the lower the preferred sens is on average.

now Q3 is a very fast game, especially with the correct movement technique, but doom is still faster. in doom DM, players run by so fast, a swing shot with the ssg is often the most reliable way to kill them. that's done best with a flick of the wrist, which in turn requires a pretty high sens ( >10 cm).

that's my humble experience with mouse sens, i've experimented a lot and i think my dm play was best with high-ish sens, about 7-8 cm / 360°. hm, many years ago.

however, doom is pretty different from the pixel shooting prevalent in modern games: it's extremely fast, weapons have short range, has no head shots, but auto-aim. this facilitates a high sens play that would put one at disadvantage in tactical shooters.

i remember how a friend beat me convincingly (at a ~4:1 ratio) when i lowered my sens, i simply couldn't follow his movement fast enough to hit him reliably with a swing shot, while his shots seem to come out of his ass. once he got into close quarters, it was over. our game was very balanced before.

but in slower games my low sens was pretty much perfect, it gave me more consistency, because otherwise, moving the mouse 2 mm from the force required to click it meant the difference between a head shot or a laughable miss.

for doom, low sens is ok for single play. i'm comfortable with my current 32 cm / 360° for example. or see SAV88's HR demos - done with keyboard only. i watched them repeatedly and it seems that turning is of little importance in speedrunning, unlike getting ASAP from point A to B, with some strafe50 if possible (if i'm not mistaken).

if you like deathmatch, an opponent who can turn on a dime can be a pain.


@ j4rio: yeah, i told you i'm amazed ;)

[Urchlay]

Hm. I play with a trackball (kensington, the size of a pool ball), so the "ran out of space" problem never happens. No idea how to compare with the centimeters-for-360 figures others are posting, but I have the sensitivity cranked high enough that I do approximately a 180 if I spin the trackball and let it spin until it stops due to inertia. It doesn't take much time or effort to do a full 360, but it won't happen by accident either.

[baronofheck82]

Halfway between medium and high. Works for me.

[Avoozl]

High.

[dew]

18cm/360 (i tried to measure it with my schlong, but there seems to be no correlation)

anyways, modern FPS games do indeed favour lower sens while doom players tend to stick with higher sens. faster pace, no need for pixel-precise aiming, blah blah blah... on the other hand there's no real consensus even among doom deathmatchers. i know of elite tier guys spinning around on a few centimeters like epilepsy stricken kids and i know of others with even lower sens than mine own.

[Mogul]

This thread is nigh-useless without posting real measurements or at the very least mouse/driver configurations along with in-game (per engine) sensitivity slider descriptions.

Thanks to those of you that put in more than a few seconds of thought before posting, though.

In terms of cm --> 180/360, Q3 values work well-enough with DOOM II, provided you're not Toxic and play with something insanely low like 4cm -> 360. There are some good articles on ESReality about mouse-tweaking as well as some in-depth descriptions of Quake III pro mouse settings. It's worth taking a look as a hardcore DOOM II DMer. The kind of hardware available now and that kind of in-depth research on gamers' mice just didn't exist in DOOM II's hey-day.

[LordK]

I thought I was a low-medium player, but now that I actually measured it, my 360 was only 7 cm.

I think I've slowly drifted towards higher sensitivity over the years.