How to Change Your Mouse DPI
If you’re wondering what DPI means and you clicked this article to find out why, it’s essentially the mouse sensitivity. For all those of you who are epic tech geniuses and already knew that, super brownie points for you guys.
Dots per inches, a.k.a. DPI, is essentially how fast your mouse cursor moves according to your how much pressure you put on your mouse or the trackpad movements made. Hence the term “sensitivity”.
Alright so moving forward. We know you’ve landed on this article in seek of a solution to configure your mouse DPI.
We’ll make the guess that you’re a gamer who wants to play their best in game and optimize your gaming experience. Well, congratulations on taking the first step to becoming a better gamer.
The DPI settings of your mouse can affect how well you play your game. After all, everyone is different in gaming style and technique and accommodating your tools to play the game can be crucial in winning your next match or losing it.
To adjust your mouse settings using Windows, click on the Windows icon located on the taskbar, and search for “Mouse” in the search bar (you can also access this in the Control Panel should you wish to take that route).
Next go to “Change Mouse Settings” which essentially allows you to configure your mouse to suit your preference. Factors that you may wish to change include the pointer speed which can be found in the “Pointer Options” tab.
To reach a 100 per cent mouse accuracy, the pointer speed should be configured at 6/11. However, if you are looking to adjust only your pointer speed whilst retaining a 100 per cent accuracy you will need to change your mouse DPI.
Changing Your DPI
To change your mouse DPI, you will need a gaming mouse as some generic mouses do not allow any configurations to be made on the mouse DPI.
- Firstly, go to the Mouse Properties (this is the same as the Change Mouse Settings option and the steps to access this folder were explained earlier in this article).
- Click on the “Pointer Options” tab.
- Adjust the Motion slider to configure your mouse DPI.
There is no optimal setting for your mouse DPI as this is highly subjective and varies from person to person.
Ideal mouse DPI settings are dependent on your body’s makeup including your height, your ratios, your physical dexterity, as well as the resolution of your monitor.
We recommend you to play around with the DPI settings until you find your optimal preference. A good starting point is at around 1 inch of a vertical mouse movement to allow movement of the mouse cursor from the top of the screen to the bottom.
In order to achieve this setting, you will need to set your DPI to suit your monitor’s vertical resolution.
For example, if you are using a 1080p monitor, a DPI of 1200 will be a good place to start. The higher the resolution of your monitor, the more you will need to increase your DPI to achieve the same ideal speed.
If you set your DPI at a lower rate, your mouse will have to move even further to make even the smallest precise movements.
This could be extremely useful if you’re playing a first person shooter game and require accuracy to snipe a target.
In cases where you feel that your precision is not accurate enough, you can resolve this by lowering your mouse DPI and vice versa for when you feel like you have too much speed in your favor.
Other Factors You Should Consider
You should also consider these other factors to help enhance your control over your mouse cursor and your mouse.
- Pointer Precision – make sure this is uncheck in the Mouse Settings which is usually automatically enabled as a default setting.
- Mouse Acceleration – this usually leads to a bad gaming experience due to an unnatural movement style. With mouse acceleration disabled, you will notice that your mouse cursor moves in the precise distance based on every inch your mouse moves. In other words, if you moved an inch with your mouse, you will notice the mouse cursor moves an inch as well. Move two inches with your mouse and your mouse cursor will follow moving two inches as well.
Having a consistency like this brings forth a better gaming experience as you are able to control your movements in game as you would in reality. After all, it’s all about symmetry and streamlining your in game character to yourself.
With mouse acceleration enabled, you are restricting your movement precision thus limiting your potential of playing the game as if you were controlled by a buffer in between.