Gear GeeksGaming

Sensitivity and aim

Sensitivity is the only part of your setup that is pure arithmetic. There is a correct way to compare two settings, a correct way to move one between games, and a correct way to choose one in the first place. Almost none of it is a matter of taste, and the part that is a matter of taste is smaller than the internet believes.

The five things worth knowing

  • cm/360 is the only universal unit. eDPI is comparable inside one game and meaningless outside it.
  • DPI does not affect your aim once eDPI is held constant. It affects sensor behaviour at the extremes, and nothing else.
  • Consistency beats optimality by a wide margin. A mediocre sensitivity you have used for a year outperforms a perfect one you adopted last week.
  • Every conversion between games is exact, because engines publish or expose a fixed rotation-per-count constant.
  • Acceleration is not "cheating yourself". It is a different skill with a worse learning curve and no ceiling advantage, which is why nobody at the top uses it.

Start here

If you have never thought about this properly, work through these three in order. It takes about twenty minutes and you will not need to revisit it.

  1. What cm/360 is, and why it replaces every other way of quoting a sensitivity.
  2. How to find yours, with a process that ends in a number rather than in more browsing.
  3. Check that nothing is scaling your input behind your back.

Then, if you play more than one title, convert your settled value across rather than re-deriving it. And if you want to practise the mapping you have just settled, aim training covers what a trainer can and cannot do.

The calculators

The reference ladder

The table below is the one we come back to most often. Find the turn distance you want on the left, read the sensitivity that produces it in each engine family.

The cm/360 ladder. Pick a distance, read the sensitivity you need in each family at 800 DPI, and the eDPI it works out to.
cm/360Aiming style CS2 / Apex / Source sens @800Valorant sens @800Overwatch 2 / CoD sens @800 eDPI (Source family)
15 cmVery high (wrist) 3.4641.08911.55 2771
20 cmVery high (wrist) 2.5980.8168.66 2078
25 cmHigh (wrist and fingers) 2.0780.6536.93 1663
30 cmHigh (wrist and fingers) 1.7320.5445.77 1385
35 cmMedium (wrist plus forearm) 1.4840.4674.95 1188
40 cmMedium (wrist plus forearm) 1.2990.4084.33 1039
45 cmMedium (wrist plus forearm) 1.1550.3633.85 924
50 cmLow (forearm) 1.0390.3273.46 831
60 cmLow (forearm) 0.8660.2722.89 693
70 cmVery low (full arm) 0.7420.2332.47 594
80 cmVery low (full arm) 0.6490.2042.16 520

Every guide in Sensitivity & Aim