DPI Explained
Dots per inch (DPI) is a measurement of how sensitive a mouse is. The higher a mouse’s DPI, the farther the cursor on your screen will move when you move the mouse. A mouse with a higher DPI setting detects and reacts to smaller movements.
A higher DPI isn’t always better. You don’t want your mouse cursor to fly all the way across the screen when you move your mouse a little bit. On the other hand, a higher DPI setting helps your mouse detect and respond to smaller movements so you can point at things more accurately. For example, let’s say you’re playing a first-person shooter game. When zooming in with a sniper rifle and trying to precisely aim at small targets, a high DPI could be valuable by allowing you to smoothly aim with small mouse movements. When playing the game normally without a zoomed in sniper rifle, this high DPI may be too sensitive. This is why many high-end gaming mouse have buttons that you can flick to switch between DPI settings on the fly when playing a game.
DPI is different from the typical mouse sensitivity setting. DPI refers to a mouse’s hardware capabilities, while sensitivity is just a software setting. For example, let’s say you have a very cheap mouse with low DPI and you crank up the sensitivity. If you tried to aim at small targets, you’ll see the mouse cursor jump around as you move it. The mouse hardware isn’t as sensitive, so it doesn’t detect the smaller movements. Your operating system just compensates by moving your cursor farther when it does detect a movement, so the movement isn’t as smooth.
A high DPI mouse can also be paired with a low sensitivity setting, so the cursor won’t fly across the screen when you move it but the movement will stay smooth.
High-DPI mice are more useful if you have a higher-resolution monitor. If you’re playing a game on a low-resolution 1366×768 laptop screen, you don’t necessarily need that high DPI. On the other hand, if you’re playing a game on a 3840×2160 4K monitor, a higher DPI lets you move your mouse cursor across the screen smoothly without having to drag your mouse across your entire desk.
