What is the difference between mouse Acceleration, Pointer speed and DPI and how to adjust them for gaming?

Question

What is the difference between mouse Acceleration, Pointer speed and DPI? How to adjust them to get best gaming experience?

Solution

This site should answer some of your questions. Here's a quick summary:

Mouse acceleration is a setting you can toggle on and off. When it's off, the distance your cursor moves on the screen will match the distance you move the physical mouse exactly. When it's on, the speed at which you move the mouse is taken into account - moving the physical mouse more quickly will cause the cursor to travel farther. The site I linked recommends turning this off for gaming.

Pointer speed isn't covered in detail in the article I linked above, but in concept it's identical to DPI (or "dots per inch"): a higher pointer speed means your cursor will travel more pixels for every inch the mouse was moved. Apparently it's recommended to keep the default settings for pointer speed on Windows (6/11) and instead adjust your mouse's DPI through its own software.

As for gaming, it comes down to personal preference, and probably depends on what games you're talking about, too. I recommend messing around with your mouse's settings in Control Panel/Mouse, and if you have a special gaming mouse, it probably has special software or physical buttons that will give you even more control.

PS: Máté has a point - I found both of the resources I linked after googling the exact wording of your question.

Comments

[Máté Juhász]

"What is the difference between mouse Acceleration, Pointer speed and DPI? " - Have you tried googling it? Should be plenty of resources online. "How to adjust them to get best gaming experience?" - that depends on the performance of your pc, your mouse, the game you want to play, your personal style/ preferences...

[Anaksunaman]

@vasili111 You should have look at this link - - eliteownage.com/mouseguide.html

[vasili111]

@MátéJuhász Just received badge "Famous Question" (over 10 000 views) for this question. It seems google still does not provide good help with this question.