This establishes an upper boundary for the subsequent process of tuning your DPI. If your mouse has specific features or quirks which negatively effect performance beyond a certain DPI, treat that as the maximum instead of the sensor’s native resolution.
When in doubt, test the sensitivity with something simple to see if it’s more to your liking. Playing Solitaire is usually a good a idea.
Some games might use different and ambiguous terminology to refer to the above, for example using “Aim Smoothing” instead of “Acceleration”. If in doubt, you can ask each game’s community for an explanation.
If your mouse-hand is pulling the crosshair off the point / cursor off your character you are “overshooting” what you are aiming for, and as such either your DPI or your Sensitivity is too high. If you can lower your DPI to fix this whilst keeping your Sensitivity at 1, do so. Otherwise you’ll have to lower your Sensitivity below 1 to compensate instead. If your strafing is pulling the crosshair off the point or your target is out-running the cursor in a MOBA, you are “undershooting” what you are aiming for and your DPI or Sensitivity is too low. If your mouse’s DPI is below the maximum NATIVE resolution for its sensor, you should raise the DPI until you no longer undershoot. If your mouse’s DPI is at the native resolution, or you cannot change your mouse’s DPI, you need to increase the sensitivity instead.
If your crosshair / cursor goes past what you’re trying to aim at, you are “overshooting”, and need to lower your DPI or Sensitivity as described in the previous Step. If your crosshair / cursor doesn’t quite reach what you’re trying to aim at, you are “undershooting” and need to raise your DPI or Sensitivity as described in the previous Step. Repeat this step as many times as necessary in order to fine-tune this to perfection.
This value might be represented by sliders for different scope magnifications (as in PUBG); or a numerical slider under an individual hero’s control-configuration (as with Widowmaker in Overwatch, with the number representing a percentage of base sensitivity); or just a numerical variable controlled via a console command or configuration file script (zoomed_sensitivity_ratio in TF2). Some games (for example, World of Tanks) have a separate in-game Sensitivity slider for top-down views (artillery). The same principle applies.
