CPS KING

Mouse acceleration and Enhance pointer precision

Mouse acceleration makes the pointer travel further when you move the mouse fast than when you move it slowly over the same distance. Windows calls it Enhance pointer precision and macOS calls it Pointer acceleration; both are on by default. For aiming in games most players turn it off, so the same hand movement always turns the view by the same amount.

Pointer travel for the same hand movement Acceleration off Acceleration on Slow Fast How fast you move the mouse
With acceleration off, the pointer covers the same distance however fast you move. With it on, a slow movement covers less and a fast one more. The curve is a sketch: each system and mouse app uses its own.

Why aimers turn it off

Aim is muscle memory: you learn how far to move your hand to turn by a given angle. With acceleration on, that distance changes with the speed of the flick, so a fast flick overshoots and a slow correction falls short. With it off, your sensitivity means one thing, and the distance for a full turn that the eDPI calculator works out stays true. Acceleration is not a fault; some people like it on the desktop, with a small mouse pad and a large screen.

Turn it off on Windows

  1. Press Windows + R, type main.cpl and press Enter. (Or open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Mouse > Additional mouse settings.)
  2. Open the Pointer Options tab.
  3. Untick Enhance pointer precision.
  4. Click OK.

Fast moves will feel slower until you get used to it. If desktop work feels too slow, move the Select a pointer speed slider on the same tab; games that read raw input ignore that slider too.

Turn it off on a Mac

Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click Mouse in the sidebar, click Advanced, then turn off Pointer acceleration. The switch arrived in macOS Sonoma (14); earlier versions have no setting for it. Tracking speed, on the same page, sets how far the pointer goes.

In games

Many shooters read the mouse's raw input, the counts straight from the sensor, which skips Windows' pointer settings, Enhance pointer precision included; their mouse settings often have a Raw input switch for it. Some games also have a mouse acceleration setting of their own: turn that off too. The app that sets your mouse's DPI can add acceleration as well, so check there.

A ten-second check

Push the pointer against the left edge of the screen. Move the mouse slowly a hand's width to the right, between two marks on your pad, and note where the pointer stops. Push it back to the edge, return the mouse to the first mark and make the same movement fast. With acceleration off, the pointer stops in about the same place; if the fast movement carries it much further, something is still accelerating it.

Then find your sensitivity with the eDPI calculator and warm up on the aim trainer.

Aim trainer