I found this tutorial from the internet and thought I'd share because we were just talking about this with ET_Girl and MuFFiN:
Finding the right mouse sensitivity.
Some people don’t seem to pay attention to the ingame mouse sensitivity.
That means you will just have to correct your mouse gestures and also have lots of luck.
Personally the mouse sensitivity is the second most important thing in gaming, just a bit more important is your reaction speed.
High vs Low sensitivity
There are a lot of people that prefer the high sensitivity, but that’s often in other games like Counter Strike. Personally I go with the low sensitivity, like most ET players.
There are the lazy aimers, those just move their wrist because they have such high sensitivity.
But the active aimers with a low sensitivity have to move their entire arm when in close combat, only in distance shooting they use the wrist for extra stability.
Stability
Stability, that’s really important, don’t you know that situation where you aim all around the enemy except on the body? That often happens with fast settings for your mouse. You need to be very trained to handle the high sensitivity, but that doesnot mean you’re more pro if you use either a low or high sensitivity.
Pixel Skipping
Many players think you should play on the maximum dpi of your mouse (that’s the resolution of the sensor), it can help indeed because it’s so precise, but actually it’s only needed if you want to play on a high sensitivity, just to get that crosshair on the spot you want without any pixel skipping.
Pixel skipping, also a thing people don’t see as a harm… You know if your mouse skips when you move the mouse just a little bit and it goes with a jump to that direction.
Your mouse movements should be slow at any moment, because if you’re shooting an enemy that’s really far away, you will not be able to hit him at all times.
It’s just that ET it’s hitboxes are so huge that those skipping mouse players actually hit something.
Windows Sensitivity
If you’ve played on etPro servers, you probably noticed players talking about their sensitivity. Often they also ask: “What is your Windows sensitivity?”
In Windows you can set your mouse speed also, mostly on a scale of 11.
For some reason I really don’t know, ET players think they should mess around with that slider in windows, there are just a few things I have to say about this:
- Why mess with the windows sensitivity if you can just change it ingame to any precise value?
- In other games like Counter Strike players clearly state that changing this slider is pure EVIL.
Don’t touch this slider in Windows! It could make your movement uncorrect.
Just keep what goes in the game, in the game itself.
Adjusting your ingame sensitivity
So now you know about how people think about it, but you still need to find what suites you.
My prediction is that you will end up with a low sensitivity.
It’s very likely you already read the Aiming by Raziel guide.
For the ones who didn’t, I will explain it in short.
Go to an empty server or start one yourself, find a small object or mark in the map that is at headshot level, the height doesn’t really matter, the width should be as small as possible. A good example is a pole a bottle on any table, just make sure it’s not too low or high because we need to find the horizontal sensitivity.
Now start moving left and right around it and keep your aim on the same spot as much as possible.
If you notice your crosshair never really get’s at the correct spot unless you switch movement direction, you should raise your sensitivity.
If your mouse always goes to far ahead, lower it.
Can sound complicated in words, but you’ll feel what fits or not.
Also don’t be afraid to use digits after the separator. So not only 1 2 3 4 5 …, but also 1.1 1.2 1.3 or even 1.12
If you think you found the right sensitivity, try to do a 180 degree turn and turn back to another 180 degrees, do this several times.
If you come in short and didn’t get the full 180, you could consider raising the sensitivity again.
Also try this out (this is a Counter Strike method).
Aim the distance of 3 or more enemies next to the object you just practiced on. Now you will have to hit the object as fast as possible without missing it, I recommend using a pisol so you only fire 1 shot.
It’s called a flickshot. Just pull or push that mouse really fast and click, you will probably have to put tension to your arm muscles to stop at the right place. Adjust your sensitivity again and start all over from the beginning to see if this last setting suits the previous exercises.
My Sensitivity
If you want to know what sensitivity I play with, here’s my story.
I started with 30 on 800 dpi, that’s really fast and a small move will make you spin like a tornado.
Then I changed to 2.6 on the same dpi, real difference and took a while to get used.
Later I got myself a new mouse (MX518) and put it on 1800dpi, I lowered the ingame sensitivity to 0.7 which appeared to be really slow and after a few months I raised it to 1.
I started playing Counter Strike: Source and came out with the sensitivity of 1.1
Now after 5 years of gaming with low sensitivity I returned back to the 2.6 at 800 dpi and it rocks.
I found this sensitivity by the steps I just learned you!
Don’t go for the Numbers
Don’t get influenced by other players! Find your own sensitivity, it all depends on many things:
- Your OS. Windows XP, Vista and 7 all make your mouse speed a little bit different.
- Mouse acceleration (it should be turned of though, but Vista makes that hard)
- The mouse and it’s dpi
- The Frames per Second rate. A low FPS will make your mouse slow and delayed, so get an fps above 80 if possible (I use 125)
- The mouse pad / surface
- So much more…
CONCLUSION
Don’t be lucky! Know where your movement will end.
Make sure you have stability at long range combat.
Avoid pixel skipping.
A high mouse dpi is only important when playing with a fast sensitivity.
Don’t mess with your Windows sensitivity.
Practice your aim when moving/strafing, try flickshots and do some 180 turns.
Adjust your sensitivity until it fits, even if it has digits behind the separator.
Don’t let others influence you, high sensitivity can work as good as low.
Make sure your fps is stable, it can make everything feel slower or faster.
Get rid of any mouse acceleration, seriously…
Subject: Mouse sensitivity and aim 
