This eDPI calculator answers the question that comes up every time somebody shares their settings: what does that actually feel like? Mouse DPI on its own means nothing, in-game sensitivity on its own means nothing, and only the product of the two — effective DPI — describes how far the view turns for a given hand movement. From there the tool converts into centimetres per 360 degrees, which is the only figure that survives a change of game.
Arb Digital publishes it as part of a large free tools library. The page is deliberately narrow: it does not recommend a sensitivity, it does not claim any setting is better than another, and it does not pretend the turn constants for every game are officially documented, because most of them are not. What it does is the arithmetic, exactly and repeatably.
What This eDPI Calculator Does
Enter your mouse DPI and your in-game sensitivity and the headline figure is effective DPI, the simple product of the two. That number lets you compare two players' settings within the same game, and it is the figure most professional player settings lists publish.
The supporting grid goes further. Centimetres and inches per 360 degrees tell you the physical distance your hand must travel to spin the camera all the way round — the number that actually determines whether you need a large mousepad and whether a flick is a wrist movement or an arm movement. Counts per 360 is the same figure in raw mouse counts, independent of DPI entirely. The fourth figure is the sensitivity that would reproduce your current feel in a different game, given that game's turn constant and whatever DPI you plan to use there.
The bar strip shows how cm/360 changes across a range of eDPI values at your current turn constant, with your own setting marked. It makes the inverse relationship obvious: doubling eDPI halves the distance, and the curve is steep at low eDPI and shallow at high eDPI, which is why small changes matter far more to low-sensitivity players.
How to Use It
- Read your real DPI from the driver. Not the marketing figure on the box — the value actually set on the active profile, which is often a step you did not choose.
- Copy the in-game sensitivity exactly. Including every decimal place. Rounding 1.35 to 1.4 changes cm/360 by about four per cent.
- Set the source turn constant. Pick the family your game belongs to, or enter a measured value if you have one.
- Set the target constant and DPI for the game you want to convert into, and read the matching sensitivity from the grid.
- Verify the conversion in game. Turn 360 degrees against a fixed reference point in both games and check your hand travelled the same distance.
The Formula / How It's Calculated
Effective DPI is mouse DPI × in-game sensitivity. At 800 DPI and 0.5 sensitivity that is 400 eDPI. Two players at 400 eDPI in the same game turn the camera by the same amount for the same hand movement, regardless of whether one is at 400 DPI and sensitivity 1 and the other at 1,600 DPI and sensitivity 0.25.
Converting into physical distance needs one more number: the turn constant, which is how many degrees the camera rotates per mouse count at sensitivity 1. Counts per full turn is 360 ÷ (turn constant × sensitivity), and dividing that by DPI gives inches per 360. Multiply by 2.54 for centimetres.
Worked example. Mouse DPI 800, sensitivity 0.5, turn constant 0.022. Counts per 360 is 360 ÷ (0.022 × 0.5) = 360 ÷ 0.011 = 32,727 counts. Dividing by 800 DPI gives 40.909 inches, which is 103.9 cm per 360 degrees. That is the well-known figure for 400 eDPI in Source-engine shooters, and it is a useful sanity check on any calculator claiming to do this.
Cross-game conversion equalises the physical distance rather than the sensitivity number. The matching sensitivity is (source constant × source sensitivity × source DPI) ÷ (target constant × target DPI). Taking the same 800 DPI and 0.5 into a game with a 0.07 constant at the same DPI gives (0.022 × 0.5 × 800) ÷ (0.07 × 800) = 8.8 ÷ 56 = 0.157. The numbers look nothing alike; the hand movement is identical.
Why eDPI Alone Does Not Transfer Between Games
The most common mistake in settings discussions is treating eDPI as a universal unit. It is not. It is only comparable inside a single game, because each game applies its own scaling between the sensitivity number and the actual rotation. Two games can take the identical eDPI and turn the camera at completely different rates.
That is why the same player's published settings look wildly inconsistent across titles — a sensitivity of 2.5 in one game and 0.35 in another can be exactly the same feel. Anyone who copies an eDPI figure across a game boundary without converting will end up somewhere arbitrary, and will usually conclude the new game "feels wrong" rather than noticing the arithmetic error.
Centimetres per 360 is the unit that does transfer, because it measures a distance your arm actually moves rather than a number in a menu. If you only remember one figure from your settings, make it that one. It also tells you something eDPI cannot: whether your setting is physically possible on your desk. A 60 cm/360 setting needs 60 cm of clear travel for a single full turn, which is wider than many mousepads.
Field of View Changes the Feel Even When the Maths Matches
A perfectly converted sensitivity can still feel wrong, and the usual culprit is field of view. Games that scale aiming by the zoom level — most scoped weapons, and some entire games — change the effective turn rate whenever FOV changes, so a conversion that is exact at the default view is not exact when you are scoped in.
There are several competing conventions for how a game should scale sensitivity with zoom, and different titles pick different ones. Matching hipfire perfectly therefore does not guarantee matching scoped aim, and players who care about both usually accept a compromise: match the view they spend most of their time in and adjust the other by feel.
The related trap is monitor aspect ratio. A wider display at the same vertical FOV shows more horizontal world, which changes how far a target appears to move for the same rotation even though the rotation itself is unchanged. The aspect ratio calculator and the screen size calculator cover the display side of this, and the DPI and PPI calculator deals with pixel density, which is a separate meaning of DPI and a frequent source of confusion.
DPI, CPI and the Numbers Your Mouse Actually Reports
Mouse sensitivity is measured in counts per inch, so CPI is the technically correct term and DPI is the one everyone uses. Logitech's own explanation of mouse sensitivity treats the two as interchangeable, which is a fair reflection of how the industry labels the setting.
Two practical points follow. First, sensors do not always deliver the DPI printed on the dial — many older sensors were only accurate at specific steps and interpolated everything between them, which is why 400, 800 and 1,600 became conventional choices. Logitech's gaming mouse guide covers what modern sensors and DPI adjustment do and do not affect. Second, any operating system pointer acceleration or enhanced-pointer-precision setting sits on top of everything this calculator computes and makes the physical distance non-constant, so a converted setting will only hold if acceleration is off.
Polling rate is a separate parameter that people sometimes confuse with sensitivity. It sets how often the mouse reports its position, not how far the view turns, and Logitech's explanation of polling rate covers what it does affect. Changing it does not change eDPI or cm/360 at all.
Why High-DPI and Low-Sensitivity Is Not Automatically Better
A popular claim is that raising DPI and lowering in-game sensitivity to keep eDPI constant produces finer control. On a modern sensor the practical difference is small, because the limiting factor is usually the game's internal rounding rather than the mouse's resolution.
Where it does matter is at the extremes. Very low DPI combined with a high in-game sensitivity can make small movements land on visibly discrete steps, because each mouse count turns the camera a long way. Very high DPI can expose sensor noise and, in some engines, causes the game to round every tiny movement to zero. Sitting somewhere in the middle avoids both, which is most of the reason the conventional range persists.
What genuinely affects consistency is the physical setup: enough desk space for your cm/360, a grip you can repeat, and no acceleration in the chain. If you are testing whether a change has helped, measure something objective rather than trusting the feeling of novelty — the reaction time calculator and the K/D ratio calculator both give you numbers to compare against a baseline.
Arb Digital's social media team plans and grows channels for creators and gaming brands, and the free tools library covers the analytics maths behind it.
Social Media Marketing Talk to Arb DigitalCommon Mistakes to Avoid
- Copying an eDPI figure between games — each game scales sensitivity differently, so the same eDPI produces different turn rates.
- Leaving pointer acceleration on — it makes the distance-per-turn depend on how fast you move, which breaks every figure on this page.
- Rounding the in-game sensitivity — dropping a decimal place can shift cm/360 by several per cent, which is more than most people can hold consistently.
- Assuming the DPI on the box is the DPI in use — driver profiles frequently sit on a step nobody deliberately chose.
- Expecting scoped aim to match automatically — zoom sensitivity scaling follows a separate convention that varies between titles.
Related Free Tools From Arb Digital
Handle screen geometry with the screen size calculator and the aspect ratio calculator, check display pixel density with the DPI and PPI calculator, and convert the distance figures with the length converter. On the performance side, the reaction time calculator and the K/D ratio calculator give you measurable baselines. Everything else is in the free online tools hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Effective DPI is mouse DPI multiplied by in-game sensitivity. It describes how far the camera turns for a given hand movement within one game, which neither DPI nor sensitivity conveys on its own.
No. Each game applies its own scaling between the sensitivity number and actual rotation, so identical eDPI values can produce very different turn rates. Convert using the turn constants instead.
It is the physical distance your hand travels to spin the view a full circle. Because it is an actual distance it stays meaningful across games, mice and DPI settings, which is exactly what eDPI cannot do.
In a Source-engine shooter it works out at roughly 104 cm per 360 degrees, which sits in the lower half of common settings. Whether that suits you depends on your desk space and grip rather than on any objective standard.
On modern sensors the practical difference is small, because the game's own rounding usually limits precision before the mouse does. It only matters at the extreme ends of the range.
They are community-measured values obtained by turning a known number of degrees and counting mouse counts. Most games do not publish them, so verify the constant for your title before relying on a conversion.
No. Polling rate controls how often the mouse reports its position, not how far the camera turns per count, so it leaves eDPI and cm/360 completely unchanged.
Because zoomed aiming uses a separate scaling convention that differs between games. Matching hipfire exactly does not guarantee scoped aim matches, and most players match one and adjust the other by feel.
