DPI is a measurement of your mouse speed.
And one of the factors in determining your Fortnite sensitivity.
Some mice claim they can track accurately with up to 12,000 DPI.
But is higher better?
Based on my analysis of hundreds of Fortnite pro players I discovered roughly 80% use a mouse DPI of exactly 400 or 800.
Look at the chart above and you’ll see less than 10% of Fortnite pro players use a DPI higher than 1600.
And no player has a DPI less than 400.
Clearly this suggests a DPI of either 400 or 800 is best for Fortnite.
Of course, you have more things than just your DPI to consider when choosing your sensitivity.
You can watch this video to learn more about DPI.
Or continue to read this post if you prefer that.
What is DPI?
DPI stands for dots per inch.
But there are no “dots” on your monitor.
That’s because DPI is a term that’s used in printing, and not gaming.
The gaming industry tends to measure mouse speed in CPI (counts per inch). But DPI and CPI have become used interchangeably because both are a measurement of mouse speed.
Another way of thinking about it is in terms of pixels per inch. In other words, a mouse set to 800 DPI will move 800 pixels for every inch it’s moved.
Of course, different monitors are different sizes and different resolutions, so your DPI is somewhat dependent on your monitor. But I will explain that in a moment.
For now, you should know there’s a positive correlation between your mouse DPI and sensitivity.
In other words, the higher your DPI the more sensitive your mouse is.
How to find and change your DPI
Most modern gaming mice let you adjust your DPI using the software. For example, the Logitech gaming software.
Other mice may have a button at the bottom to allow you to change your DPI. This is the case in Zowie mice.
But some older mice did not have adjustable DPI settings and were usually set to 400 or 800 DPI.
Not sure what your mouse DPI is?
Here are some things you could try:
- Look at the bottom of your mouse. You may find the DPI is written down there
- Search online for the model number to find the product page. The model number could be written down on the bottom of your mouse
- If you only know the brand then search for that. Then go through various product pages or images to find your exact model
Something else you can try is this DPI Analyzer. It’s a free tool you can use to measure the DPI of your mouse if you don’t have a setting for it.
It’s a little bit manual because you need to accurately measure how far you move your mouse by drawing inch/cm lines using a piece of paper.
But it’s a useful tool and fit for purpose nonetheless.
Why use a lower DPI?
When shooter games were starting to get popular a lot of the mice were set to 400 DPI.
As a result, players today use 400 DPI and have come up with reasons to justify the means.
But is 400 DPI more accurate than anything else?
No, not exactly. And there’s no evidence to suggest it is.
Listen, lower sensitivities allow your aim to be more precise because you make larger movements.
Indeed, there is a direct correlation between DPI and sensitivity, but you can use a high DPI and still have low sensitivity.
But the way Fortnite interacts with your DPI means it’s a good idea to set your DPI to either 400 or 800.
Let me explain.
How Fortnite uses your DPI
In Fortnite you have an in-game slider you can use to adjust your sensitivity.
And you can set your mouse sensitivity between 0.010 and 1.000.
To calculate your true Fortnite sensitivity you multiply your mouse sensitivity by your mouse DPI. This is also known as your eDPI (effective dots per inch).
For example, if your mouse DPI is 800 and your Fortnite sensitivity is 0.065, your eDPI (true sensitivity) is 52.
Now, here’s why you should use a low DPI (say 400 or 800) in Fortnite: Because it enables you to have better control over your sensitivity.
What this means is that it’s much easier to fine-tune your Fortnite sensitivity using a low DPI than it is with a high DPI.
For example, say you wanted to adjust your sensitivity from 0.100 to 0.110. Well, if you use 400 DPI this would be going from 40 eDPI to 44 eDPI (a 4 eDPI increase)
But if you were using 3200 DPI this would be a jump from 320 eDPI to 352 eDPI (a 32 increase in eDPI).
Also, the way the Fortnite sensitivity slider works is that it makes much more sense to use a low DPI.
For example, the “normal” range for Fortnite sensitivity with a low DPI is somewhere between 0.040 and 0.200.
But if you were to use a high DPI this range would be smaller and narrower. Therefore, it would be extremely difficult and tedious to get your sensitivity right.
How to calculate your sensitivity across different games
Each game has it’s own arbitrary slider you use to adjust your sensitivity.
So it can be difficult to translate your sensitivity from one game to another.
Indeed, eDPI works for calculating Fortnite sensitivity across different DPI settings. But not across different games.
The solution for calculating sensitivity across different games is to use cm/360.
Cm/360 is how far (in centimetres) your mouse has to travel for your character to turn a full 360 degrees in-game.
To work out your cm/360, you can either manually measure how far your mouse travels on your mouse pad. Or you can simply use an online calculator.
I recommended you use the same sensitivity across different games or when using an aim trainer like Kovaak’s.
Windows pointer speed
A setting that affects your mouse speed is your pointer speed setting in Windows. You also have the ability to enable enhanced pointer precision, which is a form of mouse acceleration.
As you know, players would use 400 DPI for older shooters. And the reason for this is that older shooters would use the Windows mouse settings and could have mouse acceleration.
Most modern games, including Fortnite, do not have mouse acceleration and instead use raw input.
However, I recommend you set your pointer speed to 6/11 and disable enhanced pointer precision anyway for consistency.
You can do that by following these steps:
- Go to your Windows mouse settings
- Select additional mouse options
- Click the pointer options tab
Conclusion
For most Fortnite players using a DPI of either 400 or 800 makes most sense. Then you just need to fine-tune your sensitivity using the Fortnite sliders in the settings.
But because of varying and arbitrary sensitivity values in games (Fortnite included), DPI is a poor measurement of your overall sensitivity. In other words, you can have a high DPI and your sensitivity low because of your in-game sensitivity.
A useful way of measuring sensitivity is cm/360 as it can help transfer your sensitivity between different games.
In my opinion, the best way to measure your Fortnite sensitivity so it’s consistent despite other variables is eDPI. eDPI means effective dots per inch and in other words, it’s your true Fortnite sensitivity.
In my ultimate guide to Fortnite sensitivity guide, I break down the eDPI of more than 300 pro players to help you find your perfect sensitivity.
But one thing you should consider when choosing your DPI is your resolution.
So if you have a large or high-resolution 4K monitor you might consider using 1200-1600 DPI. Because higher resolution monitors have more pixels, so you may need to use a different DPI.
It’s worth mentioning lower resolutions can help to improve your FPS in Fortnite.
And players today generally use a 1080p monitor with the native (1920×1080) resolution, preferring performance (FPS) over higher resolution.
Because we don’t have powerful enough consumer-grade graphics cards right now to get 144+ FPS with a 4K monitor.
Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this article about mouse DPI in Fortnite. Please subscribe to Kr4m on YouTube for more Fortnite content. You can also find me on Twitter.