Mouse Raw Input CSGO Guide
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If you’re a fan of tweaking your playing performance, join us for this brief guide on raw input CSGO setup.
This is one of those things you don’t think about on a daily basis. Still, you better consider it if you want to minimize the hardware obstacles in your playing. The first thing that comes to mind is getting a mouse with decent DPS and setting up the sensitivity. However, the topic of optimizing your mouse input is way more complicated than that.
Here we will focus on the CS GO raw input mouse setup. We’ll describe what it exactly is, how to turn it on and how it influences the mouse movement in the game.
What is Raw Input?
The meaning of raw input is pretty intuitive. Enabling it causes the game to receive the mouse input directly from the hardware mouse to the game engine. This causes the movement of the crosshair to be more precise. It then depends on nothing else but the game’s amount of frames per second.
Without the raw input enabled, the mouse input first goes to the operating system processor, then is filtered through the system sensibility options, calculated in the proportion of the resolution, rounded up, and only then adapted to the frame rate.
These calculations are done very fast, however, it has been shown that they might impede your reaction time and precision. Thus, most pro players would by default choose the raw input.
Turning on CSGO Raw Input
It’s very simple. Go to your CSGO settings, enter Mouse & Keyboard tab, and there you will find a switch for the raw input.
Alternatively, you can switch it while you’re in the game with the help of the console. Open it up with the ‘~’ (tilde) key and enter “m_rawinput 1” to enable raw input. To turn it back off, use the same command with a 0 parameter – ‘m_rawinput 0’. This will surely allow you to try and test the difference between both modes on the go.
Facts or myths?
Unfortunately, as many Reddit posts and discussion board threads there are, it’s hard to find definitive conclusions. Some people claim that there is a significant computing performance loss to windows-intermediated mouse input. This is supposedly caused by a loss of data packages in the process. This is however doubtful, as data packages have nothing to do with client-sided calculation performance. You can also find people that think raw mouse input is broken in Global Offensive. Given Valve’s current crackdown policy on any external influence on game files and performance, it might not be worth the risk to bypass it with other software.
Whatever you choose to believe, there is a logical difference between having the input reach the game in a short notice and it being intermediated by system calculations. However, one size does not fit all and it’s necessary to check it all with your own setup.
Here is a small comparison of performance difference with and without raw input. The author of the video admits in the description that also his GPU drivers were to blame in previously recorded lags. While such a huge difference might not be visible on your setup, this is an example of much it can differ.
Mouse Sensitivity Calculator
One of the topics that is parallel with raw input mouse setup is the exact calculation for mouse sensitivity. Having a “feeling” for a certain sensitivity is one thing. With ultra-precise movement, you need to match it with your mouse DPI and your field of movement.
What service should you use, then? After one reader’s suggestion we can recommend using this Mouse Sensitivity calculator. Its constant updates and community support are great. You can also check in directly with the producer of your mouse and fine-tuning it on your own.
By optimizing the in-game sensitivity this way, you will probably see a difference when using raw input. Some people also suggest capping your FPS rate so that the changing frame rate doesn’t influence your aim. This, however. is something you need to see for yourself and decide if it actually works for you.
Raw Input CSGO – Summary
Is it a myth that mouse raw input setup influences crosshair movement? No, absolutely not, but some people might exaggerate the impact it has on your performance. As with most such setups, the best way to see is to try it yourself. Whatever’s your eventual choice, we hope that article has shed some light on the issue of mouse input in CSGO!
