Why it matters
Aiming is a learned mapping between how far your hand moves and how far the crosshair moves. Anything that changes that mapping based on how fast you moved breaks it, because the same 5 cm swipe now travels a different distance depending on how hard you flicked.
That is exactly what mouse acceleration does. Raw input takes the operating system out of the path, so the game sees precisely what your hand did.
The two Windows settings to fix
- Enhance Pointer Precision: off. Despite the reassuring name, this is mouse acceleration. It lives under Mouse settings, then Additional mouse settings, then Pointer Options.
- Pointer speed: the middle notch, 6 of 11. That is the only position where Windows passes mouse counts through untouched. Other notches multiply or skip them.
How a browser trainer does it
AimBetween captures the mouse with the browser pointer lock using unadjusted movement, which is the web platform asking for the same thing a game asks for: raw, unaccelerated deltas. The crosshair moves exactly as far as the mouse does.
That is what lets practice in a browser transfer at all. A trainer that applied its own acceleration curve would build a hand-to-crosshair mapping that stopped being true the moment you tabbed back into a game.
How to tell if something is still in the way
Measure your cm/360 with a ruler and compare it to what the eDPI calculator predicts from your DPI and sensitivity. If the measured distance does not match the formula, something between the mouse and the game is scaling your input, and it is almost always pointer acceleration.
Raw input on or off?
On. The setting goes by other names too, such as raw mouse input or raw cursor input, and they all mean this. Every serious shooter offers it and it should essentially always be enabled, because it guarantees the game sees what your hand did and nothing else. The only reason to turn it off is a game where it misbehaves, and then the Windows settings above become your fallback.
Raw input is a game setting, so it is separate from the two Windows settings. A game with raw input on ignores both of them. A game with it off, and any ordinary Windows app, still reads the Windows cursor, which is why it pays to set them correctly either way.
What Windows pointer speed does when raw input is off
With Enhance Pointer Precision off, each pointer speed notch applies a fixed multiplier to your mouse counts. Take a setup that turns you 46.7 cm per 360 (Valorant at 800 DPI and 0.35 sens). In an app that reads the Windows cursor, each notch changes that distance like this:
| Pointer speed notch | Multiplier | Distance per 360 |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 0.25× | 186.6 cm |
| 5 | 0.5× | 93.3 cm |
| 6 (default) | 1× | 46.7 cm |
| 7 | 1.5× | 31.1 cm |
| 8 | 2× | 23.3 cm |
| 9 | 2.5× | 18.7 cm |
| 10 | 3× | 15.6 cm |
Only the sixth notch gives back your intended distance. One notch up is 50% faster, which is enough to wreck muscle memory without being obvious. Raw input skips this whole table.
What raw input does not change
It does not touch your sensitivity. DPI and in-game sens still set how far the crosshair travels per centimeter, and the eDPI and cm/360 numbers mean exactly what they say. It also has nothing to do with polling rate: that is how often the mouse reports, while raw input is where the game takes the reports from.
What it removes is the operating system's opinion about your movement. If you only fix one thing in the mouse settings guide, make it this and the two Windows settings.
Raw input works with any mouse, so there is nothing to buy for it. If yours is an old or office model that tops out at 125 Hz or cannot hold a DPI setting, a budget gaming mouse fixes both (browse gaming mice).
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