eDPI vs cm/360 in CS2: which one should you use?
eDPI and cm/360 answer the same question — “how fast is this player’s aim?” — from two different directions. One is a quick in-game shorthand, the other is a physical measurement. Knowing which one to use when saves you from several classic sensitivity mistakes.
eDPI: the in-game shorthand
eDPI (effective DPI) = mouse DPI × in-game sensitivity. It exists because raw sensitivity numbers are meaningless on their own: sens 2.0 at 400 DPI and sens 1.0 at 800 DPI are exactly the same speed. Multiplying normalises the DPI away — both players above are at 800 eDPI.
eDPI is perfect for comparing CS2 players with each other. Its limit: the number only means something within one game. 800 eDPI in CS2 and 800 eDPI in Valorant are completely different real-world speeds, because each game translates mouse counts into camera degrees with its own constant.
cm/360: the physical measurement
cm/360 is how many centimetres your mouse travels for one full 360° turn. It is what your arm actually experiences, which makes it comparable across games, desks and decades. It also answers practical questions eDPI cannot: does a full turn fit on my mousepad? Do I have room to track through a wide peek?
In CS2, each mouse count turns the camera 0.022° × sensitivity, which works out to:
cm/360 = 41563.64 ÷ (DPI × sensitivity) = 41563.64 ÷ eDPILower cm/360 = faster aim. The two numbers are exact inverses of each other — double the eDPI, halve the distance.
Conversion table (CS2)
| eDPI | cm/360 | Feel |
|---|---|---|
| 400 | 103.9 cm | extremely low |
| 600 | 69.3 cm | low |
| 800 | 52.0 cm | moderate-low |
| 1000 | 41.6 cm | moderate |
| 1400 | 29.7 cm | moderate-high |
| 1800 | 23.1 cm | high |
| 2400 | 17.3 cm | very high |
| 3200 | 13.0 cm | extremely high |
Most professional CS2 players sit between roughly 600 and 1400 eDPI (about 30–70 cm/360), but the spread inside that range is huge — grip, arm technique and desk space matter more than copying any single pro. Get your exact numbers from the eDPI calculator or the cm/360 calculator.
Which one should you use?
- Comparing settings with friends or pros (same game): eDPI. Quick, standard, everyone quotes it.
- Switching games or importing your feel from another shooter: cm/360. Match the distance, not the numbers.
- Buying a mousepad / fixing undershoot from lack of room: cm/360 — your pad’s usable width must comfortably exceed it (see the undershooting guide).
- Tuning sensitivity from measurements: cm/360 again — percentage steps in distance are how AimFinder’s adaptive test converges on your value, and how you should step manually too.
One warning about chasing numbers
Neither metric says anything about whether a value is right for you — that is what your flick data is for. If your first movements systematically fly past targets, your eDPI is too high no matter how normal it looks on paper (see the overshooting guide). Measure first, then use eDPI and cm/360 to express the answer, not to guess it.