Many seasoned CSGO Veterans, swear by Raw Input when it comes to playing Counter Strike Global Offensive and CS2. Playing at the right settings including Raw mouse input can elevate your skills to the next level. This guide will cover and explain what raw input is and how it can improve or weaken your CSGO gameplay experience.
What Exactly Is Raw Input?
Raw Input is a different way that the game reads your mouse movements. When you click on your mouse, the mouse input and movement are transmitted to your operating system processor, then to your mouse drivers and then only reach the game.
Raw input is set to disable by default for every player, this can be extremely noticeable especially for those with Lower-End Computers, as the input lag can be quite visible to the naked eye.
Enable Raw input it will provide a different way for the game to read your every mouse movement more efficiently and at a faster rate.
Raw input manages this by cutting the total time your computer needs to read your movements within the game. Enabling Raw input allows the game to receive the signal directly to the mouse, bypassing all of the default operations Windows normally would receive.
Raw Input Setup
There are two ways that you can enable Raw Input:
- Game Setting: The easiest way to enable Raw Mouse input is to enable it through the in-game settings menu. Simply head over to the CS2 game settings, click on the mouse and keyboard tab, and enable raw input.
- Game Console: If you have the game console enabled you set Raw input enabled, simply open the console and enter ‘m_rawinput 1’ to enable Raw input and ‘m_rawinput 0’ to disable Raw input.
How Does Raw Input Affect Gameplay?
Pro Players alongside people wanting to improve at Counter-Strike often flock to enabling Raw input due to the improved sensitivity and faster mouse input directly. Some players however do disagree on this and claim that there is no difference at all.
However, more players certainly agree that having Raw input enabled does improve performance. In CSGO improved mouse control will give you greater in-game sensitivity and mouse sensitivity at at times, giving you more procession at all times.
Raw input is a great choice for users who do not have the best gaming mouse, as a mouse with high sensitivity and DPI can greatly benefit these devices, as it reduces communication times between the mouse and the game engine. It’s also good for those who suffer from a lower frame rate due to not having a powerful PC.
Is It Allowed?
Having Raw Input enabled is safe and a common feature in quite a lot of games not just Counter-Strike in Particular with many gamers around the globe choosing to use the setting in many game titles spread across the PC community.
Players who are using external software to cheat are not allowed by Steam, luckily Raw Input is a feature within the Game files and does not break any rules, with many players choosing to enable the setting in the game or with Console commands.
Should I Enable Raw Input?
This question does come down to a personal choice, you can test with both options and then you can truly determine if you should Enable Raw input while playing CS. However, at CSDB we do recommend that you use Raw Input as it improves many factors that can greatly improve your mouse DPI and crosshair movement.
Raw Input is heavily recommended by the majority of professional players, which tells you that it does work and is worth the time to enable it. Using Raw input is one of the first settings we recommend that you enable when configuring your Counter Strike settings for the first time. If you want to read more guides you can do so, we have a plethora of Counter-Strike content that makes for some great reading, especially for those who are newer to the franchise.