Sensor: the tracking engine
Your optical sensor captures thousands of surface images every second and calculates movement from frame to frame. A stable sensor keeps the cursor locked to your hand without jitter, spinouts, or odd smoothing under fast swipes. High DPI alone is not the goal; clean tracking on your real mousepad at your real speed is what matters. Lift-off distance and firmware filtering also shape feel, especially when you reset your mouse position in shooters. If your aim feels inconsistent, the sensor, pad surface, and calibration path are usually the first places to audit before changing sensitivity.