PC Gaming

So with mice, you have a center position you return to after every move. From that position, ideally you should be able to turn your character between 270°- 180° degrees with a single swipe.

You'll want to use a mouse with an at least 1000 hz polling rate. They can be found online for less than $30. There are websites to test polling rates.

I recommend a DPI of 800. 1200± DPI will often make your sensitivity way to high, even if you lower the in game sensitivity. 400 DPI has more hitches.

Turn off mouse acceleration in windows.

Make sure the sensor in the mouse and the mouse pad is clean.

Lighting round: light weight mice are preferred. 8000hz is better that 1000hz polling, but not by much and uses a lot of CPU usage and requires correct USB support. Don't aim at the enemy, aim where they are going to be. Warming up a bit does help your aim. You don't need to spend a lot of money to get the best gear or to have fun.

Useful mouse comparisons. https://www.rtings.com/

There is a mouse pad compare website, but I can't find it.

With a mouse you turn back.

Practice

There's aim trainer games to practice mouse speed and accuracy.

edit: aimlabs on steam.

I can understand where you're coming from. As a lifelong PC gamer, it took me ages to adapt to controller usage (I use a controller on PC for some game types now) and I still can't play any sort of shooter with a controller.

It'll inevitably take time. You're shifting from existing muscle memory, to an attempt to develop an entirely different kind of muscle memory. I'd suggest trying to use a PC for as many tasks as possible, even for stuff you usually use your phone for. Even general PC usage will help your muscle memory to develop.

Don't give up, you'll get there eventually!

Practice

Play a less demanding single player game to get used to the mouse. I'm not sure how it handles mouse and keyboard, but I'm thinking something like Ratchet and Clank.

Step 1: Sit in front of your computer.

Step 2: Start using the mouse and keyboard attached to your computer.

CONGRATULATIONS! You are now well on your way to getting used to using a mouse and keyboard.

Try to keep the mouse centered in your mousing area. The aiming motions for the mouse are shorter, snappier throws rather than the long and slow arcs of an analog stick.

So move the mouse to your aimpoint, then pick up and recenter. I find that a full "flick" for me should go about 360 degrees. You can also check for mouse acceleration settings, this increases the rotation of your view based on how fast you move the mouse. Good for games where action is coming in from all sides, but it can cause some problems with precision and consistency.

If you can't turn in a circle with your mouse, your sensitivity is too low. Crank it up until you can do a 360 comfortably without lifting it and repositioning. I have no idea why this advice suddenly became "lower the sensitivity and just use your whole arm across your whole desk" but, that shit sucks. Especially if you don't have room.

It's a good idea to disable acceleration and, when possible, use RAW input for the mouse so it moves 1:1 with your hand. You can do this in most competitive heavy games, and you might want to also disable acceleration (mouse smoothing) in Windows' own settings.

This question fills me with sorrow.

Practice/getting used to it

Also since you are learning try low sensitivity + moving your arm instead of high sensitivity + wrist movements

There's no real secret other than to just play games and get used to it. FPS may or may not be the best choice for this. You could also play other games like strategy or city builders instead.

My sensitivity is so if I drag my mouse straight to either side, I'll do about 7 or 8 full spins by the time I get to the end of my mat.

For the most part, it's just like how you learned to be good with a controller: experience. The more you use the mouse the better you get. You brain just learns that this amount of movements equals roughly this distance moved on the screen.

For a lot of people, disabling mouse acceleration helps with precision. By default there's an acceleration curve, so you move the mouse faster and the cursor goes even faster, disabling it makes it so the cursor tracks the mouse precisely. It can make it harder to do a 360 though, as acceleration can help get the speed needed. Dial in your sensitivity settings to where it feels comfortable for aiming, because if you make the sensitivity too much for the 360 it'll be really hard to aim with any sort of accuracy.

There's a rhythm game called Osu! if you want to stress test your mouse accuracy.

There are 3 way you can be better at aiming with a mouse:

Disable acceleration (enhanced pointer precision)

Lower your sensitivity

Use a lighter mouse

Past that, it's practice, practice and more practice. If you only recently moved over to M+KB, you haven't developed the muscle memory. Start with games that just require you to click on things, like Civ games or Stardew Valley, and games that don't require rapid movements, like Portal.

This is how M+KB natives feel on controller.

You will get used to it if you keep playing, but it might never feel natural unless you use it exclusively for a while.

I'm a trackball + keyboard user so mouse + kb and controller both feel sort of almost right but somehow wrong to me

Also some genres lend themselves better to one or the other. I prefer controller for platformers and fighters, but prefer TB + KB for almost everything else

Turn off mouse acceleration in windows, it's called enhance pointer accuracy or something stupid. Set your mouse DPI to 400 or 800 in its software and get a decent sized mouse pad, Adjust your in game sensitivity to the point a natural arc of your arm does a full 180. After that it's all practice

Practice

No matter what sensitivity my mouse is set to I seem to get stuck when turning. On a controller I can turn completely in a circle, but not with a mouse unless i’m missing something.

are you using running in circles as a benchmark? as a one continuous loop that is not going to happen with a mouse unless you have infinite desk and arm lengh. Generally mouse users do circles in segments: turn a bit, move mouse back to center and repeat as nescessary.

If you've mostly used controlles, yea, m+kb is going to feel unnatural. Same applies in reverse too. Different worlds - it can take quite some time to get familiar with the other.

Are you using mouse only? On my controller I usually use both analog sticks to move and turn the screen at the same time which allows quick rotation if necessary. Same applies imho to mouse and keyboard. I use the mouse to turn the screen and wasd to turn my character which at least for me leads to the same result.