of the time. I finish five matches
having struggled to maintain even a
K:D of 1:2 most of the time. Furious,
and finding no recompense in my
keyboard’s gentle blue RGB lighting, I
switch to the B rig.
With membrane key sensors and a
mouse as old as time beneath my
hands, I play another five deathmatch
games in de_dust2. The results are,
surprisingly, about the same. A K:D
lingering around 1:2, and a feeling of
discomfort and unfamiliarity with my
mouse’s behaviour.
I begin to suspect that rather than
the best gear improving performance,
the gear I’m most familiar with might
produce the best results.ABOVE: Would you
have heard them
coming if your
headphones were
slightly better?RIGHT: Headshots
are hard to come by
at the best of times.THE GAMES
Game time. I begin with CS:GO,
playing five rounds on my
pro-gaming setup and then
another five on my humble B
rig. I’m playing deathmatch on
de_dust2 each time just to
eliminate any variables. In the pro
rig, that 120Hz panel does have a
visible effect. It really looks and
feels smoother to play.
For my part, I spend five rounds
being absolutely demolished by
Russians who I can only assume are
using voice chat to offer me gentle
pointers and words of
encouragement in case my morale
dips. Using S1mple’s mouse settings
with the G703, I feel like a fish out of
water. I find I need to make huge,
dramatic strokes back and forth
across the mouse mat to look around
and that high refresh rate’s doing
nothing to compensate for my
lolloping mouse motions.
The surround sound’s offering
no real advantage, either. On a
slower-paced server I might have
the opportunity to pick out
footsteps or the sound of weapons
being cycled beneath the constant
Russian commentary and the drone
of AKs doing battle. Even Counter-
Strike, the pioneer of considered
approach and tactical forethought in
online shooters, is pretty rowdy a lot