Note: I know this is alot to read, but there's alot of information out there to read all at once right here. Some things may be considered "obvious" to some people but they are included anyway because people commonly don't know about them. This isn't a "scrim/etpro guide", it's from the perspective of someone who pretty much only plays on pubs and regularly gets accused of cheating. For optimal viewing experience choose 1080p 60FPS setting on YouTube videos.Here are a few screenshots from recent pubbing (in some, there are less players than I played against because they decided to leave for some reason )

Disclaimer: The purpose of this guide isn't to advertise external sites but links to those sites do exist in this guide. Every site linked is a clean one that is safe to visit.












Chapter 1 - Technical Information

Section 1 - Gaming Peripherals
Starting with monitors first I want to let you know that higher refresh rate monitors are definitely not a gimmick to trick uninformed buyers into paying higher prices for something they don't need or "can't even see". There are several people out there (especially online) who think that these monitors are a scam because "the human eye can't see more than <insert arbitrary number> frames per second anyway". The arbitrary number is usually 20, 24, 25, 29, 29.97, 30, or 60. This applies to your FPS in games too, imaging playing ET with only 30 FPS for example. The truth is these people are just plain WRONG. They present the numbers as an invalid argument to the benefit of higher FPS and refresh rates and include ones like "29.97" out of pure assumption due to many movies being encoded in this FPS and the fact most video sites including YouTube (until recently) only allowing 30 FPS in the videos. This is NOT the reason why streaming sites do this. It takes alot of speed for a user to live stream higher FPS and uses alot of bandwidth to display the content to the viewer. It also would consume more hard drive space to store this. Higher resolution streams exist because it's not nearly as much data increase to go from 720p to 1080p compared to going from 30 FPS to 60 FPS.

The reason why their argument is invalid is because whether it's true or not how many FPS the human eye can see they are arguing the point that you can't see each individual frame. Meaning you can't see every single action that occurred in 31+ frames all in one second (assuming this person thinks 30 is the limit on our eyes). The obvious difference in higher FPS is perceived smoothness. Eyes are designed to perceive changes in light and motion, and there are other things to consider that vary from person to person. It's not as simple as how many FPS you can see. It's very obvious to anyone who isn't impaired that 30FPS in ET, for example is alot worse than 125FPS in ET. It's easier to aim with 125, it looks alot better and for some people a sluggish FPS can cause dizziness. The same applies to higher refresh rates, also known as the "Hz" setting on monitors.

There may be / are drawbacks depending on how much you notice with your eyes. I happen to have great vision and when switching from a 60Hz monitor to a 100+ Hz monitor I noticed an issue. I used to bind keys in ET to change my FPS based on which weapon slot I was using (more on this later). When I was using a 60Hz screen it wasn't a big deal to drop into the 70s from 100+ fps but now that I have a 100+ Hz monitor it's a huge difference and looks sluggish and distracting. Overall, I still believe a higher refresh rate is a big improvement to your gameplay, it even helps you aim better I think because it's so smooth. I can even tell the difference when my Hz setting isn't set to the correct value just by using Windows on the desktop, watching the cursor move around or dragging windows. For games like ET which require good coordination and allow you to control every move of your character, higher refresh rate can really be a huge benefit along with lower input lag. The smoother it FEELS when moving your mouse and seeing it move your crosshair, the better you will perform (theoretically). That's why things like motion blur and low FPS in games tend to make controls less responsive and feel like they are lagging behind your commands.

The refresh rate of a monitor is number of times per second your display will update with new information fed from the GPU. The more updates per second you send to the monitor the more data transfer you need to accomplish. If you can only get 30FPS in Crysis 3 and you purchase a 144Hz Monitor you probably won't get much advantage out of it. As far as ET goes, I didn't notice any issue running 125FPS with 105Hz on the monitor, it only made everything smoother. You may be wondering why downloaded movies are in lower FPS like 30 and why they look just fine. Well, they don't always look fine. Sometimes motion blur and other techniques are used to give the illusion of smoothness and you can still see some frame jitter in those movie files (mainly in scenes with wide open areas with cars driving by).

As far as monitor selection goes, alot of this is preference and I suggest reading reviews and watching youtube reviews (not unboxings) of monitors. A great guy to check out on YouTube who you can learn alot from and see some reviews is LinusTechTips. A great site for learning about specific monitors is a German one called PRAD. Here's the English link: http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/index2.html. They do in-depth testing of monitors and put a high level of quality into their reviews. Some monitor brands really making a name in PC gaming are Asus, BenQ and LG. These are only a few modern big name brands. There are brands like NEC around who may be making LCDs now but they were making excellent CRTs back in the day. There are also monitors known as "Korean Monitors", which is what I personally use. You can learn everything about those here: http://techreport.com/review/23291/t...a-are-for-real. Lastly, we have Acer. I don't normally recommend them because they are mediocre in monitors but they're making the first "big-name brand 1440p 144Hz IPS/PLS monitor" and it ships at 144Hz where Korean monitors usually ship at 60Hz. At the time of this post it isn't released yet and the price isn't determined yet either. Keep an eye out for the Acer XB270HU, oh and you need an Nvidia 650 Ti Boost or later GPU and Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 to take advantage of the G-Sync feature used in this monitor.

There are several panel types, each with their own intended purposes. Some have better color reproduction and some have better viewing angles and others are faster in refresh rate. Usually higher refresh rates like 120Hz or 144Hz are in TN (Twisted Nematic) panels. IPS (In-Plane Switching) and PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching) panels are nearly the same technology but have better viewing angles and color reproduction than TN. PLS are have slightly higher color range and better brightness and slightly higher viewing angles than IPS. VA (Vertical Alignment) panels are have better viewing angles and color reproduction than TN but in my opinion shouldn't even be considered. They also have big color issues when viewed at angles. IPS and PLS are typically for graphic designers or people who want very nice visuals in games but don't care about input lag and refresh rate. Some of these have issues with ghosting or other gaming-related problems, but not all of them. The benefit of the Korean monitors is you get the best of both worlds, an IPS or PLS panel with the possibility to overclock the refresh rate. All of this is done for a decent price compared to paying large sums of money for a high Hz gaming monitor from BenQ or a high-end visually accurate monitor from Dell.

Mice are a very important part of FPS gaming, ESPECIALLY in ET. So is the mouse surface the mouse is on, and I even modified my mouse feet and found a useful improvement from doing so. What your ideal mouse is would be one that has a "flawless sensor" which has no altercation of your aim. You want something that provides 1:1 input based on your actions. Acceleration, smoothing and angle snapping are your enemy. Don't bother with PLN sensors (Phillips Twin Eye) because they have major issues including the most noticeable z-axis bug. The other thing you should consider is the feel of the mouse build and the specific features you require. For example, I prefer the mx518 body design and have been through multiple mx518 mice over the years. I moved on to the g500 and used a few of those then got a g500s. They are all using the same body as the mx518 with slightly different build quality, features, or a different sensor. I wouldn't suggest the g500 because it has some sensor issues but the mx518 is a legendary mouse. Sadly, it's hard to find these anymore unless you're willing to pay alot or get one in poor quality. The g500s works fine and has a few more features, specifically a mouse wheel that can tilt left and right which is useful for me because of my strange controls and left hand aiming. While this guide was in progress I ended up replacing my g500s with a g502. The body design is slightly different than the mx518 style but I've adjusted to it pretty well. I have to say the sensor in the g502 is much better, mayve even the best sensor I've ever felt. It's so responsive and accurate and it's hard to describe. So to re-cap: mouse sensor, mouse shape, build quality, features. Once you find some mice that have the features you like besides the sensor, check out this sensor list and review the sensors of the mice you're considering: http://www.overclock.net/t/854100/ga...se-sensor-list. Eliminate the mice from your consideration if you find they have a flawed sensor. Overall, I'd highly recommend the g502 as it has a flawless sensor as far as I can tell and have read and it's comfortable even for left-hand use as long as it has the features you need in a mouse.

Some people prefer using the desk for their mouse surface, which highly depends on preference and sensor type as well as desk type. Most people who use the desk are "doing it wrong" but some can achieve good aim with this method. Either way, it destroys the feet of your mouse rapidly compared to a soft mouse surface. After much testing and reading I think the optimal surface is cloth, assuming your sensor works fine on this material. The reason for this is to have control over your mouse. If you use a slick pad the mouse will too easily slide across, even if you may not notice it there is definite unwanted slide on slick pads. The reason is simple -- inertia. For this reason I also feel like adding all the weights into a mouse that has the capability or buying a mouse for it's heavy weight is a bad idea. You need to build muscle memory, especially in ET because you need to learn to track people who are strafing and snap to targets just like in most FPS games. I recommend the Steelseries QcK Heavy for a mousepad because it's very large and that allows you to have a good low sensitivity. The build quality is excellent and it doesn't curl up on your desk because it's thick. The surface is smooth but not slick, allowing for easy movement and still being able to maintain full control over the mouse movements.

As far as custom mouse feet there are Tiger Gaming, Hyperglides and Hotline brand feet. I've used the Hyperglides on the g500 and g500s a few times and the Hotline feet on the g502. I have no experience with the Tiger Gaming pads but the Hotlines and Hyperglides feel pretty comparable. I think they really make a nice difference in your aim and also tend to let you endure longer sessions of doing well.

Audio is a little more tricky than explaining the facts about FPS or mouse control. It's harder to objectively analyze things related to audio because of massive variance from user to user. I don't personally notice a difference using a modern Mobo (ASUS P8Z77-V LE Plus) on-board sound chip against using an ASUS Xonar DG sound card. I bought the sound card for other reasons so it's still useful. I think people are fearful of the on-board audio only because the old boards had really bad audio usually compared to discrete sound cards. I don't think it's necessary to purchase a sound card for gaming. What I really think effects the audio is the headphone choice. I've been through various headphones and headsets in my 12 years of ET and found a huge difference in the different levels of audio presented by different grades of headphones and headsets. I used to use those $15 ones from Radioshack that end up breaking in a month or two and never really sounded that great (along with giving me mic problems, or the boom falling off and getting lost). I've used a Creative F4tality headset and it was an alright step up from those cheapo ones at your local electronics store and while it was built a little better, it still lacked build quality and had room for audio quality improvement. I went through two of these because the first one became so unusable I got another to replace it. Later I moved on to the Logitech G35 and went through 2-3 of these because of them breaking and getting replaced under warranty or buying a new one to replace the old one. These were a bit more comfortable and the mic was better as well as audio for music (so I thought at the time anyway). The headset definitely came with alot more features, as it should considering it costed about $100. It's one of those "gaming-marketed headsets" with enhanced bass and high-range and virtual surround sound audio. It's impossible to have real surround inside of a headphone cup because of the way audio bounces. Even with multiple drivers inside, the sounds are bouncing around off your head and the ear cups and also mixing with the other frequencies. Real surround is achieved with multi-channel audio and properly positioned and accurately distanced speakers at appropriate volume levels in a place like a living room. Because of this, I recommend avoiding these "surround headsets" or atleast not using that "feature". From what I noticed in ET with the G35 is it makes it difficult to tell if someone is coming from the right or left sometimes if they are directly on your right or left side while using the surround setting. It's because it's trying to mix some of the sounds into the other channels at a low volume to imitate surround sound.

I gave up on the G35 after it broke again, just by me taking it off my head one day, the exact same way I had always removed it. It just gave up on me and snapped. No longer will I waste money on gaming-marketed headsets that were never that amazing to begin with and have durability issues which cannot be repaired unless you're under warranty or you do a bootleg job with duct tape. I've moved on to a higher grade of headphones. A good site to learn about headphones is Head-Fi, but beware, alot of the people here are total snobs who will laugh at you and insult you for even mentioning something like Beats by Dre in a non-negative manner. People here think they are the best thing since the internet and that nobody but them are correct. There are some cool people there who do actually know what they're talking about, it's just difficult to weed through people who are just being snobs. Oh yeah, don't ask them anything about which gaming headset you should buy either. Most of them will just laugh at you, and you'll get a couple people referring you to headphone manufacturers that happened to start making headsets (which is fine, more on this later).

Now I use a Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80 Ohm connected to a Yamaha RX-v463 receiver which is fed my computer audio by Optical cable coming from my ASUS Xonar DG. I only use these when I have no need for voice, such as being on TS3 with people. They are the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn, featuring velour earpads. They also do an excellent job of cancelling out noises and can play audio very loud without distorting. The quality of the audio is excellent, I feel. I can really tell where people are very accurately in ET when hearing them. I can wear these for several hours in a day, every single day and forget they are even on. I used to try getting up from my desk after long work sessions listening to music to get a drink and almost forget to remove them. These will run you in the $200-300 range depending where you buy them or the current price they are going for. The bass isn't as thumpy as a G35 but I've found that I like the bass in these BETTER and that the G35 caused headaches sometimes and I'd find myself constantly tweaking the bass to add more or remove some because it was too low or too distorted. These aren't all distorted and don't cause discomfort, I don't feel the need to constantly adjust my sound card software EQ or my receiver settings.

When using voice, I use the Sennheiser PC360 headset. This one has been going for a very high price lately, so I'm unsure if you're able to find these for a decent price right now. When I bought them I only paid $166 and now they're going for $300 in alot of places. These let in outside sounds pretty well, so if you're in a noisy environment these may not be for you. All open headphones tend to do this but there's a good reason why they're open. They actually have better positional audio (spacial separation) in gaming. The mic on these is excellent and probably because Sennhesier is known for making high-grade world-famous microphones for several years now. The bass is a bit lacking in these, I feel, being someone who loves bass but that's also for a good reason. These are markted as a gaming headset but since it's from Sennheiser I was able to trust it (I also do alot of research before buying expensive things). In games like ET, you want to hear the footsteps and gun reloads as well as weapon switches and gunfire. These are mid-range sounds so you need to make sure you don't have lows flooding your ears with bass.