How Pros Are Abusing Monitor Distance 

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bro if i sat that close id fucking coat the screen in spit

In summary, they sit closer to make the enemy bigger.

And mother always told me I was sitting too close to the television

For anybody who enjoys being close to the screen, I highly recommend getting some sort of monitor arm that allows you to swing it out, that way you can sit in "perfect" posture while still being able to put the monitor a few cm from your eyes.

You NEED to get a monitor arm im begging you

Those Esports guys were actually just intimidating their monitors 8:55

Just got my clawmates in the mail this week. They’ve saved my purchase of a death adder v3. I have huge hands and still can’t put my pinky or thumb near my mouse. They are a must have. Sometimes I wish mouses just attached to a band/circlet on my ring finger. Maybe an idea for V2. Thank you for caring about gaming ergonomics Struth. Stay grinding 👍

I truly appreciate these longer a more detailed videos, I get a lot more out of it. I also feel like I can more easily improve myself

godly video. Godly gameplay, godly educational/informational advice.. Thanks for that fov lesson

So easy answer: So you can lick the pixels off your monitor

Great video, and super interesting concept. Not sure if anyone else feels like this, but I actually feel much more confident when the monitor is further away (Its a similar effect to when I have a higher FOV). It must be the ability for my paraphernal vision to more easily see what is changing around me, and gives me better reference. Recently I moved my monitor away, and it feels much better to me. EliGE was onto something... Love your content!

thank you so much for this video! I've always wondered about this topic and if I should be implementing it.

I remember commenting this topic as a video idea around a year ago, i was waiting since when since i was curious to see your intake on the topic, im gadly its out (even tho i already tried it all possibly distances) great content as always struth :p

bro i just found your channel and i lovveeee it. some of the topics you cover just blow my mind and the way you illustrate your points is top tier

love the more in depth vids. would like to see a vid about eye strain if possible :D

Amazing video! Such in-depth geekery. Struth!

glad to hear i dont need to optimize my setup more 😤 am sitting at around arms lenght away (motinor reaches my wrists) and wont try bothering with monitor distance anymore.. long ago changed my gaming posture from the fortnite era mongraal to yours that you showcased in this or kovaaks channel and its been a big help also if im not feeling lazy i might try stacking my mouse pads... but the problem is that my artisan hien is rough unlike my favorite pad artisan zero 😭 whenever i test it ill see if its too rough for my hand

Excellent information, I just apply this in my gameplay, and just hit more shots to target.

This video helped me so much more than you can imagine. I realized I was leaning forward a lot, so I took a moment and got how I usually play and the relaxed my shoulders because they were tense from the posture. Sat back and relaxed everything and got comfortable, it kinda restricted my aim so I moved closer and started aiming with my arm instead of my wrist and played a game of swift play on Valorant after warming up in the range. Got 9 kills which is decent but the thing is, they were all headshots and 1 taps at that. I had a 100% headshot rate that game. That means every time I shot, it only hit the head and nothing else. That’s insane!!!

Oh yeah buddy, needed this. Ty!

more in depth vids, please. these are great.

Conclusions about “how impactful some changes can be” followed up by “why” and “when” would be great to see in future vids. I personally look for things that are worth prioritising because it can be enough to give 20% of work for 80% of result and stop there. For me its better than get overwhelmed by trying to implement all the tricks at the same time as some of them might be simply not worth the effort

bro you always make the best vids, def one of my favorite youtubers! this was really EYE opening!

Awesome video , thank you 😊

10:01 Damn that Zenyatta got absolutely FOLDED! LMAO

my personal experience in csgo/cs2 is that if i sit closer i am more accurate / have faster reaction times (probably placebo?), but for other games that are not competitive i move the monitor as far back as possible to reduce eye strain and have as much awareness. i don't think i've seen any league of legends pros sitting close to their monitors as in cs

My favorite "very close to the screen" thing was from the Overwatch meme community way back. About a McCree player who had a magnifying glass taped to his screen to "zoom" in on the center. And about the whole "high fov for peripheral vision" vs "low fov for big targets", I ended up sticking to flat 100° in Apex. Sure it takes a bit away from the sides, but not so much that it becomes a problem. And the tiny bit further in does enough for my aim compared to the 106 or 120 maximum. And yes, I noticed the fov-flick ratio as well. If your fov is 120, then the edge is 60° away and you have to do a 60° flick to bring a target from the edge to the center. If your FOV is 80°, you need to do a 40° flick for the same edge-to-center flick. So changing fov can and will cause you to over or undershoot.

Bro spends 500$+ for his screen but has to place a printer below 💀 Btw video was great

Just keep pumping videos

I used to use my mousepad longways forward and that made me put my screen at the other side of my desk. the other day, i finally got a smaller keyboard so i was able to put my mousepad long ways left/right, and so i was able to move my screen 6~ inches closer, and its a 27" 1440p panel and every since i moved it closer, my ability to track targets in overwatch and spot enemies in treelines and shit in tarkov is at LEAST 50% more consistent and 25%~ easier

I was undecided between buying a 24.5" 540hz and your 32" 480hz oled, when I do aim training with my current monitor (27" 1440p 270hz) in some exercises my scores go up exponentially especially in tracking scenarios the closer I am to the monitor, but I noticed that by setting a slightly lower fov... I can still keep the screen further away having the same benefits as the monitor attached to my eyes.

Boy let me tell you I tried this today in COD and holy shit I fried, but I am old so the entire time I had flashbacks to my mom screaming at me that if I sat to close to the tv I was going to go blind.

I feel you left a very important thing out of this analysis, resolution and aspect ratio. In counterstrike especially, and in WoW, they were games that were made and designed to be played on 4:3 aspect ratio monitors. In WoW when you play on 4:3 the hud looks completely different with how it stretches to fit the screen, all the information gets bigger, letting your peripheral vision see things way better in comparison to how it looks on 16:9. Which is why Pro WoW PVP players, have moved their addons closer and closer to the center of the screen over the years because as monitors and aspect ratios have gotten bigger , the hud keeps getting "farther" away from the users peripheral vision as the information becomes smaller and smaller in the corners of the screen. Which in counterstrike whether your on 16:9, 4:3 blackbars, or 4:3 stretched; they all change how big you perceive the enemy, your hud, and how fast your mouse moves horizontally across the screen as well as vertically. On 4:3 stretched in CS your X axis is a faster sensitivity at all times by just a touch, then the Y axis sensitivity. Depending on your monitor, resolution, settings, and aspect ratio, how the game "feels" to you varies drastically between each player, some CS pros may sit that close because its just built in muscle memory from playing on old monitors in the early 2000s. Also tournaments in general back then were super small as the esports scene was non existent, the space players had as a team to set up on a desk was very limited, they barely had room to have their M&KB set up so in turn the monitor would be super close.

Thats explains why my sens slower sometimes and why i play soo good one day and another day i play like a ass thanx for the content great job as always

Same PC case! It's a banger. And headphones, hah!

i have experienced that when ever i sit close to screen, my accuracy on small targets increases

Not me gaming on a 55 inch tv at arms length and noticing how it made me better without knowing why. More information taking up more of my FOV.

Excellent stuff from someone with actual experience. Id like to know whats the consensus on monitors bigger than 27" for competitive gaming? Because I'm looking at these new 32" 240 hz screens but fear they might be too large to keep an eye (or two) on everything.

I will definitely recommend this video to a friend, who struggle with aiming.

The advantage of moving up close is that it helps you focus at a target better especially when tracing. Focus in gaming means something a little different. Imagine you are watching a ceiling fan from a distance and notice how fast the blades are spinning. Focus is setting your eyes on a particular blade and tracking it around as it spins in a predictive manner. By zeroing in or “focusing” on 1 blade, you’ve “slowed” it down and made it easier to track.

Recently moved my monitor closer and man it’s crazy

Im using an LG C1 OLED 4k 120hz 55inch as my monitor; when playing my posture puts my eyes 47.75 inches away from the screen. i feel more relaxed now, than when i sat closer to the Dell IPS 27inch 1440p 144hz which sat just above my kb on a monitor arm. i can certainly feel the difference with that 24hz loss, but the gain of all that extra screen while not needing to turn my head at all is nice. the "improved" perception of my fov is pleasant. but honestly i just wanted a 4k monitor for the higher reso and the upgrade to OLED from IPS, the rest is just comfort.

Love your channel, but man please get a monitor arm! 😅 I have one for 6 months now and it's rly an amazing upgrade, much better than what I expected. Why block mousepad & keyboard space with that box! Other than that, thanks for the helpful tips! :)

For racing games like sim ones it’s pretty typical to try and get the monitor as close as possible because it’s common to adjust in game FOV to match what you’d see in a real car. Sitting at any given monitor distance you can calculate game FOV to match reality, further distances require lower FOV thus shrinking your overall view. So closer is great in sim racing to be able to keep a high FOV and still have it true to life

And here am I playing competitive FPS on my gaming TV across my whole room 😅

5:30 i actually find this quite interesting since if u look at rainbow six siege quite alot of pros actually do the opposite where the zoom is 1:1 360 distance. ive also adapted this in just about every game its possible in including apex and the best way i can describe it is i let my arm do the aiming and my eyes have basically no part in it. the idea was to keep muscle memory consistant which so far has worked for me. so its kinda shocking to hear thats not what other games fps pros do

Interesting, was awesome knowledge

Great video. It's there an answer in your math here about optimal size of screen?

I find that whatever reduces the surprise effect and tunnel vision is the best for me I sit at my arms length minus my hand. Mostly play cs at 2.5 x 400 or 41 cm/360 and 4:3. Have you experimented with monitor saturation and its effect on eye strain? I found that I used to prefer really saturated monitors but recently it tried turning it much lower and this resulted in a lot less stress.

wow such a crucial info👍🏻,u r a very gd player too

One of the greatest minds I’ve come across

As a person that uses 2 monitors with one of them being at 32' sitting very close to it like when I used to use a 24' is crazy on the eyes

something that not a lot of people know is that humans have a blind spot in our eyes. The optic nerve enters the back of the eye, so there is a spot where there is no retinal tissue because that’s where the optic nerve enters. There is a specific angle of our vision where we actually can’t see because there is no retina for light to reflect off at that angle. there’s a little trick you can do to elicit the Blindspot where you put a dot on a piece of paper and bring it up to your face and move it around until the dot disappears.

Great video!! thank you! I must add... that fan is dirty man! hahaha

on a side note, struth's tracking is insane

Great video & an amazing channel. Super informative, very thorough, concise & clear. Great job. May I ask how important is monitor distance coefficient in games like Warzone? I am currently using a 1440p monitor and find conflicting advice online as to which setting is best. Some saying 1.78 is native to that resolution although 1.33 seems more comfortable and some even saying that zero is the way to go. Thank you.

6:55 cought me off guard lmao that was great

I like my monitor arm because it lets me adjust the distance to each game i play with no change to my posture

Putting your head closer to monitor to increase the FOV sounds great but I'd be more concerned about it affects our eye health.

amazing video dude

The reason why being further away from the screen u aim better it's because that position allows a better control of the mouse for some reason, your arm stays in a different way, not sure why but this happens to me too.

The most insane information for me was the fact that Hots still exists

Id be doing that too if i bought a small monitor. Thats why its at least 32in or bust. Its time to upgrade guys

The cilary muscle wants a display to be >1m distance. We need much larger monitors to avoid eye strain due to cilary muscle contraction.

Forgive me if i missed any info, but at 5:00 you mention that using cm/360 as a conversion method for your ADS and zoomed scoped is not a good conversion method to use. From your opinion, what conversion method do you think is best to get the best ADS/Zoomed scoped sensitivity for the relationship between your hipfire sensitivity and ADS/Zoomed scope sensitivity e.g. best way for the sensitivity to feel the same as hipfire/best for performance as same as hipfire sensitivity. I know that this is a largely debated topic on websites like mouse-sensitivity and no one has a definitive answer as to what the best conversion method is for ADS/Zoomed scoped sensitivity, and all say that its personal preference. Further to this, do you have any other videos out there that explore this topic yet?

What do you think about 32inch 4k 240hz qd oled? Or upcoming dual mode screen (240hz 4k and 480hz full hd)? Will they convince people to bigger screen?

I can hear every adult from my childhood saying "Dont sit so close to the screen, youll hurt your eyes" 😂

How crazy RU-vid algorithm showing me this video 1 day after receiving my reading glasses specifically for gaming.

Using this logic, couldnt it be beneficial to choose screen distance based on your arm/wrist mechanics? If you like using your wrist as much as possible, but you're terrible at high sens; move your monitor further back? Because the higher sens could be precieved lower? And vice verca.

Thats what i never understood about pro players, if you need to sit so close to your screen to see well (which is bad for eye strain) just get a bigger 27 inchg or 32 inch screen and put it further away

you my friend, get a like and a comment for providing actual value instead of just a click bait title and some useless fluff like 90% of youtubers.

Dude moves face right in front of screen Eyes: “please don’t”

love these videos, do one for controller?

EXCELLENT

Bro did 12 minutes just to told us they do that to see bigger enemies

Don't forget that you also see what's happening on the screen faster, as the time it takes for the light from the screen to hit your eyes, has drastically been reduced.

now i understand why i'm missing some days and some days i feel like i'm pro) Just keep constant distance to the monitor.

I have Near-sightedness, also known as myopia and short-sightedness. Taking off my glasses makes things bigger, if/when I can focus and see clearly. I wouldn't call this abusing, but it clearly is a benefit if/when things on the screen are small and 'hard to see' On the other hand, it is annoying having to wear glasses to see 'everything' clearly normally and getting older affects ones focus abilities - fortunately there's 'PC' glasses for short-sightedness too (Not as strong as regular glasses, to bring focus area closer, while extending vision distance)

how do you think monitor resolution and size interacts with mouse DPI, when I got a bigger monitor that went from 1080p to 1440p I went form 400dpi to 1600dpi and just waited till it felt comfortable

Now thats funny, ppl always judged me for gaming on a 32in monitor, but i cant see shyt on a 27’ unless i put the screen closer to my eyes. But those same ppl have the monitor 3-5cm away from their face. 🤦🏽‍♂️🫡

good video , very informativ but with 38 and already bad eyes i keep the distance to my screen and just predict where the enemy should be xD

I used to do this in my youth

I am trying to play with my eye touching the monitor the results are shocking

Sit so close so you can smell your enemies.

When you accidentally tell this man to "Focus Up" in game.

Wonder if this changes anything. 1.) Sit how you normally sit from your monitor 2.) Cross your eyes until you see two monitors 3.) Move your head closer while keeping your eyes crossed until you form one monitor 4.) Uncross your eyes and play a match 5.) ?????? 6.) Profit

Your FOV wouldn't Fish Bowl as bad with a curved monitor (not finished with video yet, no idea if you mention this)

Bro really mentions Heroes of the Storm like its a relevant game 💀

I get nauseous if my monitor is too close. I have 20/15 vision so i see very well and don't need to get closer

6:57 What tha 😂

That’s why I play on a 75” Hisense U7K with my couch about 5 feet away. It’s basically a 75” gaming monitor

Can somebody talk about how aim training and controlling recoil in a given game are two different functions? It seems that nowadays it’s hand in hand. If you can aim well then you can control recoil well. However, recoil is subject to the game designers input. It changes unbeknownst to the player unless read into the dev notes. We can all agree that Controlling recoil hinders aim performance making it undesirable. For example, if you were aim training a module and there’s a slight hitch in performance you’d adjust settings to maximize results. Therefore, most people have anti-recoil macros, scripts or some advanced way to counter the game developers recoil patterns. I personally don’t believe the amount of aim training can subside the pull down mechanics of recoil control

I tried to do close and medium distance. Def like 2.5 ft the most. I have a hard time noticing targets with anything closer. And my aim gets scuffed😊

So something I noticed is that the 16:9 and 107 fov valorant uses makes the player you are shooting at and your crosshair very tiny and all of the walls and roofs and ground around your cross hair way too big and take up a way too high portion of the screen space. Everything that is just a wall or ground is effectively useless when the game is tapping heads. I really dont enjoy playing on the default settings, I feel way better playing on 4:3 even though on paper it gives you no advantage in valorant unlike cs. But the advantage is that it zooms in on my crosshair and cuts out some of the BS walls on the left and right side effectively letting me sit further back since my crosshair is big enough to see cleary in great detail. When you see 4:3 players like Nats they tend to be able to sit further back than most of the 16:9 players who are literally a few centimeters from their screen. Im always shocked when i see how close people like Boaster plays. His nose is basically touching the screen

Its all about the 1 on 1 feel of the sens, same as with players having their arm/mouse, behind the monitor, mimicking the arms of their char on screen. Playing further from the screen introduces some weird "detach" feel from the game and sens, almost like input lag/latency, its perception but its there. Most top cs players, at least the better aimers, play very close to the monitor, they aren't all blind or trying to see the models better. Get a monitor arm btw :P Love your videos, there aren't many channels discussing these topics, love it. :)

There are a few reasons pro CS players sit closer to their screens. The vast majority of pro players play on 4:3 instead of native 16:9 resolution. Probably the original reason for this was that the original monitors were 4:3, but now even young players who have never seen a CRT monitor use it to get as many frames as possible. Most pros will have the GPU artificially stretch the resolution to fit their 16:9 monitor, creating a mild "fisheye" effect, where the edges of the screen seem to be warping, like mentioned in the video. So sitting super close works really well for this. It gives the player better frames, but more importantly a larger target, both literally stretched horizontally AND perceived because they sit so much closer to their monitor. This does also make horizontal aiming and movement seem faster, so horizontal sensitivity will be perceived as higher than vertical. Also, because of the nature of the Tac FPS genre and specifically CS, you generally know where you could be threatened from and it isn't 360 degrees like arena shooters/battle royales/etc. There are some pros in Valorant who are probably former CS players who play 4:3, but to a much lesser extent, probably because stretching does not stretch player models, so the only reason to do this is to match the sensitivity ratio from CS in 4:3 and get better frames.

Would using a larger monitor not accomplish the same thing?

As someone who sits further than an arms lenght away from my 24' screen I always wondered about this as I follow the cs pro scene somewhat and personally found that it isnt necessary for visibility and reaction times to be close to the screen or al least I didnt notice any when trying to bring it closer and I find viewing the screen from further away way more comfortable

6:56 has me dying 😂😂😂