[kllrnohj]

> I don't know if it's still a thing but in Counter Strike people use very low resolutions to enhance performance, have better vision and reduce mouse movement.

Not anymore. There are plenty of pros playing at 1920x1080 with all settings on high + MSAA. High-end video cards are common as a result (as the target is ~200-300fps on 144hz monitors)

I think the reasons for this are a combination of that's what this generation of pros grew up expecting AND the rise of twitch streaming. Better looking streams attract more viewers.

There have been some investigation of settings and high vs. low generally doesn't give you an advantage or disadvantage either way.

[blakeshall]

Definitely agree. I would argue that streaming has had the largest impact both because, as you mention, it makes for a better audience experience and it demonstrates the capabilities of PC gaming graphics-wise. Streamers and Let's Players have probably helped expose more games to a larger audience that would have previously not seen them.

[edias]

Even still Counter Strike GO is not a resource intensive game. No one needs a top of the line PC to play that game at max settings. Also pretty much any tournament is not broadcasting from the players computer but have dedicated observers that will always run the game at max settings. Plenty of CS pros still use 4:3 aspect ratios, but their games would be broadcast in HD.

>There have been some investigation of settings and high vs. low generally doesn't give you an advantage or disadvantage either way.

Yes and no. In a game like Starcraft where cloaked units give a slight glimmer when moving, pros universally optimize settings to enhance this glimmer as much as possible, and low graphics is one of the settings they use. More so though pros just stick to what their used to regardless of objective performance. It's why so many CS pros still use 4:3 aspect ratio.

[kllrnohj]

> Yes and no. In a game like Starcraft where cloaked units give a slight glimmer when moving

Sorry I wasn't clear, I was specifically talking about CSGO. Seeing through smokes & fires isn't any better at low vs. high settings.

> It's why so many CS pros still use 4:3 aspect ratio.

Hmmm I disagree. Many of the current CSGO pros using 4:3 AR came from CS 1.6 and I think they just never felt like changing. There's no competitive advantage to it. If anything it's a FOV loss and thus a slight disadvantage but it's so minor as to not matter most of the time.

[mafuyu]

CS:GO is a terribly optimized game (a hack of the L4D2 engine ported from Xbox to PC!), and requires 300 in-game fps in the Source engine for competitive play. 300 fps is the sweet spot for no mouse acceleration and smooth mouse movements, as well as no frame drops on a 144 Hz monitor. CS:GO perf is CPU-limited, and my i7 2600 can only go up to 250 fps on all low settings, so I'm upgrading to a Skylake 6600k.

Blizzard has done a much better job with SC2; one of their goals from the start has been to optimize for low-end computers.