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I liked this question: What makes aiming in a console first person shooter feel good?

So here it is for PC (and its not a dupe because a mouse is hugely different from an analog stick)

You've probably noticed some games "feel better" than others when it comes to aiming using the mouse. Why is that?

Some of the best engines are the original Half Life 1 engine and the Quake 3 engine.

What is the biggest problem? Laggy input response?

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    \$\begingroup\$ What are some differences? I never noticed any differences... well, using pretty vanilla settings (no mouse smooth, no axis inversion, etc.) My assumption was that they are all the same, except some have features others do not (e.g. invert x-axis). Of course, game performance will matter tremendously. \$\endgroup\$
    – jyoungdev
    Commented Jul 22, 2010 at 16:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ It actually is a dupe - the ideas behind both are the same. It's a matter of perceptual psychology, not hardware. See the other question, transfer the ideas. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rachel Blum
    Commented Jul 22, 2010 at 18:09

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The biggest effect on the PC will be input latency and framerate.

Here is an article on the subject

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Field of view (FOV) plays a big part in game feel for first person shooters on all platforms. Standard horizontal FOV in first person shooters tend to range between 90 degrees to 120 degrees. However, PC and console players sit at different distances from their screens. A 90 degree FOV may be fine for a 30" screen 5 feet away from a console player, but may seem horribly cramped on a 24" screen 2 feet away from a PC player. Unless they have multiple monitors or are sitting really close to the screen, players may find FOV more than 120 degrees to be nauseating over time.

A larger FOV gives the player more peripheral vision, and thus greater situational awareness of objects or characters around them. A smaller FOV makes objects seem closer, because they're rendered larger on screen. Character speed also feels different at different FOVs: moving forward seems faster with larger FOVs, and moving side-by-side seems faster with smaller FOVs, even if all the speeds are actually the same.

Note that horizontal and vertical FOV are rarely the same number (unless you have a perfectly square or circular viewport) and both PC and console games need to accommodate players with screens of different aspect ratios, and thus different horizontal and vertical FOV settings.

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