Yeah that's a lot of "gold wire gives better sound" vibes.
Yes, all of that stuff can make a slight difference, but at the end it's not going to be a determining factor in your skill.
Yes, all of that stuff can make a slight difference, but at the end it's not going to be a determining factor in your skill.
in Eastern Europe we had computer clubs, which were like internet cafes, but without internet. you went there to play lan games, paid by the hour. they were usually packed, and people were usually decent. you had computer club rats, and I was one of them. I played q1, q2 and then cs for money. you show up to a club, strike a pose, "your club's cs fu are that of a dog, I challenge any one of you lamers to de_dust 1x1 deagle only", and then sometimes if you met your match you'd put cash up. even working, well maintained hardware ranged in quality to the point of making significant difference to a game. you always carried your own mouse at least (and sometimes a keyboard), and a config on a floppy disk. but the one thing you learned to spot were monitor makes and brands, for the reasons guy you responding to stated. in fact, occasionally computer club admins in collusion with their house teams will put you on a machine with poor monitor. if you had big team vs team match planned, you'd schedule an outing to a downtown club with known high refresh rate monitors and quality hardware (they were never "the club next door" and their hourly rate was usually higher) to both level the playing field and provide peak possible playing experience.
I maintain that the people spending tons of $$$ to try and get an advantage in CS are mostly trying to buy skill, and it never works.
it is also from the world that's entirely unconnected to the American obsession with "buying the best skiis, recommended by the skiing daily magazine, before ever getting to a slope", which is a real thing, and I agree with you there.
there's definitely a Boris somewhere in the middle of nowhere who can cyka blyat on a 60mhz crt and a pentium 4 in cs:go to this day smh, and there's also a lamer with souped up ryzen who can't aim for shit. but all else being equal competitive advantage from hardware is not always and not exclusively "golden vacuum tube amp connectors".
We were one of the first to get cable in the area, so our ping was generally about 5ms..
This was when many others were still on bonded ISDN for a (nice stable) ping of about 120ms or dial up (150+ ping).
That made up for a lot of skill :D
I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often.
You also need to know about all of the configuration steps to maximize advantage. What might look superhuman on youtube for instance may very well just be a good setup.
Equipment matters less these days.
All I'm saying though, is if you're a crappy player, it's not because of your equipment, and buying better equipment won't make you a better player.
What does that mean? You mean if player A can beat player B 70% of the time, then once player A upgrades his equipment he'll beat player B 140% of the time?
Do you mean that if player A can beat player B 20% of the time, then after upgrading his equipment his win rate will jump to 60%?
Neither of those seems at all plausible, and one is gibberish, but those are the only two ways I can think of to interpret "win an encounter twice as often".