A real encounter begins when useful information becomes visible or audible. You must recognize what it means, decide whether to act, move the crosshair if necessary and send the input.
A simple reaction test removes most of those stages on purpose, so it is useful as a baseline but not a complete measure of FPS skill.
If your crosshair is already near the likely enemy position, the movement distance after detection is small. If it is pointed at the floor or far from the threat, you must make a larger correction.
Fitts’ law helps explain why longer movements and smaller targets generally take more time to acquire accurately.
Experienced players use map knowledge, footsteps, utility, teammate information and common timings to reduce uncertainty. That allows them to prepare before the visual event fully unfolds.
Mouse polling, game input processing, frame rendering, display refresh and monitor processing are local. Ping measures network round-trip time between your system and a remote endpoint.
A local visual reaction page can be tested without server round trips, so your internet ping does not simply add to the timer in the same way it affects online game state.
Then measure whether those improvements show up in your actual game metrics such as first-shot accuracy, target switching and missed opportunities.
There is no universal cutoff. A quick simple reaction helps, but prediction, decision quality, aim and system latency strongly affect real encounters.
No. Ping affects network communication, not the speed of your nervous system.
They solve different parts of the task. A fast reaction with poor aim can still miss, while good crosshair placement can reduce the movement needed after detection.