[PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

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triplese
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Joined: 13 Dec 2021, 12:20

[PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by triplese » 28 Sep 2022, 17:58

So, I found BIG flaw in windows, that by default was enabled on clean Windows 11 after installing all motherboard drivers, which was cause hitreg affect to CSGO, only half shooted bullets was registered on server.
Its called Audio Enhancements (or Enable audio enhancements in Win 10) and its checkbox located in sound - advanced tab.
Many people use it for gain some advantage by compressing or equalizing sounds of shooting and steps, but dont know that it can have harmful effect.
With enabled, I have in first few seconds of test Highest measured interrupt to process latency 710 mks, and Highest reported DPC routine execution time by nvlddmkm.sys 710 mks, which of course not normal for clean system and decent hw - Gigabyte Aorus B550 Pro and 5950x. I thought that this is a problem with Ryzen platform, but its not, Ryzen can have low latencies too.
After disabling checkbox I have following results in Latencymon:
Screenshot 2022-09-29 014752.png
Screenshot 2022-09-29 014752.png (36.78 KiB) Viewed 9051 times
Tested in a 3 MM games in CSGO - hitreg was literally doubled, and time to kill with bodyshots was really low by my feelings. I ranked up in a row from Nova 4 to MG2 (before I was LEM and slowly deranking). Now I can spray with AK as before. :twisted:

UPD: its affecting systems that running high FPS. If you have 60 fps on 60hz monitor you may not notice desync. On 500+ fps and 240hz monitor it was difficult to deduct (hundreds of hours testing), but clearly visible.
Last edited by triplese on 29 Sep 2022, 06:08, edited 1 time in total.

assombrosso
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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by assombrosso » 29 Sep 2022, 01:40

Interesting read. This is the not the first time I have read a thread regarding audio causing delay or input lag, I’ve seen it in countless number of threads. Here is my latest discovery regarding the audio and how it may impact input lag.

Try it and let me know if you see something
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... g&usqp=CAU

So this is the headphone jack (if you have usb headset, it wouldn’t work). Try to insert it in the motherboard headphone port but not fully insert, insert it as less as the minimum amount for the pc to recognise it. So for example, do you see the three parts shown in the above pic, T, R, S? Only insert the T and keep R, S out, just play with it until it recognised In the pc. While playing csgo, as weird as this might sound, the less volume, the smoother the mouse/game/laggy feeling, so reduce the sound. Keep trying this until you see something. This may be the case for my pc, might not work for you cuz u might have a different reason. Also while trying this, unplug all usb stuff apart from mouse + keyboard. Also lower audio frequency to 16bit 4400hz

kriegsnake
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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by kriegsnake » 29 Sep 2022, 04:38

assombrosso wrote:
29 Sep 2022, 01:40
Interesting read. This is the not the first time I have read a thread regarding audio causing delay or input lag, I’ve seen it in countless number of threads. Here is my latest discovery regarding the audio and how it may impact input lag.

Try it and let me know if you see something
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... g&usqp=CAU

So this is the headphone jack (if you have usb headset, it wouldn’t work). Try to insert it in the motherboard headphone port but not fully insert, insert it as less as the minimum amount for the pc to recognise it. So for example, do you see the three parts shown in the above pic, T, R, S? Only insert the T and keep R, S out, just play with it until it recognised In the pc. While playing csgo, as weird as this might sound, the less volume, the smoother the mouse/game/laggy feeling, so reduce the sound. Keep trying this until you see something. This may be the case for my pc, might not work for you cuz u might have a different reason. Also while trying this, unplug all usb stuff apart from mouse + keyboard. Also lower audio frequency to 16bit 4400hz
Man, stop spamming the same thing in every single thread. 60% of people here using usb headset.

Anonymous768119

Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by Anonymous768119 » 29 Sep 2022, 07:34

Already concluded long time ago that there are some sound related issues. Stutters or freezes appear at the moment when particular sound effects are processed (like shooting). Try volume 0 in CS:GO and spray control surprisingly becomes much easier. In my opinion this can be related to internet connection performance aswell (syncing sounds).

woodyfly
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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by woodyfly » 01 Oct 2022, 06:29

guaranteed placebo. it will "be back"

[Moderator Note: Not placebo.]

triplese
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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by triplese » 18 Oct 2022, 09:07

woodyfly wrote:
01 Oct 2022, 06:29
guaranteed placebo. it will "be back"
Still confirmed by digits in latencymon. Disabled HDA in bios and no problems at all

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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 18 Oct 2022, 22:34

woodyfly wrote:
01 Oct 2022, 06:29
guaranteed placebo. it will "be back"
Not placebo.

Placesbosplaining without a thesis-style reply is well known to be bad etiquette on Blur Busters Forums, because we science-out those ever-tinier milliseconds... At which point, a thesis-style reply with equations, ceases to be placebosplaining, and becomes worthy of peer eview.

Now that being said.

I've witnessed bad motherboard audio drivers adding milliseconds of lag or lag jitter.

Doesn't mean sometimes you mis-troubleshoot (blame audio when it's not the fault). But I've seen audio be the FAULT of latency before.

It's definitely happened (confirmed). Surprisingly more common than "ultra rare". I'd wager it happens to more than 1 in 100 users, because they're using a specific motherboard model with very crappy motherboard audio drivers, even for Realtek audio. Sometimes even changing the drivers (the microsoft driver versus the vendor driver) actually makes a difference.

Concurrently, audio enhancements execute software-based stuff in an audio driver that can block other things going on in a computer, adding weird latency effects (e.g. delayed mouse reads = weird mousefeel during audio). So that's another cause of audio-lag problems.

It might not have been the cause of your lag problem.
And it is not the only cause of lag (you might have other causes of lag).

But multiple inefficiencies concurrently occuring with audio (crappy audio drivers + bad motherboard model + software-based audio enhancement) has been confirmed cause of some other peoples' lag problems.

And Windows Update may automatically overwrite your audio drivers if you don't watch the audio driver version -- you can avoid the "it will be back" problems that way -- for the audio section of your multiple causes of lag problems. Reinstall your favourite no-lag audio driver or settings. Duh? ;)

Other causes of lag problems will remain extant, but at least you've covered your audio ground.
And yes, there may be placebos elsewhere -- if you will, "placebo" can be part of the whole long latency chain (har har) -- but it ain't the audio if there was a real problem there and you fixed it.

Yes, yes, your average latency might be unchanged, but your latency-volatility (standard deviation) may be terrible (bursty mouse polls) -- latency jitter is evil. Like how a mouse cursor sometimes becomes jumpy (especialy software-based cursors) when the computer is under great load. And you know, at 360Hz, the milliseconds are WAY more noticeable than at 60Hz, since 1ms of 1/60sec is tiny, but 1ms of 1/360sec is a much bigger interference. The higher the Hz, the more the tiny-lag problems become feelable/annoyable. What was placebo at 60Hz cease to be placebo at 360Hz, y'know.

I've placebo-mythbusted enough to eventually put posts into manual-approve if it contains the word "placebo" -- I might adjust the word filter to force manual moderator-post-approves everytime someone mentions "placebo". But I'd also add "EMI" to the same redflag list too, due to useless chases from the wild geese & red herring overpopulation. But in fact, audio efficiency issues is a vastly much more common latency-consistency contributor than niche things like EMI.

After, we're Blur Busters, we found things that matters when others didn't believe it did. Like worthiness of 120Hz and 240Hz, to people who couldn't believe 30fps-vs-60fps.

So we need massively more explanations, like a Blur Busters Wall Of Text or Research Paper, to reveal statistical likelihood of placebo vs genuineness. We're the temporal business (GtG, MPRT, lag, VRR, whatnots). Y'know, that sorta stuff. That's why we're haters of "placebosplainer posts", even if it's a 10% or 98% chance of placebo.
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n1zoo
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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by n1zoo » 19 Oct 2022, 01:02

as far as sound is concerned, I've noticed a significant improvement in performance with volume 0 in games. when you turn up the volume, things get much worse. What could be the reason for this? I tried an external sound card, but nothing changed.

triplese
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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by triplese » 19 Oct 2022, 04:08

n1zoo wrote:
19 Oct 2022, 01:02
as far as sound is concerned, I've noticed a significant improvement in performance with volume 0 in games. when you turn up the volume, things get much worse. What could be the reason for this? I tried an external sound card, but nothing changed.
IDK if vol 0 disabling firing sound events completely then you have sort of similar issue as me.
If not - its placebo, because you dont have any audio information, you have better concentration to visual info.

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Re: [PSA] Audio enhancements cause big interrupts to process latency

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 21 Oct 2022, 03:30

n1zoo wrote:
19 Oct 2022, 01:02
as far as sound is concerned, I've noticed a significant improvement in performance with volume 0 in games. when you turn up the volume, things get much worse. What could be the reason for this? I tried an external sound card, but nothing changed.
At volume=0, some games can disable audio processing (e.g. ignore loading audio data into an audio API call), which frees more CPU cycles to do other things. So there will always be a (marginal) hit to performance with/without audio. No way around this, because audio is part of the processing of a game.

But, efficiency of sound drivers and sound cards and motherboards can vary a lot. External sound card can add other inefficiencies (e.g. USB processing/bandwidth + contention on USB chip that slows down mouse).

Also, on one motherboard, sound may have less overhead than on a different motherboard. So sometimes you have to play computer roulette (try different computers or different motherboards) to try to eliminate inefficient sound, but there are other tricks to try.

Specific motherboards, with imperfect implementations and bottlenecked chips, with too many USB devices plugged into at same time, and you are still a pick-poison between bad sound performance impacts versus bad USB performance impacts. This may not be your problem, but it's a possibility.

A dedicated $20 PCIe USB card on a dedicated PCIe lane can sometimes help (it shifts the inefficiency from a bad motherboard chipset or overloaded motherboard USB hub, assuming the PCIe lanes are a lesser-of-evil) -- try to always put your gaming mouse on a completely separate USB chip than all the other USB devices. Check Device Manager to make sure the mouse has its own dedicated USB root hub, and not shared by anything (e.g. external USB sound card).

Sometimes you want to try cheap fixes (cheap card instead of a $$$ motherboard replacement), until you run out of low lying apples.

Then again the cause is completely something else, other than this. But obviously, various mudane issues related to audio can affect game performance, with several issues mitigatable.

Zero guarantees, though.
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