My way of reproducing input lag "fix". Curious what others think.

[TheKelz]

So basically I'm one of those dudes with the weird input lag issue. It's one of those feelings as if you are gliding your mouse on a glass, which makes it hard for the sensor to react to the input which creates jitters and also input lag of some sort, so you end up battling both the sensor issue and the fact that you are gliding your mouse on the glass. It makes it very hard to aim.

There is one interesting thing I have found about this input lag issue that has been consistent across every PC that I went through these years (from an old Xeon system to now 7800X3D). Basically, if I start downloading something on my PC specifically (or in other words use a lot of my bandwith), this issue gets fixed. I was playing BF2042 today, was having a hard time aiming, then Steam starting updating a game there and my ping went up to 160ms, but then I suddenly became this god that went from 2/4 K/D to 30/5 instantly, despite my ping being that bad. My mouse just felt very responsive and the game was not stuttering anymore, I was ripping through everyone at ease. Then I quit Steam and it went to shit again. This is something that I can reproduce at will all the time, 24/7.

I tried to battle this through these years but never really found a solution, this is why I finally decided to post about this here. Why do my stutters and input lag go away when I start using a lot of bandwith on my PC? Again, if I do the same on another device at my apartment, then it does nothing. It's specifically on my PC and Windows is when it fixes the issue completely. It makes me think that there is a software issue, but I can't pinpoint what exactly could be the reason and I'd like some opinions.

[donktuman]

noticed this as well. whenever im playing while something is downloading game registry becomes way smoother. unexplainable still and you cant keep your bandwidth at stress test mode for a long period of time.

[ApexLeg]

Interesting! I think I tried something similar quite a while ago but can't remember results (I'm guessing that it wasn't consistent in my case) however I might try it again. Could be worth using a large packet testing tool also?

[F1zus]

It has to do with electricity. When there is a heavy load on the processor/video card, the computer consumes more electricity and the power supply filters electricity better.
Each power supply has an LC filter and at low load it works worse.
I checked this a long time ago and measured it using instruments, such as an oscilloscope and others.

[F1zus]

Have you ever noticed how noisy your microphone or headphones are without noise canceling? So the noise is interference from the electrical network. They enter the computer from the outlet. The higher the quality of the electricity, the lower the noise in the microphone. Interference of a certain frequency causes input lag. Delay of mouse, monitor, etc.

[ChristopherScott]

Replying for the updates.