TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

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TTT
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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by TTT » 05 Dec 2020, 11:34

I've only got a Deathadder V2 and a Ducky SF but would splitting USB still make a difference?

I have a Z370 board with 2 USB 2.0, 2 3.0 and 2 3.1 Gen2 on the rear and 2 3.0 on the front.

The 3.1 Gen2 use ASMedia drivers.

I remember reading elsewhere that anything over 2.0 just defaults with backwards compatibility to 2.0 anyway so its better just to use the 2.0 ports.

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BTRY B 529th FA BN
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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by BTRY B 529th FA BN » 20 Mar 2021, 16:50

@Chief

What would technically change with running both kb/m on a PCIe USB adapter? e.g. interrupt function, input chain order, doe the devices act as if on a PS/2 port, things like that.

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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by empleat » 20 Mar 2021, 18:39

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
16 Oct 2020, 00:29
Solution: Serparate USB controllers and PCI bus lanes per 1 high-pollrate device
I Am on asus Z390-i gaming. I have at the top 2 (USB 2.0) ports and 2 (USB 3.1) ports. USB 2.0 is black and USB 3.1 blue. These are at the same level! https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/ro ... ing-model/

Lower there are 2 red (USB 3.1) ports. If I connected a keyboard there (it should be different USB chipset as you say) I have same results on mouse tester: as if I use for keyboard & mouse both (USB 2.0) ports!

I maxed polling rate doing quick circles and picked data from middle. I have like 10-25hz difference. This is same when I put keyboard into red (USB 3.1) port! I tried also blue port same result, not to mention when I plug both keyboard and mouse into (USB 2.0) same results... Also mouse feels weird (laggy) when I put keyboard into any (USB 3.1) port!!! Than if I had both keyboard and mouse in (USB 2.0)!!!

And I use only 500hz mouse/1000hz keyboard!

Also how do you read Frequency vs Time in MouseTester, not all categories are explained in the original thread! I thought Frequency vs Time is supposed to test polling rate stability, Windows can also affect that? I thought this would be mainly affected by a bad mouse. For DPC latency I use category Interval vs Time, which also shows polling rate. Dots are spaced 2ms each one from another in middle and these dots are also 2ms from each other during frequency (mouse polling rate "hz") spikes, which I measured in first graph! I filtered graph in time, when 2 biggest hz spikes happened both on the graph Frequency vs Time and (Inteval vs Time - second picture).

Could you please help me with this? I have one USB Root HUB device in Device Manager when all (USB 3.1) ports are disabled in BIOS, I have only USB 3.1 ports!!! But if I enable even 1 (USB 3.1) port in BIOS. This device name changes to USB Root HUB (USB 3.0) and I start to have significant input lag! I tried to click on update driver, let me pick to force USB Root Hub drivers, but it didn't find anything! Why is USB Root HUB (USB 3.0) installed, even if I don't plug anything into any (USB 3.1) port? BTW don't know why it has in name (USB 3.0) since I have only USB 3.1 ports! Could I force somehow USB Root Hub driver, when I don't use USB 3.1 ports? Since I need USB 3 for VR from time to time...

Thanks for help!
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Stitch7
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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by Stitch7 » 24 Mar 2021, 05:29

Does this apply to all/most motherboards and USB-Controllers, chipsets and peripherals?

I OCd my keyboard to 500Hz and my DS4 Gamepad(Terminology is confusing) to 1KHz but my mouse is on a seperate USB-Controller since it does not need OCing. I need all 3 though so do I need to purchase a PCI USB card now? Is there a card that has no problems with habdling 8KHz mice 1KHz keyboards and 1KHz controllers all plugged in?

Man this is new to me I just saw someone mention this on twitter.

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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 24 Mar 2021, 18:15

empleat wrote:
20 Mar 2021, 18:39
Could you please help me with this? I have one USB Root HUB device in Device Manager when all (USB 3.1) ports are disabled in BIOS, I have only USB 3.1 ports!!! But if I enable even 1 (USB 3.1) port in BIOS. This device name changes to USB Root HUB (USB 3.0) and I start to have significant input lag! I tried to click on update driver, let me pick to force USB Root Hub drivers, but it didn't find anything! Why is USB Root HUB (USB 3.0) installed, even if I don't plug anything into any (USB 3.1) port? BTW don't know why it has in name (USB 3.0) since I have only USB 3.1 ports! Could I force somehow USB Root Hub driver, when I don't use USB 3.1 ports? Since I need USB 3 for VR from time to time...
PCIe USB card is usually the easiest way to bypass the motherboard USB mess.

I've had to switch motherboards just to solve this kind of stuff before... a $25 PCIe card is easier.
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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by BTRY B 529th FA BN » 24 Mar 2021, 23:22

I may have found a solution, or I may have made things worse, lol. I don't know how to use Mouse tester but if someone could try this and benchmark it.

Let me explain first, for me, input devices on separate USB hubs feels really bad with gaming. Just out of sync. I'm on an AMD X570 system so quite possibly it could be my system. There's suppose to be a 'USB drop out' fix with an AGESA (1.2.0.2) update coming in another month, so we'll see about that.

Both my KB & Mouse are on the same USB hub. Port 1 = Mouse, Port 2 = Keyboard. Use USB tree viewer to verify the port and hub. I've set the USB hub Affinity to CPU 1 & CPU 2 (0-7) while setting my Mouse/Port 1 Affinity to CPU 1, and the Keyboard/Port 2 Affinity to CPU 2. This seemed to help accuracy.

The USB hub might not need the affinity set to CPU 1 & 2 and might be best left at default while keeping the Mouse & Keyboard CPU Affinity on separate cores. Will test tomorrow with more of my scientific feels :lol:

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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 25 Mar 2021, 00:39

It may be that the chipset is the bottleneck in USB processing. It will be interesting to see how much things improve by putting one of your USB devices onto PCIe.
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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by BTRY B 529th FA BN » 25 Mar 2021, 08:39

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
25 Mar 2021, 00:39
It may be that the chipset is the bottleneck in USB processing. It will be interesting to see how much things improve by putting one of your USB devices onto PCIe.
If you're replying to me, there are two other devices connected to USB Hubs, BlueTooth on one, and the motherboard RGB controlling thing on another. Both cannot be disconnected unless I completely disable the hubs. I don't use either of them so I'm going to do that. I'm assuming my input devices are using the USB Hub/ports connected to the CPU and not through the south bridge.

This morning I'm disabling unused things e.g. SATA, High Definition Audio controller, unused Networking connections. Gonna see how that goes then after I'm going to release the USB Hub CPU affinity to default while keeping the M & K/B on their own separate CPU affinity.

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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by MattKelly » 25 Mar 2021, 13:35

Hey guys,

I have a quick question that I’m hoping someone might be able to advise me on. I’m building a new PC at the moment, and I’ve already ordered the majority of my parts - it’s a SFF PC in the NCASE M1, running a 5950X - because of this, I’m restricted to mITX motherboards that don’t allow for additional PCIe cards beyond the GPU (two slot 3080 FE).

Unfortunately, this means that I can’t install a PCIe card for dedicated USB (I would’ve really liked to, but I’ve already received my case so I’m a bit too far down the rabbit hole to turn back now).

That said, I do still have my choice of motherboard, as it’s one of the final parts I haven’t yet ordered. I noticed in the Razer 8000Hz thread that someone mentioned ASRock’s new “Lightning Gaming Ports” which seem to prioritize high hertz mouse and keyboard functionality. Something like that sounds like a good alternative to a dedicated PCIe card, however with it being such a new feature, it’s not available on any AM4 boards to support my 5950X.

That leaves me stuck playing the motherboard lottery, I assume (unless anyone has any other suggestions that I might be missing). So, looking at mITX motherboards for AM4, are there any opinions on which ones might provide better luck with polling stability (X570 vs B550, for example)... or perhaps just any general advice when motherboard shopping, in order to make the “port lottery” a little more favorable?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

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Re: TIP: Always put high-Hz keyboard and high-Hz mouse on SEPARATE DEDICATED USB CHIPS.

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 25 Mar 2021, 14:34

In a duress of being stuck with one USB controller, it might be possible to use an external high-performance USB3 hub to multiplex the high-Hz keyboard and high-hz mouse together, to one single upgraded-to-USB3 connection to the PC, so that the motherboard chipset isn't trying to process the soup. The chips in some of the best USB hubs probably outperform a low end ITX USB chip. So as long as the motherboard just sees one USB port, it's more manageable to it.

That said, downclocking the pollrate a bit (2KHz and 4KHz) does a big lift on an overloaded USB chipset -- and you only need approximately sufficient oversampling of mouse-Hz-over-display-Hz. The jump 1000Hz to 2000Hz is hugely noticeable for 360Hz gaming monitors, but 2000Hz to 8000Hz is extremely marginal (until we get higher Hz gaming monitors).
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