Interference causing stutter and bad controls - My theory and a potential solution

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Unixko
Posts: 212
Joined: 04 Jul 2020, 08:28

Re: Interference causing stutter and bad controls - My theory and a potential solution

Post by Unixko » 27 Jun 2021, 06:31

MetalingusMike wrote:
26 Jun 2021, 21:53
Rallaz wrote:
16 Jun 2021, 08:00
I wanna confirm that these Wurth Elektronik 829993STICK do NOT work to our belief. It doesnt make things lighter on heavy locations
USB 3.0 EMC stick development board with integrated ESD protection and EMI filter
It could also I'm testing it wrong but I simply plugged in the USB cable to it and plugged it in to the PC, but things feel exactly the same and my macro as well.
That's really disappointing. I'm still going to buy one for myself, but thank you for getting back to us. Knowing this and my experience with my Furman Elite, only adding ferrites to cables and/or extra power filtration devices could improve the situation a bit more. Though like others have theorised, the problem likely isn't power or most household devices - it's likely airborne interference that's just too strong to combat. Maybe moving home or building a Faraday cage is the only solution.
idk if faraday cage will be a solution if this noise what are you worry about is going with your power through the your cables from Main circuit breaker

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nuggify
Posts: 116
Joined: 25 Jan 2020, 16:57

Re: Interference causing stutter and bad controls - My theory and a potential solution

Post by nuggify » 27 Jun 2021, 13:26

MetalingusMike wrote:
26 Jun 2021, 21:42
This is just an update to my thread.

I have a Furman Elite 16 PF E1 with new power cables to connect both my PS4 and monitor to.

Long story short, it did not solve the imprecise controls/lag issue. It did make some difference, I felt as though the video banks which had ultrasonic filtering made a small difference to my controls - similar in perceptual feeling to me turning off my iPhone. But the difference was not large.

This sort of makes sense, as most well designed electronic products have decently sufficient power supplies that are fairly well regulated. The PS4 Pro and my Acer monitor must have decent power supplies, though obviously not perfect as I did feel a small difference (though nothing is perfect).

I have not yet tried adding ferrites to cables or the passive USB filter, but this leads me to believe power isn't much of an issue - the main issue is interference. The fact that I can feel difference with my iPhone turned on/off or the same with other wireless devices points towards this. Now sure, I don't think the power in my apartment is the absolute best as I seem to notice my controls becoming worse when I use kitchen devices like an air fryer. But I believe the largest cause must be wireless interference, as at the end of the day signal integrity/quality can be boiled down for SNR (Signal-to-Noise-Ratio). If there's too much noise, even if the signal is transmitted over a wire it will become weak to the receiver and error correction/dropouts will occur which may not be measurable with traditional methods.


I will still try ferrites and the passive USB filter, though I imagine these will make small noticeable differences but not eliminate the problem for me. If you can get a phone signal in a car or a bus, shielding/ferrites isn't likely to block all interference, only reduce it a bit. The only potential solution in my mind outside of moving home is to build a Faraday cage for your gaming room and equipment.

What's extremely annoying to me is that there was a time period of about 3 weeks last year where I had no imprecise controls/input

This is honestly very depressing to me as video games are my escape, FPS games specifically. These interference issues ruin the fun and add yet another form of stress to my life.
This has been my exact experience with the Furmans lines as well. Tried 3 high end ones. Small difference, no solution. Ferrites make small differences as well but it is only temporary, and USB filters as well. Never buy anything that is not returnable for this problem. Its always temporary differences or negligible stuff. So far the best thing that sort of helps is a Surge X series mode filter I have. But it does not do all that much. When the problem is bad its still bad, and when its good its pretty good now. Completely out of my control.

leka164
Posts: 6
Joined: 04 Jun 2021, 18:11

Re: Interference causing stutter and bad controls - My theory and a potential solution

Post by leka164 » 28 Jun 2021, 23:03

nuggify wrote:
27 Jun 2021, 13:26
MetalingusMike wrote:
26 Jun 2021, 21:42
This is just an update to my thread.

I have a Furman Elite 16 PF E1 with new power cables to connect both my PS4 and monitor to.

Long story short, it did not solve the imprecise controls/lag issue. It did make some difference, I felt as though the video banks which had ultrasonic filtering made a small difference to my controls - similar in perceptual feeling to me turning off my iPhone. But the difference was not large.

This sort of makes sense, as most well designed electronic products have decently sufficient power supplies that are fairly well regulated. The PS4 Pro and my Acer monitor must have decent power supplies, though obviously not perfect as I did feel a small difference (though nothing is perfect).

I have not yet tried adding ferrites to cables or the passive USB filter, but this leads me to believe power isn't much of an issue - the main issue is interference. The fact that I can feel difference with my iPhone turned on/off or the same with other wireless devices points towards this. Now sure, I don't think the power in my apartment is the absolute best as I seem to notice my controls becoming worse when I use kitchen devices like an air fryer. But I believe the largest cause must be wireless interference, as at the end of the day signal integrity/quality can be boiled down for SNR (Signal-to-Noise-Ratio). If there's too much noise, even if the signal is transmitted over a wire it will become weak to the receiver and error correction/dropouts will occur which may not be measurable with traditional methods.


I will still try ferrites and the passive USB filter, though I imagine these will make small noticeable differences but not eliminate the problem for me. If you can get a phone signal in a car or a bus, shielding/ferrites isn't likely to block all interference, only reduce it a bit. The only potential solution in my mind outside of moving home is to build a Faraday cage for your gaming room and equipment.

What's extremely annoying to me is that there was a time period of about 3 weeks last year where I had no imprecise controls/input

This is honestly very depressing to me as video games are my escape, FPS games specifically. These interference issues ruin the fun and add yet another form of stress to my life.
This has been my exact experience with the Furmans lines as well. Tried 3 high end ones. Small difference, no solution. Ferrites make small differences as well but it is only temporary, and USB filters as well. Never buy anything that is not returnable for this problem. Its always temporary differences or negligible stuff. So far the best thing that sort of helps is a Surge X series mode filter I have. But it does not do all that much. When the problem is bad its still bad, and when its good its pretty good now. Completely out of my control.

i have read countless of threads here about this, i have the same problem but what could be causing all this? thankfully i know that i shouldnt upgrade anything or buy something hardware related

could a surge protector help?

My issues are
When not touching my mouse, not using my computer for a few seconds, and then touching my mouse, using it and testing the response, I can feel it is better to what it was before when I was consistently using it. But after 2-3 seconds, it gets worse because I'm using the mouse. So actually, not using the computer for a while, and then testing also makes it better, but then ofcourse it gets back to what it was before by using it.

My input lag is also lower on 60hz monitors for some reason, i have tried multiple monitors i promise you its not the monitors. The lag is more noticeable at higher hz.

There is always a temporary fix like closing services, changing picture mode on the monitor

deama
Posts: 368
Joined: 07 Aug 2019, 12:00

Re: Interference causing stutter and bad controls - My theory and a potential solution

Post by deama » 02 Jul 2021, 01:36

MetalingusMike wrote:
26 Jun 2021, 21:42
This is just an update to my thread.

I have a Furman Elite 16 PF E1 with new power cables to connect both my PS4 and monitor to.

Long story short, it did not solve the imprecise controls/lag issue. It did make some difference, I felt as though the video banks which had ultrasonic filtering made a small difference to my controls - similar in perceptual feeling to me turning off my iPhone. But the difference was not large.

This sort of makes sense, as most well designed electronic products have decently sufficient power supplies that are fairly well regulated. The PS4 Pro and my Acer monitor must have decent power supplies, though obviously not perfect as I did feel a small difference (though nothing is perfect).

I have not yet tried adding ferrites to cables or the passive USB filter, but this leads me to believe power isn't much of an issue - the main issue is interference. The fact that I can feel difference with my iPhone turned on/off or the same with other wireless devices points towards this. Now sure, I don't think the power in my apartment is the absolute best as I seem to notice my controls becoming worse when I use kitchen devices like an air fryer. But I believe the largest cause must be wireless interference, as at the end of the day signal integrity/quality can be boiled down for SNR (Signal-to-Noise-Ratio). If there's too much noise, even if the signal is transmitted over a wire it will become weak to the receiver and error correction/dropouts will occur which may not be measurable with traditional methods.

If I'm noticing my controls feeling better with my iPhone off as an example, but it not feeling perfect, that means I'm making a dent towards lowering the noise floor slightly but the overall noise is still too high in the environment. I'm maybe shaving a few dB off, reducing the noise just a little bit for me to notice but it's present enough to cause chronic signal errors that need to be constantly corrected. What would cause so much noise in my environment? Well I live in an apartment with neighbours surrounding me horizontally and vertically. I also live only about a mile away from a phone tower, so I may be doomed to face these issues for as long as I live here. Going with this logic, I bet people who live out in the country side very far from the busy city, with phone towers miles away, they probably have the lowest signal noise floor.

I will still try ferrites and the passive USB filter, though I imagine these will make small noticeable differences but not eliminate the problem for me. If you can get a phone signal in a car or a bus, shielding/ferrites isn't likely to block all interference, only reduce it a bit. The only potential solution in my mind outside of moving home is to build a Faraday cage for your gaming room and equipment.

What's extremely annoying to me is that there was a time period of about 3 weeks last year where I had no imprecise controls/input lag issues. Every game I played, all of them felt fast, fluid and precise. Especially Modern Warfare, I played on only a 4-4 sensitivity with Dynamic and I felt like a pro. My centring was perfect, movement was flawless, Aim Assist wasn't too strong/weak, it was consistent and helped guide my aim perfectly. I beat players that had way better stats than me, even PC players who gamed on much better systems than my PS4. Since then, it's being wildly inconsistent regardless of what settings or controls I use. That precise feeling and consistent Aim Assist I recognise when I watch top Warzone streamers. The way their game looks is how mine felt last year. Now I know that consistency and precision truly is key to becoming the best in most eSports. Unlike with physical sports where skill and health are the only factors in success, hardware plays a large role, much larger than most people understand into how successful you are in a particular eSport.

It doesn't matter how good your motor control is or how much much time you spend practicing, or even how much money you spend on hardware - if your setup does not feel both precise and consistent, you'll never get close to the top. You'll forever be fighting against the hardware. You cannot build proper muscle memory if your controls change in perceptual sensitivity on a constant basis. You cannot rely on good motor control if your controls feel sluggish. If you're in an environment full of interference causing constant signal errors, you're just fucked. Games that revolve around mechanical skill like FPS games and racers are not fun at all in these conditions. Stick any eSport pro in an environment full of interference and they will perform far below their skill level. Us normal people who are experiencing these interference issues, our skill ceiling is being severely limited by our poor environment.

This is honestly very depressing to me as video games are my escape, FPS games specifically. These interference issues ruin the fun and add yet another form of stress to my life.
Thanks for testing it out and replying, it might indeed be a good idea to try and make a faraday cage for your ps4, I don't think it'll be expensive though as it's just a box with certain material lining.
Could even make one yourself, I believe all you need is a copper tape and wrap it around your ps4 several times and that's it.

MetalingusMike
Posts: 7
Joined: 06 Jun 2021, 01:17

Re: Interference causing stutter and bad controls - My theory and a potential solution

Post by MetalingusMike » 21 Jul 2021, 13:02

Quick update:

I've bought a new USB cable which has ferrites attached and bought some expensive ferrites designed for the 2GHz region. These seem to make a noticeable difference to the precision and response if my controller.

I've used ferrites before with variable success. What I've recently found is, at least with USB and power cables - it's best not to wrap the cables around the ferrite core. You do get improved interference immunity, but running cables in parallel, even if it's the same cable increases crosstalk. As USB is differential, which means it's sending signals back and forth on the data line, you don't want your signals being sent in the wrong direction. Crosstalk from wrapping the cables around a ferrite core causes signal errors and compromises signal integrity.

With power cables, the reasons are different. For example with my PS4 Pro and Acer monitor, both will have some form of filtration but only on the KHz/MHz/GHz regions - looking at the PS4 Pro PSU for example, it uses two small ferrite rings/inductors designed to suppress high frequencies. Therefore if power cables run in parallel, the 50Hz mains frequency will be picked up by each cable and compromise the power supplies of both devices - this cannot be filtered by either device.

Another thing I've discovered is that the EMI suppression is different depending on the banks used in my Furman Elite mains conditioner. I've watched a few videos now on various mains conditioners, including a Furman - what's I've found is the EMI at least in the KHz to early MHz region is lower in the high current banks. As the PS4 Pro already filters MHz region up to 1GHz decently well, it needs better filtration at lower frequencies. So I've plugged it into my high current banks and plugged my Acer into my video banks - which apparently are isolated from analogue/high current devices. This in tandem with my power cable management and a few ferrites seems to be bring me very close to feeling perfect, it's maybe 10% off. I need more ferrites to stop the antenna effect of other devices cables and I need that Wurth Elektronik USB filter - but I feel like while this is an expensive and crazy setup, it could achieve near flawless controls. I will give another update once I have finally finished my setup. So far it's a long towards flawless game controls but it's getting there.

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