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.