wirelength-laptops-mini itx-144hz-PS/2-mechkey-1000hz-Win7/8

Everything about latency. Tips, testing methods, mouse lag, display lag, game engine lag, network lag, whole input lag chain, VSYNC OFF vs VSYNC ON, and more! Input Lag Articles on Blur Busters.
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fable429
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Joined: 28 May 2014, 23:45

wirelength-laptops-mini itx-144hz-PS/2-mechkey-1000hz-Win7/8

Post by fable429 » 29 May 2014, 23:15

How is input lag affected by these, and what is the best setup overall for gaming?
(I assume there are differences/preferences depending on the game/genre and singleplayer/pvp)

Wirelength
-I know shorter wires are better, but how short do you want to go? Would it be all wires or just input wires?

Laptops
-Do laptops have less input lag because everything is closer together? Will laptops get a 144hz display soon since they already have 120hz?

Mini ITX motherboards
-Do smaller motherboards help?

144hz (Will 240hz be coming out anytime soon?)
Would a 144hz/240hz display give a more noticeable benefit to input lag than the others on this list?

PS/2 vs USB
-Which is better?

Mechanical keyboard vs Regular
-?

1000hz polling rate for mouse and keyboard
-Is it better to have matching polling rates? How do I manually boost usb to 1000hz or is it better to get dedicated gaming mouse/keyboard.

Mouse pad - optical - laser
-Which is the best surface for these? I have heard optical mice are still better than laser?

SSDs
I have heard SSDs make no difference in input lag, but some SSD's run off the motherboard while a external hard-drive can run off USB, would this make a difference?

Windows 7 vs 8

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Re: wirelength-laptops-mini itx-144hz-PS/2-mechkey-1000hz-Wi

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 30 May 2014, 19:11

All very good questions, and small input lag differences are legitimately extremely important to pro game players in paid competitions (e.g. 5ms added lag creates a 20 pixel overshoot when turning at 4000 pixels/second during a fast 180 degree flick and trying to aim-shoot right after -- consider that 5/1000ths of 4000 equals 20 -- so we KNOW that 5ms lag is definitely a huge legitimate deal for some elites). And yes, we do observe that lots of input lag tweaks all at once (some longshots, some actual) can all "add-up" to decrease input lag noticeably.

This will certainly not answer all input lag questions, but provide some good background information...

It's hard to know which input lag tweaks are really worth it
The problem is a lot of tweaks reduce input lag only by picoseconds, nanoseconds, and microseconds -- while others actually really shave milliseconds off. To a certain extent, even a bunch of microseconds can eventually matter -- for example, doing ten different tweaks reducuing 0.5ms of input lag can reduce input lag by a grand total of 5ms where things are noticeable for professionally-trained competitive gamers. So to that extent, it's often sometimes a worthwhile scattershoot (for the paid competition professional gamer) to do as many input lag tweaks as possible, not all tweaks may not be worthwhile by itself but may actually all add up.

However, here are examples of exceptions:

Device hop is more important than wire length
Generally speaking, wire-length tweaks don't affect lag much, but hop tweaks do! (e.g. number of USB hubs, number of Ethernet switches, etc), as low-performing switches can can add an extra millisecond of hop latency.
- A 4 meter USB cable directly connected to a computer has less lag than a 1 meter USB cable connected to a USB hub connected by a 1 meter USB cable (2 meter total).
- A 100 foot Ethernet run has less lag than a few 10 foot Ethernet cables going through multiple Ethernet switches in between.
So connect your mice/keyboards DIRECTLY into your computer motherboard, and not in a hub.

There are other factors that improve reaction times beyond lag
Keep in mind there's other factors:
-- A brighter picture can be important for some people, for faster reaction times. Here, a brighter monitor helps in certain situations.
-- A clearer motion picture can be important for others, for faster reaction times. (for eye-tracking-critical situations, not stare-at-crosshairs critical situations). Here, a strobe backlight helps in certain situations.

Which creates these considerations:
-- Laptop screens are often unable to produce as much brightness as desktop monitors
-- Strobed modes (LightBoost) are often dimmer than non-strobed modes. Which creates a brightness-versus-clarity tradeoff.
-- Enabling strobing can add a slight amount more input lag.
-- However, for some people, faster reaction times can out-compensate the slight lag itself for certain types of gameplay, see LightBoost testimonials. Note that many competitive players often use gameplay tactics that don't require dependence on motion blur.

Disk latency stuff; It's more about loading stutters rather than lag
Generally, it doesn't affect games. However, it can affect amount of game stutters (which in turns, affects lag feel). Once stuff is loaded from disk into the disk cache in RAM, it really doesn't matter. However, a faster disk can reduce stutters (from loading textures, etc) which may produce fewer moments of suddenly-increased-lag. An internal SSD will no doubt have fewer stutters than a slow USB 4200RPM external HDD, especially if you aren't running much RAM and if the game doesn't pre-cache the whole level into RAM. Also, long loading times can give you less time to prepare as a competitive gamer, depending on the game "loading..." screen design.

PS/2 versus USB, and 1000Hz
Provided you directly connect your keyboard and mouse, and you're using a good gaming-league keyboard anyway, it doesn't matter. In many cases many USB gaming keyboards can achieve sub-millisecond latencies. (There are currently technological ways to achieve sub-millisecond latencies over USB). And the high 1000Hz poll rates reduce latencies even further. Sometimes the 500Hz is better for some use cases, however, increasingly 1000Hz is producing noticeably better results especially when using "Better Than 60Hz" technologies. See Blur Busters Mouse Guide as an example. As for boosting keyboard pollrate to 1000Hz, more modern tests are needed on this on modern systems to deduce an assessment. (As said earlier -- if you're lucky enough to be paid/sponsored to win games, then it becomes a matter of uber importance -- even saving 0.5ms still will help if doing many 0.5ms tweaks combines to save a grand total of several milliseconds)

Latency versus fluidity:
Sometimes latency and fluidity are mutually opposing goals. For example, the fluidity of VSYNC ON versus the low-latency of VSYNC OFF. For competitive you want the low lag of VSYNC OFF. It all depends on what your goals are on.
fable429 wrote:How is input lag affected by these, and what is the best setup overall for gaming?
It depends on your priorities. If you're becoming a paid/sponsored professional gamer, then lag gains an uber-importance. On the other hand, if you also play solo games and you're very picky about tearing/stutters/blurring, one wants to consider the tradeoff effects and interactions. Many of us enjoy strobe backlights, which brings CRT motion clarity to our LCD displays.
fable429 wrote:-Mechanical keyboard vs Regular
- Mouse pad - optical - laser
- Windows 7 vs 8
Mostly a matter of personal preference, or a need for further research. Many say optical is still better than laser. Smoother mousepads can produce less erratic mouse movements that improve accuracy independently of lag. Windows 8.1 had a 1000Hz mouse issue that got fixed (originally needed a [url=p://blurbusters.com/systemwide-fix-win81-mouse-fludiity/]registry tweak[/url]).
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flood
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Joined: 21 Dec 2013, 01:25

Re: wirelength-laptops-mini itx-144hz-PS/2-mechkey-1000hz-Wi

Post by flood » 30 May 2014, 19:37

fable429 wrote:How is input lag affected by these, and what is the best setup overall for gaming?
(I assume there are differences/preferences depending on the game/genre and singleplayer/pvp)

Wirelength
-I know shorter wires are better, but how short do you want to go? Would it be all wires or just input wires?

Laptops
-Do laptops have less input lag because everything is closer together? Will laptops get a 144hz display soon since they already have 120hz?

Mini ITX motherboards
-Do smaller motherboards help?
don't ever worry about these things
electrical signals can travel 1 meter in about 3-4ns
144hz (Will 240hz be coming out anytime soon?)
Would a 144hz/240hz display give a more noticeable benefit to input lag than the others on this list?
yes. several ms.
PS/2 vs USB
-Which is better?
for mice: usb, since there are no good ps2 mice
for keyboard: main difference is that some keyboards support more rollover with ps/2. not a big deal otherwise
Mechanical keyboard vs Regular
-?
whatever feels better to use.

1000hz polling rate for mouse and keyboard
-Is it better to have matching polling rates? How do I manually boost usb to 1000hz or is it better to get dedicated gaming mouse/keyboard.
better to get a gaming mouse since the sensor will be better. sensor quality and comfort/feel are the most important things to look for.

i'd be absolutely amazed if anyone can notice a difference between keyboard polling rates.
Mouse pad - optical - laser
-Which is the best surface for these? I have heard optical mice are still better than laser?
depends. a good laser mouse can be better than a good optical mouse and vice versa.
search around and see what people say.
SSDs
I have heard SSDs make no difference in input lag, but some SSD's run off the motherboard while a external hard-drive can run off USB, would this make a difference?
if you have the money then get an ssd became games will load more quickly. this may mean less stutters in games with a lot of assets that need to be loaded while playing.
Windows 7 vs 8
just use whatever you already have.

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