STICKY -- Read This First About Scientific Legitimacy of EMI Latency Issues

Separate area for niche lag issues including unexpected causes and/or electromagnetic interference (ECC = retransmits = lag). Interference (EMI, EMF) of all kinds (wired, wireless, external, internal, environment, bad component) can cause error-correction latencies like a bad modem connection. Troubleshooting may require university degree. Your lag issue is likely not EMI. Please read this before entering sub-forum.
Forum rules
IMPORTANT:
This subforum is for advanced users only. This separate area is for niche or unexpected lag issues such as electromagnetic interference (EMI, EMF, electrical, radiofrequency, etc). Interference of all kinds (wired, wireless, external, internal, environment, bad component) can cause error-correction (ECC) latencies like a bad modem connection, except internally in a circuit. ECC = retransmits = lag. Troubleshooting may require university degree. Your lag issue is likely not EMI.
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STICKY -- Read This First About Scientific Legitimacy of EMI Latency Issues

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 21 Sep 2021, 13:29

Hello,

TL;DR: Your latency problem is probably not electricity related, but it can still sometimes happen. Most newbies should exit this forum immediately as problems are often elsewhere.

Why This New EMI Forum Exists
  • We have permitted this forum to exist because Blur Busters is an incubator of computer temporal issues (Hz, GtG, MPRT, PWM, VRR, latency, stutter, etc).
  • EMI is real science. See Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Electronics Notes, and many others, for more information.
  • Blur Busters generally protects and mythbust a lot of these "Millisecond Matters" issues, with the known domino effect of milliseconds building up and cascading to human-visible issues. Basically the entire temporal universe. A thousand microseconds equals a millisecond, after all.
  • We protect many outlier temporal topics that are distant spinoffs of the old "30fps vs 60fps" skeptics of twenty years ago. You can read about Blur Busters research at www.blurbusters.com/area51 as an incubator of display research of the future.
  • Now, inevitably, we started having threads about EMI / inteference issues that creates latency, and several of them are legitimate (even in the midst of many wild goose chases and red herrings).
  • So we've decided to allow a small sub-forum for these types of threads.
The Modern Computer
Most latency problems do not result from electricity. However, rarely, they do. It's often at the level of "Too infrequent to show up in manufacturer beta testing" but at the level of "It appears over a thousand people are affected in a population of 10,000,000"

Latency from interference / electrical / EMI / EMF is almost always an error-correction latency. Modern computers are full of error correction.
  • ...Yesterday 1985 IDE bus .... CRASH upon electircal issue
    ...Today's 2020 nVME .... LAG upon electircal issue (error retransmit)
     
  • ...Yesterday's 1985 ISA bus ... CRASH upon electircal issue
    ...Today's 2020 PCI-Express ... LAG upon electircal issue (error retransmit)
     
  • ...Yesterday's 1985 RS232 serial bus ... CORRUPTION
    ...Today's 2020 USB ... LAG upon electircal issue (error retransmit)
     
  • ...Yesterday's 1985 BBS modem ... CORRUPTION (garbage text + NO CARRIER)
    ...Today's 2020 DSL modem ... LAG upon electircal issue (error retransmit & protocol lag change between fastpath/interleave)
     
  • ...Yesterday's 1985 video RAM ... CORRUPTION
    ...Today's 2020 NVIDIA GDDR6 RAM ... LAG upon electircal issue (error repeat read)
So, now if you live in a high-radiation environment, it's possible to be getting millions of hidden error correction events throughout your computer -- death by a thousand cuts -- millions of microseconds and nanoseconds building up to human feelable multi-millisecond latencies. Buses are now packetized. So your PCI lanes, DisplayPort cable, USB cables, etc, can have packet loss in the presence of extremely strong interference strong enough even to affect good brands of computer hardware. Rare, but it's quite possible. It has happened.

Imagine Circuit Board Traces Are Like Tiny DSL Lines!
We're familiar with DSL problems from interference, far more common. But because we're pushing speeds so fast now to technological limits, even a PCIe lane can have bad S/N ratios on the motherboard circuit trace. Just like a poor DSL line on some motherboards or high-interference regimes (technical info) -- even protocol changes that creates lag chances (metaphorically like fastpath vs interleve, except it's a protocol change on a circuit board trace, or an internal wire, or even certain on-chip silicon traces now filled with error correction algorithms). Death by a million nanosecond paper cuts. Rare, but it's quite possible, getting more common as circuit bitrates get faster. It has happened.

Bottom Line Domino Effect: Interference = Error Correction = Latency
So, fellow technical minds, you get the idea. Modern computers are full of error correction. Error correction storms means that millions of nanoseconds can build up to multiple human-noticeable milliseconds, interfering with your gameplay. Some people in other countries are unlucky to live under 500,000-volt power transmission lines, and others are unlucky to live above a mechanical floor (with big motors) in an apartment tower, or a big 200-amp power transformer hiding behind the wall behind computer desk. So even if you don't have any EMI issues, other people do.

Personal Experience / Why Don't I Hear About This In Forums?
I personally have experienced latency-by-electricity-issue. It's legitimate. Just rare.
This stuff is usually mainly talked out by engineers because there's no easy everyday-user instructions for troubleshooting interference / EMI issues. That's why this stuff is very rare in other discussion forums. But it's all over Google Scholar / university papers / advanced engineering materials. If you have taken university classes in circuit and RF design, you are already familiar with EMI issues. Basically orders of magnitude more advanced than an average forum. Just because you don't hear about it in forums, doesn't mean it doesn't exist at a higher level of knowledge. It's why you don't hear about algebra/calculus in discussion forums but it's important at a higher education level at jobs.

Why Is This Not 100% Fixed Industry Wide?
They are (mostly) fixed. As computers got faster, they had to gain more error correction. With tinier transistors, they are more fragile to interference so a lot of mitigations had to be added. But the mitigations are not perfect. The problem is that your neighbor may have a million-times worse interference than you do. It just may not have been strong enough for that neighbour's location. Also, manufacturers can't beta-test in a billion locations at the same time. See Location Specific below.

Interference is Sometimes Location Specific
A rural farmhouse running on a good quality Canadian hydroelectric dam, might have pretty clean electricity and no over-the-air interference. But an urban dwelling in a decripit-infrastructure country, living 10 meters from high voltage power transmission lines & next to a malfunctioning fridge motor & hundreds living near you with old appliances, you might have the misfortune of over one billion times more interference than the Canadian farmhouse bedroom computer. The fact is that not all companies are able to whac-a-mole all possible causes of interferences in all possible countries in all possible parts of the world. There's billions of places to live, and not two locations have identical interference patterns.

Electrical Issues Are HARD To Troubleshoot
This stuff is well known to university degree holders (in electricity related) and NVIDIA circuit engineers but almost unknown in the hobbyist communities. This is a topic almost too advanced for Blur Busters Forums, but I have allowed this legitimate topic to exist. However, be warned this forum area will have.

We Prioritize Latency Issues
There are many kinds of electrical issues that cause problems (e.g. computer crash). Other forums exist elsewhere on the Internet to cover this. Here, we're prioritizing issues that causes input latencies and such.

Never Assume Your Problem is EMI. And Remember to test OFFLINE
Most online latency is caused by Internet and game issues (even if you switch ISPs and VPNs). Post in the other latency forum first before posting in the EMI forum. Test your issues offline. If you're getting strange latency during only one part of the day because you're playing offline, then it becomes bigger odds that your latency issue is electricity-related. Time-of-day latency during offline play is sometimes caused by electrical interference by appliances that everybody uses nearby, and that can cause electricity to become noisy enough to begin latency issues (from error correction storms in various places) in your computer. Just because changing ISPs did not fix your issue, does not mean you should automatically assume your problem is EMI related.

Solutions are Situation-Specific. Your Fix Will Rarely Work; Other People's Fixes Rarely Work
There are infinite number of issues with EMI, to the point where one person's legitimate (for themselves) solution rarely fix another person's, when it comes to EMI-related issues and other "rare" / "odd" issues. There's more than a trillion dominoes that can cause a computer to stop working. Please read this example post to better understand that there are an infinite number of separate S/N ratios involved in a computer (signal-to-noise ratios).

Be Patient
Do not name call other people "crazy" or whatnot. The problem is that this forum is full of experienced (Ph.D/electrical) and inexperienced (speculation/guesses) and these collides into heated fights sometimes. Thus, this forum is somewhat more heavily moderated than usual, and posts may be deleted more often in this area, and threads may be closed more often in this area. To prevent this from happening to your thread, please read the forum rules.

Do Not Post About Electricity-Related Lag Outside This Forum
Electricity related speculation/troubleshooting should be posted in this subforum, and no where else. Posts on these topics outside this subforum, will either be deleted or moved to this forum. This was necessary due to forum problems in the past.

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Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
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Re: STICKY -- Read This First About Scientific Legitimacy of EMI Latency Issues

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 26 Jan 2023, 22:02

Please Note This Topic Area Is On Probation

- There are many professional members here, but a lot of forum unprofessional replies in this topic area
- Forum may be discontinued at any time in the future if professionalism degrades further than current status quo.
- Please help raise reputational tides by being calm when replying to people you think are trolls
- Please use "Report Post" instead of reactively replying
- Nuance your original research versus peer reviewed research please. (Don't misrepresent)

As the most misbehaved section of the Forums (high moderating workload), it's currently next on the forum-culling list.

If you are a researcher with many citations, or actually have high-end equipment (e.g. Tektronix-branded digital oscilloscope costing thousands), with a Ph.D university degree -- we want you to post. Go ahead, that greatly lifts all reputational boats in this forum subtopic. Interference is a major problem behind the scenes in the refresh rate race to retina refresh rates.

This forum is a professionally heavily-moderated venue, but we don't want to have to be too heavy handed -- rather that the forum be archived set to read-only than being forced to moderate harder.

Since this forum area is currently on probation, please consider better than usual if you decide to "Submit Post" or "Submit Reply". This isn't Facebook or Twitter. This forum has no financial interest nor benefit to Blur Busters main business model at all, and the extra advertising of this forum section is under $10.00 per month -- it's not worth $10 to have misbehaving forum members that discourage other people in this forum whose posts are being deleted by the dozens because they are stirring up [bleep]. So, behave yourselves, please.

*** Topic Probation Alert ***
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

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Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

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