Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

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spacediver
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by spacediver » 11 Jul 2019, 13:12

ad8e wrote: I chose luminance as my go-to default, but I don't have any reaction-related knowledge here. My experience is only that the human mind's luminance processing seems to be higher performance than its color processing in tasks such as reading. A combined luminance/hue change would be better, as it avoids this confounding variable. Blue to bright green combines both a huge luminance change and a nice color change, since blue is naturally "dark".
It's been a while and I'd have to review some stuff before committing to this idea, but If we're only interested in reaction times, I think it makes more sense to design stimuli that preferentially use the magnocellular pathway - the phasic response of this system, combined with faster axonal conduction velocities in the initial projections to the lateral geniculate nucleus make for a lower latency system. This might mean using a short duration, low contrast, low spatial frequency stimulus (e,.g. a flashed grating).

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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 11 Jul 2019, 13:14

do0om wrote:147 ms on 25 tries, this is pretty damn good.
147ms average in 25 tries in a web-based test? Damn impressive. Totally believe it.

Knowing generally worst browser latencies, 2 refresh cycles + desktop compositing error margin [a guesstimate of a 12ms browser+system errorband -- but could be tighter than that, who knows]. Tight browser pipelines + fullscreen mode, can tighten the depth so this would easily be ~140ms reactiontime when subtracting the browser pipeline overhead.

I am able to get ~165ms-~190ms reaction time on a measily strobed 144Hz VA panel (Currently trying out ASUS TUF ELMB-Sync at the moment) in unmodified Chrome if I do:
(1) Browser fullscreen F11
(2) Browser zoom until the green fill whole screen
(3) Sit slightly closer
(4) Stare intensely with zero distractions
(5) Get stressed/pumped as if my life depended on it, go totally zen-focus onto it, and fear the deathly color.
(6) Pre-pressure on my 1000Hz gaming mouse button (Razer Deathadder) with as much pressure as possible right above click threshold
(7) Click stable (like a trained shooter). Less aggressively and shakily.

Instead of my typical ~200ms-220ms I was easily able to reliably get a few 165ms results in a few minutes of trying. It takes practice to calm myself, clear my mind, fully focus, and then I see quite a lot of my reaction time go sub-200ms more than 90% of the time with ~160ms ranges up to 10% of the time.

Many make the mistake of suddenly slamming a hard click, but that slows reaction time (the "slam the gas pedal" mistake = your tire metaphorically spins a bit) -- I speculate that this accidentally slides the mouse and/or creates a distorted click vector (diagonal instead of downwards) but whatever the scientific cause -- extra aggression in click raises my HumanBenchmark numbers.

I genuinely feel I am just average, I see many average competitive players can do 165ms in HumanBenchmark when they do that without cheating. As I am not an esports caliber, I'm not too surprised that I'm able to reduce my reaction time slightly when I immerse myself in a full-field stimuli.

Those old 1990s reaction time tests staring at a single-dot LED pressing a 5mm-travel pushbutton -- or even multi-mm-travel Olympic sprint footpad sensors -- probably do not consider the improvement afforded by full-field visual stimuli + a sub-millimeter click travel -- even when delayed by the display pipeline and refresh granularity it seems that full visual fields make noticeable improvement to reaction time. Based on these observations of my very imperfect self -- I feel shaving 20ms off myself is not a big a stone's throw at all.

I this this sort of stuff merits further proper study, given the spread between my very average reaction time numbers and the esports athletes of caliber.
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 11 Jul 2019, 13:41

Ironically, I find myself easily putting myself in a slower mental state where I'm reliably getting 200s and 210s instead of 180s

One good thing I observe is that I notice the color change more than the text change, so I find it easier to stare into the blank red space instead of stare into the text. Also, green happens to be brighter than red, so this is also a simultaneous brightness change in addition to color. I intentionally defocus straight into the color, staring at the space between the icon at the top and the text-line at below, with almost 50% of my FOV bathed in solid color at a temporary viewing distance of 12 inches from the strobed 144Hz 27" ASUS TUF VG32V.

Suddenly, I got a 167ms result after just two tries (zero false starts!)...
Then I got 3 consecutive zero-falsestart 157ms-168ms results, before I fell out of my focus state by accident on the 4th and 5th.
after 2nd click | after 3rd click | after 5th click

But I would speculate that not everyone reacts the same speed to each different kinds of visual stimuli; that factor needs to be potentially studied in a more esports-relevant context.

Experimenting with oneself's different stimuli, and mental states, is very educational!

I speculate that on a per-player basis may tune themselves subconsciously to their respective most-efficient cues of visual stimuli. People who are good readers (less dyslexic) might respond faster to text changes, while people who aren't partially colorblind may respond faster to color changes, and so on; as a speculation. Naturally, the drive for winning means the multi-stimuli opportunity of a esports session has many opportunities for an individual player to fine-tune to their most optimal stimuli automatically in a subconscious manner, as a rote of training.

I have to observe that esports is full of unexpected interacting stimuli factors
- FOV of stimuli (fullscreen-game-flashes, versus a single faraway target suddenly appearing, and everything in between).
- Simultaneous visual stimuli (shape-change, color-change, brightness-change, text-change, size-change, peripheral, flicker-flash, etc)
- Supplemental stimuli (audio)
- Gently focussing oneself on a specific stimuli of a multi-stimuli (like focussing on brightness/color instead of text or icon).
- Calm zen factor (professional solders/military/self-defense forces/etc fear for lives but trained to aim calm+stable)
- Pumping/priming oneself but not pumping onself to distracted-panic-attack levels.
- Nonstressed and I am slow (too relaxed), too stressed I am slow (too shaky), so prime myself to the correct level.
- Fear factors (fear of loss of rankings etc)
- Etc.

This leads me to believe that an even bigger number of historic reaction-time tests are potentially more limited in scope than thought, given the esports era incentive for a player to dynamically fine-tune themselves to various multiple visual stimuli than I have thought -- because of such narrow stimuli focuses and other flaws.

Also, priming oneself is not easy for a layperson who is not familiar as such. That calculated tense-but-precised alert state -- like spear fishing -- or archery -- or hunter -- or military/defense forces -- or Olympics or such. Few people are in that "precise-tense" state the first time they play with HumanBenchmark, given the wonders of the creature of comforts of First World ownership of high end systems is often an individual who never has to worry about ever being in that precision-alertness state. I don't know what the correct scientific terminology for this mental state is...

So I merely describe the state where you're "precision aiming like your life depended on it" without shaking in fear. It seems to be a factor to consider as this is clearly a state that many esports players are in. It's easy to overprime (too tense) and it's easy to underprime (too relaxed) -- and in many lines of aim-or-die specialties -- takes a lifetime to train oneself to prime perfectly like a professional sniper in the middle of a war -- or a medieval-era hunter lost in the woods who badly needs to aim an arrow perfectly to survive for food. More than half of historical reaction-time tests neglect this mental state that's also frequently found in esports where you can lose tens of thousands of dollars for an esports mistake, etc.

I think there is merit to doing a broader-ranging official study of this in the multi-visual-stimuli display context (esports related or otherwise), as there are many spinoff applications in other industries/organizations/etc too.
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ad8e
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by ad8e » 11 Jul 2019, 14:12

I don't care about that reaction time stuff, so I won't be doing work for it, although others can. Right now, the project is blocking on spacediver's code. He is busy and any of the projects he wants to try will require significant work, so I don't foresee progress in the near future. That means I won't be checking blurbusters too much anymore; Rejhon can reach me through github if anything moves forward.

spacediver
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by spacediver » 11 Jul 2019, 14:17

flood wrote:been a while since last posting here... spacediver alerted me to this discussion

1. my old 148ms is not fake and not cheating. it did not have an outlier that was less than 140ms; i wouldn't report the average if i just got lucky...

i tend to cluster between 150ms and 170ms. sometimes with outliers above if the timing catches me by surprise. very rarely I'll accidentally misclick and get a time less than 140ms.

2. idk about the current reaction time test, but a long time ago i checked against my own reaction time test program running at 1000fps and didn't get much different results from the humanbenchmark site (which was running flash)

3. i've probably made a similar comment before, but evaluating tracking latency is tricky due to prediction... also the goal there is not to react as fast as possible but to keep your crosshair on the enemy
Thanks flood, appreciate the input.

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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by 1000WATT » 11 Jul 2019, 17:52

Chief. Most of the positive effects that you describe the result of the production of adrenaline.
Yes, there is no doubt in the effectiveness of these methods. And some pharmaceutical companies are already cooperating with e-sports organizations. Sooner or later. Athletes before the competition will begin to test the blood.
I'm worried about. Children in order to be a winner. They easily sacrifice their health, eyesight, joints, posture, drink energy drinks in liters. Some are taking drugs amphetamine group .
Let's get around the research and popularization of this direction. Let it be taken by pharmaceutical companies who do not care about people.
I often do not clearly state my thoughts. google translate is far from perfect. And in addition to the translator, I myself am mistaken. Do not take me seriously.

ad8e
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by ad8e » 11 Jul 2019, 18:37

spacediver wrote:
flood wrote:been a while since last posting here... spacediver alerted me to this discussion

1. my old 148ms is not fake and not cheating. it did not have an outlier that was less than 140ms; i wouldn't report the average if i just got lucky...
Thanks flood, appreciate the input.
If flood's number was 148 ms, then your article should not have called it "around 140 ms".

spacediver
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by spacediver » 11 Jul 2019, 19:34

I thought at the time it was around 140 ms, must have been a miscommunication.

spacediver
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by spacediver » 11 Jul 2019, 21:25

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
So I merely describe the state where you're "precision aiming like your life depended on it" without shaking in fear. It seems to be a factor to consider as this is clearly a state that many esports players are in. It's easy to overprime (too tense) and it's easy to underprime (too relaxed) -- and in many lines of aim-or-die specialties -- takes a lifetime to train oneself to prime perfectly like a professional sniper in the middle of a war -- or a medieval-era hunter lost in the woods who badly needs to aim an arrow perfectly to survive for food. More than half of historical reaction-time tests neglect this mental state that's also frequently found in esports where you can lose tens of thousands of dollars for an esports mistake, etc.

I think there is merit to doing a broader-ranging official study of this in the multi-visual-stimuli display context (esports related or otherwise), as there are many spinoff applications in other industries/organizations/etc too.
Agreed, I've not delved deep, but I believe peak performance is a legit field of research, and it seems plausible that being in a flow state, or highly physically primed state, could have an effect on reaction times. If so, reaction time tests would themselves be a great way to test whether someone's in a state of peak performance.

flood
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Re: Interesting project about mouse/ gamepad latency

Post by flood » 12 Jul 2019, 04:05

comment:
i think the humanbenchmark test works by turning green at a random time, but this random time is selected between 2s and 5s
which means that anyone who's done this test enough times, will (consciously or subconsciously or both) anticipate more and more if the color stays red for longer.

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