Blur Busters a temporal business is all about improving those tiny temporal problems -- stutter, lag, GtG, MPRT, motion blur, etc. And this is squarely a Blur Busters sphere topic.
We often go quite left-field in a lot of temporal things -- and trailblaze believers in disbelievable topics ("240Hz!? Nobody can see that fast!"). We're already famous as the micdrop factory for a lot of high-Hz debates over the years. So we're quite open minded in these kinds of new-frontier topics.
ball2hi wrote: ↑30 Dec 2020, 23:48
Meanwhile, I just played several hours of Overwatch and I have ZERO pain in my arm, hand, and wrists like I would have if I played for only an hour. I literally don't need to deathgrip my mouse anymore. And I hope that it at least stays that way even if something else decides to come along.
Clearly-observed reduced gaming fatigue is additional proof that you clearly fixed something.
Not surprised since there is precedent.
Generically speaking ...Improved fluidity, fewer stutters, less erratic behavior in mouse and keyboard, etc can actually reduce calorie consumption of playing in esports.
The human brain during intense processing uses a LOT of energy.
Intense activity during sitting can easily consume thousands of calories per day -- some
chess grandmasters consume 6000 calories despite sitting all day even just by sitting for >10 hours in a chess tournament. That's how shocking amount of power a human brain consumes in top championships -- brain consuming so much power that some people lose more than 10 pounds is lost in a single day,
despite sitting.
Likewise, esports atheletes can consume thouands of calories in an all-day session. In high-stress high-mental-workload situations of the more complex esports games,
some top esports atheletes actually lose weight in long esports tournaments. Not all of them, but some.
If you are just casually playing a slow game of beginner Tetris or Pac Man, you're not pushing yourself mentally. But trying to win your rent money against other players who's trying to win their rent money -- now that's a high stress environment against top players. Imagine as if your life depended on fast thinking / strategy / calculating / etc. Top notch brain performance can consume massive calories akin to chess grandmastering -- and your brain consumes more power, enough to mentally fatigue you early and/or lose weight.
Now, even if you're not in the esports torunaments, and just playing online in a covid-locked-down environment, if you have lots of passion then your mental focus in the game can be super intense.
Now throw in simultaneous system flaws like random stutter or random latency, then your mental workload goes up, trying to correct (reaim, reshoot, reflick, recorrect), etc. That burns more energy. You only need <10ms latency randomizations to increase mental caloric workload significantly, since half a 60Hz refresh cycle is 8ms, creating a single Hz miss. And those 128 tick CS:GO servers -- that's 8ms per tick. Any random equipment fuzz, even 2ms erraticness, creates a 25% chance of missing the tick. Now you feel like you're randomly missing/hitting frags diverging from your consistent-latency aim pretraining. Ouch.
Just like a racecar driver gets fatigued with a hard-to-steer car (many steering corrections, etc), a competitive gaming player can get fatigued by erratic behaviours (e.g. erratic latency in mouse) that requires frequent mentally-draining re-correcting behaviours. A stuttery game, an erratic latency, a jittery hitbox effect (variable network latency) -- all of them are mentally fatiguing behaviours during competitive gaming because you're working harder to continually correct for random stuff.
It doesn't just apply to gaming. Even personally, I am getting the same mental-workload-reducing pleasure out of my new mouse (Razer 8Khz Viper with optical-trigger buttons and extremely precise mouse tracking so good -- even Windows Desktop is comfortable at 3200dpi too!). Improved mouse fluidity and performance really does reduce my mental fatigue even in non-gaming contexts -- this mouse is such a pleasure even in non-gaming contexts for me, since I am very stutter sensitive. Because of its ultra-smoothness makes me feel sure and calm using the mouse, because of its ultra precise clicks. With a 240Hz or 360Hz mouse, I just simply enjoy the extra fluidity of the optically-actuated mouse buttons combined with an increased poll rate (2000Hz+), as the improvement is noticeable (mouse microstutters appears with mouse pollrate less than 5-6x higher than display refresh rate). The combined improvement of fluidity, decrease of stutters, decrease of erratic stroboscopics, decrease of latency -- creates a less mentally fatiguing competitive gaming environment.
Whatever optimization you did to your gaming system -- any noticeable reduction in calorie-burning (from less brainpower used in correcting for erratic behaviors such as stutter/erratic lag/etc) -- can mean long sessions of mentally-intense gaming is far less fatiguing.
ball2hi wrote: ↑30 Dec 2020, 23:48
If you seriously want me to prove this, buy me a high-speed camera and I'll gladly find out how to operate it and show you. It was the most frustrating experience ever having a SIX HUNDRED DOLLAR 165hz 1ms monitor and not being able to see during high-motion flicks? It literally felt like I was blinking when I flicked.
Not necessary. I believe you.
I get the same -- of Blur Busters temporal-business namesake -- I am less mentally fatigued when my computer system is doing a lot of things more precisely. I am not lag-sensitive but I am very stutter-sensitive.
P.S. I'm looking for researchers to study more about these kinds of topics. I've previously commissioned an old
www.blurbusters.com/human-reflex but I'd like more study done on the benefits of latency-precision.
Now, that said.... Unfortunately, there's a lot of cause-effects too and placebos mixed in too. But anything that clearly reduces mental workload (gaming longer without becoming tired) -- means a major mental workload contributor was eliminated, such as erratic mouse timings (e.g. mouse coordinates that jittered by milliseconds in timestamps).
Keyboard hooks and mouse hooks -- via Windows API
SetWindowsHookEx() with tons of
HOOKPROC's --
WH_KEYBOARD and
WH_MOUSE_LL -- used by two dozen applications and utilities
installed simultaneously on the same system -- can add random latencies. I've programmed hook software before. Many scanner software use these hooks.
Google "
SetWindowsHookEx hotkey" -- that is HOW software can monitor keypresses systemwide, whether it's a hotkey to open a app (while you're inside a different app) -- or to monitor for anticheat software or malware. Even Steam and NVIDIA uses this for popping up the HUD (menu overlays) but they've optimized them to high performance..
But what one doesn't know is hooks can be poorly optimized and add latency. One software processes a hook, then calls CallNextHookEx -- so that means NVIDIA drivers (HUD / ShadowPlay / Geforce Experience hotkeys) might chain to Steam (the Steam HUD) might chain to RTSS (the scanline sync hotkeys) might chain to MalwareBytes (the keylogger monitor) might chain to FavouriteUtility (hotkey to open your walkthrough) until FINALLY your keypress HITS your game engine. Lag, lag, lag!!!!
Whether it's an application that monitors for a hotkey, or a scanners that inefficiently monitors for keyloggers/mouselogger malware. This adds erratic latencies to mouse buttons, mouse movements, and keyboard presses. As people install more software, you get more hooks.
That's why things degrade again after you uninstall certain software -- you're often installing new games, drivers, utilities, etc -- that adds more and more hooks to the keyboard/mouse chain -- which can add latencies.
That can bog things down especially if some hooks adds erratic latencies that increase mental workload -- imagine one keypress taking 10ms more latency than the previous keypress, and the next keypress taking 10ms less latency. Erratic latency is VERY bad. You burn more calories in your human brain trying to compensate for unwanted erratic latencies.
Now, obviously, if you are worried about hook pollution..... If you're in critical esports, start fresh with a fresh Windows install and only install the software you need. Dual boot between your dirty OS (e.g. software-cluttered Windows) and clean OS (a Windows install only containing a highly-optimized install of CS:GO), if you need to.
(In other words, A and B means I believe in C)
When someone observes a major mental-workload reduction in gaming, I am more inclined to believe that something real was likely solved, even if it was an accidental cause-effect (i.e. if not Malwarebytes, but something major was apparently lifted).
Thanks to precedents and the known of high-calorie burn of intense mental activity (really intense gameplay and/or esports or other activity such as grandmaster-league competitive chess), it is quite important to optimize a system to reduce any mental-workload-increasing factors.
Sure, placebos exist. But major reductions in gaming mental workload? Whatever you did (including additional things you did intentionaly/unintentionally/accidentally in addition to disabling Malwarebytes) -- this smells definitely not-placebo, when someone observes a major mental workload decrease. Good for you -- something clearly major was fixed. Watching top league players become skinny because of thousands of calories burned in stressful top-end play -- any little improvement that reduces gaming fatigue is very helpful.
I remember the old 240Hz troll parrots (240Hz disbelievers) and I really think more research is needed on bad keyboard hooking software including scanners. Or other hidden latency-fuzzing factors inside a system. Fling the floodgates open, I say!
P.S. I am recruiting researchers (university researchers, peer reviewed researchers, etc) to research these kinds of things better. Mental workloads in esports gameplay as well as factors that increase/decrease mental workload. Blur Busters occasionally commission paid research on obvious-yet-underresearched esports-relevant topics, as we have done in the past (e.g. www.blurbusters.com/human-reflex ...). Inquire within -- squad [at] blurbusters.com
