BumFlannel wrote: ↑20 Feb 2025, 17:34
Except that's not what placebo is. Placebo is when you change something or it is suggested that something has changed so you expect a difference and therefore perceive one.
Suddenly feeling a difference for no reason and nothing to suggest change isn't placebo.
The only thing you are correct about here is when people think they fixed the issue after changing something, they're expecting/looking for a difference and convince themselves there is one. The existence of the issue(or not) in the first place has nothing to do with placebo.
For example, let's say I'm getting 70fps in a game on hardware that pushes 300fps for everyone else. I make some changes hoping to fix the fps but I forget to turn on the fps counter and go by feel "I fixed it, this is way smoother" but I'm actually still getting 70fps. That's placebo, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm still getting shitty fps on hardware that should be pushing way more.
To suggest this issue doesn't exist when so many people describe 1:1 the same symptoms is moronically dismissive. Yes placebo exists around this whole issue, but it has absolutely nothing to do with whether it exists or not, that is just fact at this point.
No, something doesn't become a fact just because there are lots of people believing the same thing, and even if it did, most people in the gaming community don't believe in such issues, would that turn it into a fact then? Also only 0.01% of the entire gaming community report such things. I speak with property because I'm not someone speaking with just an outside view on the problem, I've had a long journey suffering from and trying things to fix it, the things I read aren't new to me at all. I used to think the same as most of you for years.
It may be belieavable when you say "lots of people complain about the same thing 1:1 so it is just a fact by now", but this just isn't a deciding factor whatsoever. Taking the religion example, there are 1000s of religions with billions of believers with countless supernatural testimonies. Would every religion be right in their beliefs because of that then? God would at the same time exist and not exist, because there are lots of people on both sides.
Don't get me wrong, this was also something that made me ignore the possibility of it all being placebo, "how come so many people describe the same thing? It must be real". It's interesting, I wrote my thoughts on the main post as to why people might be describing the same thing. But we shouldn't ignore that they aren't exactly the same though! Some say it's only on online games, some say it's on desktop too, only on CS2, only daytime, only desync/only floaty, and so on. People also have different fixes that work for different periods of time which too suggests placebo.
As to it not being placebo, it looks like you understood what I meant and is just trying to go into the semantic of the word, that's irrelevant, as long as what I wrote is understandable that's good enough. This is how we use that word around the forum anyways.
But either way... If I think that my car is going slower than normal without any apparent reason, but it is actually the same speed as always; then it can't be placebo(or wrong belief, etc) anymore? You don't need be aware that something changed in order to have a distorted perception about something, that's why blind tests exist, to diminish the chance of placebo effect.
Using the example of feeling smoother fps but not turning fps counter on: "I feel my mouse is suddenly moving slower/unprecise/floaty" -> proceeds to not do any kind of measurements for these. How is it not the same thing as not having the fps counter on? In both you're relying only on your own judgement, and as I wrote before, that's an invitation to placebo effect(Or wrong belief, however you want to call it)! Which I think that you also agree, because "measuring" fps without an actual counter ins't actually measuring anything.
The problem I describe on the post, and you on your example is the same: not measuring. I think my car is slower; I'll keep thinking it is slower until I decide to measure it and surprise myself that it was the same speed as always, or I'll find out that it was actually going slower than normal. Playing a game or swiping your mouse left/right isn't any kind of measurement, but if someone wanna rely just on their own judgement and on that to confirm that they have any kind of issue, that's on them.
Another thing that might've not been clear enough, is that I didn't decide to live with floaty mouse and made that post because I gave up on trying, I'm actually performing better
after I made some tests and started believing the issue to not be real, not only that but the feeling of floatiness/delay is gone too. It is relieving not having to worry about random settings or changes I might make and accidentally bring the issue back. It's the only fix that lasted that long, measuring stuff and noticing it wasn't broken
I understand if it's hard to believe it because I would probably not either, unless that happened to me, but the intent is not "believing" in anything, on the contrary actually, it is to warn people about measuring their setup in order to see if their problem is even real to begin with! The hard to believe part is how strong placebo effect can be, making you swear to be feeling and seeing such things, which surprised me a lot when I found out to be false.
