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HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 14 Oct 2026, 23:12
by chipotlechicken
Hello, I am looking to get some data regarding people who have had success (high rank) in the past.

Something like Immortal 3 or above in Valorant, Grandmasters in League of Legends, etc..

The data that I would like is the story of how your input lag started.

You might be like me, someone who hit Imm3 on an alienware 3060 shit PC during covid, with a ethernet cable you bought from best buy.

The game might have felt good enough to hit high rank, but you got greedy and kept looking for more. And as time passed you couldnt even hit your own peak anymore. And even more time passes with even more upgrades and changes, and now your system feels like absolute shite and is unplayable.

Whatever the case is, if you've hit high rank you can guarantee that something was working somewhat good. Like my system at the time was probably working at 90%.

Anyways if anybody has had success in competitive games in the past, and is now struggling with input lag/desync or anything of the sort, please leave your story of what happened.

Also try to remember the smallest details. Did you change your PC? Did you change a cable? An ISP? What are the events that happened as your game started to become unplayable. Or did time just pass and it just got worse over time with windows updates etc.

Let me know

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 15 Oct 2026, 01:05
by f1ndus
Hello, I already played cs 1.6 at higher level, when comes cs:go we had only 60hz monitors long time, i think I bought my first 144hz monitor and decent pc around 2015-2016 when I started notice i have some problems. In 2016 started my career when I started playing lan tournaments for organizations, when I was very skilled player i started feeling my handicap vs best players, i was every time buying new pcs,monitors, mouses and searching whole internet for solution, around 2017 i found legendary forum "input lag is killing me" where a lot people was talking aboute electricity. So there started my Journey.. symptoms like desync, heavy feeling gameplay, shots are delayed with bad hitreg, mouse floaty, sometimes its good sometimes very bad.. no matter what you do it will help your problem that you think you are fine and its fixed but every time it comes back after some time.. with electricity i tried everything whay is possible, changing apartments every month, with or wirhout my pc setup but everywhere is the same without any help, when I feel my input lag is very low, then i switch to another apartment it stays low input lag aswell, the same is otherwisewhen is high input lag level and changing places it stays same. Still no clue whats happening like everyone.. ** same problem on lan tourmants where played hundreds other players around me without any problem **

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 15 Oct 2026, 05:39
by Panychkaaa
In cs (ver. 1.0 - 1.6) since 2000
Problems have come in 2019

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 15 Oct 2026, 15:38
by crack
Panychkaaa wrote: ↑
15 Oct 2026, 05:39
In cs (ver. 1.0 - 1.6) since 2000
Problems have come in 2019
Same, 2019 was a shit year, think it was sometime in May or April when this started and it was the covid lockdown.

Before I had no input lag/desync, 60Hz monitor and 120ish FPS with an office 125Hz USB mouse felt perfectly fine.

I don't know wtf happened during that time but not one day has it ever been the same since. This wasn't even isolated to just my home, went to my friends place ~6km away from me and his PC had the same dreadful lag/desync.

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 15 Oct 2026, 19:52
by astroasis
Started in 2018 like many others here with similar timeframes. Most likely the electrical grid in the areas we live in cant deal with all the electric vehicles and solar panels that started becoming mainstream in the mid 2010s, aka supraharmonics and interharmonics. A UPS on battery fixes the issue for me so I'm waiting for my ecoflow delta to arrive

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 16 Oct 2026, 04:23
by chipotlechicken
astroasis wrote: ↑
15 Oct 2026, 19:52
Started in 2018 like many others here with similar timeframes. Most likely the electrical grid in the areas we live in cant deal with all the electric vehicles and solar panels that started becoming mainstream in the mid 2010s, aka supraharmonics and interharmonics. A UPS on battery fixes the issue for me so I'm waiting for my ecoflow delta to arrive
I think you could be onto something. Basically half of my neighborhood has teslas, and around that time I got one too lol.

The problem with these tweaks is they give you hope because some of them do work. They do help. And they let you forget about this issue for a while. But then you try to hit high ranks again and you get reminded that although these tweaks help they did not solve the core issue.

Im trying something new, I'm changing my electricity plan from 2 tiered to flat rate. Idk if that's going to do anything but I'm at a loss as to where to go from here

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 16 Oct 2026, 06:38
by Panychkaaa
Now I have an average delay. Freezes and "stutters" haven't gone anywhere.
Even during the day, a delay can be temporarily normal.
Unfortunately, this is a complex question to which there is no answer.

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 16 Oct 2026, 11:16
by shebu
Im not high rank, but I feel the problem very subtly. Since 2017-2018...
I would call this the first phase, which I’ve dubbed the "input lag is killing me" post phase.

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 16 Oct 2026, 11:51
by Shionagi
Hi,

I had a Faceit Elo of 2.8k and a peak Valorant rank of Immo2. The problem started after I upgraded my processor from a Ryzen 1600 to a 3600. The mouse felt “floaty” right away. Even after I switched back to the old processor, it was still floaty. It’s been bothering me since around the end of 2020/2021. Getting a new PC didn’t fix it; I live in an old building (apartment) in Berlin (Germany).

I also had the desync issue, but I was able to fix it with my new monitor. (Gigabyte MO27Q3)

It's 100% better at night, but not perfect. It's harder during the day to play good with that problem.

Here's an example from 3 days ago, when I play in the evening or at night and it's not as “floaty.”

if i buy a new PC (or reinstall windows) first hour/day is good. Then things will get really bad.

Re: HIGH RANK PLAYERS, WHEN DID YOUR INPUT LAG PROBLEMS START?

Posted: 16 Oct 2026, 15:24
by donktuman
Problem present as early as 2008 believe me or not :) nearly 20 years with this problem. Still lvl 10 on faceit but never got consistent because of it. if you have a good day you destroy enemy if input lag is present you are lucky to get 1kd due to smart patient gamestyle :D as much as I hate it i learned to accept it.