Games & input lag.

[Mr Deap]

Sure you guys like to talk about how beautiful is a game & talk about how high is the resolution or the framerate... But what about the input by itself?

The HDTV can add lag
The wireless controller can add lag
The V-Sync can add lag
Online gameplay can add lag

There are other stuff too, but the perspective to retain that tight control have to be controlled somehow.

Indeed, there's a lot of game that have bad input lag & the amount of them can be frustrating to play with soo...(console gameplay related)

Discussion!!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Discuss...what exactly?! You need a question, or assertion t be challenged. eg. "Can the lag from all systems together create a noticeable impact on game control?" or "in my opinion, current games have very sloppy controls which is in considerable part due to the liits of commincation technology between devices, and there are no solutions. Indeed lagginess in games is set to get worse come next generation where three and four frame lag will be common place (to which someone will ask for sources or reasonings)".

Otherwise the most anyone can add to this topic is something like..."Yep. They sure can."

 

[AlNom]

Can the lag not be calibrated ala the rhythm games?

 

[Statix]

I don't believe I've played a single console shooter yet that had any noticeable input lag/delay that would affect its playability. And I play a lot of shooters. V-sync on or off, wireless and wired controllers, what have you. This may change when I get my hands on Killzone 2, however.

I think input lag is predominately an issue caused by the HDTV itself, especially newer kinds of flat-panel and fixed-pixel dispays (plasma, DLP projection, LCD). This lag usually occurs when the HDTV itself is forced to upscale a 720p or 480i/p signal to the native resolution of the HDTV (either 768p or 1080p).

 

[paawl]

I think input lag is predominately an issue caused by the HDTV itself, especially newer kinds of flat-panel and fixed-pixel dispays (plasma, DLP projection, LCD). This lag usually occurs when the HDTV itself is forced to upscale a 720p or 480i/p signal to the native resolution of the HDTV (either 768p or 1080p).

I believe that you're correct, and that this may be one of the under appreciated benefits of the Xbox 360's built-in scaler. I've measured lag using the Rock Band 2 calibration system, and I found the following:

Xbox set to output 1080p directly to my 1080p Aquos LCD TV: 0 ms video lag (very repeatable)
Xbox set to output 1080p to my Yamaha AVR, then the TV: <10 ms lag
Xbox set to output 720p to my TV (on "game" setting): >20 ms lag

It appears that the TV buffers a frame or even two while scaling the picture from 720p to 1080p native resolution, while the receiver fairly efficiently strips the audio from the HDMI and passes the video through to the TV.

I'd like to conduct similar measurements on my PS3, but I have no software with which to do so.

 

[Fafalada]

I think input lag is predominately an issue caused by the HDTV itself

Not necessarily.
Eg: minimum input delay in a 30fps game ranges between 50-66ms. In many cases, it'll be between 82-90 or higher, because pipelining on frame granularity(ie. multi-buffering) is one of the cleaner/easier ways of paralelization with minimum synchronization delays.
HDTV would be adding on top of that, and ineed, can make the situation worse.

One of the worst culprits would be sports games online, because they are typically synchronized so you end up buffering-up network inputs as well. On the flipside, gameplay in these kind of games is one of the most latency tolerant as well, so it balances out.

 

[AlNom]

One of the worst culprits would be sports games online, because they are typically synchronized so you end up buffering-up network inputs as well. On the flipside, gameplay in these kind of games is one of the most latency tolerant as well, so it balances out.

Hm... interesting. When I was playing Halo 3 with three other people in co-op there was quite a noticeable input lag that was much worse than anything I had seen over regular multiplayer. My experience with my TV is similar to paawl's as well in terms of being best when setting the 360 to output the closest resolution to my TV.

 

[Statix]

Not necessarily.
Eg: minimum input delay in a 30fps game ranges between 50-66ms. In many cases, it'll be between 82-90 or higher, because pipelining on frame granularity(ie. multi-buffering) is one of the cleaner/easier ways of paralelization with minimum synchronization delays.
HDTV would be adding on top of that, and ineed, can make the situation worse.

Then how come I've never noticed that >50ms of delay that you're referring to (30hz games, included)? I know I can notice 50ms of input latency, but in the vast majority of games, as soon as I press fire, I fire. As soon as I press jump, I jump.

Maybe I'm not paying close enough attention when I'm playing games, but I'm fairly certain I almost never come across any noticeable input delay in my games, because I would definitely notice 50ms.

One of the worst culprits would be sports games online, because they are typically synchronized so you end up buffering-up network inputs as well. On the flipside, gameplay in these kind of games is one of the most latency tolerant as well, so it balances out.

Well, we already know that networked games all have at least some instances of visible latency when performing certain actions. That's a given for online play, considering the current broadband speeds that the world is hooked up with. But I wouldn't call that a built-in performance characteristic of most games' engines themselves.

 

[joker454]

Then how come I've never noticed that >50ms of delay that you're referring to (30hz games, included)? I know I can notice 50ms of input latency, but in the vast majority of games, as soon as I press fire, I fire. As soon as I press jump, I jump.

When we were making the MLB game ages ago, we had both a more immediate frame buffer arrangement, and a more buffered frame buffer arrangement to improve performance. The first method delayed input response by one or two frames, the second method delayed input response by two or three frames. With the first method none of the play testers complained. With the second method, ~15% of the play testers complained about lag when batting. So it's one of those things that some people are more sensitive to than others. This was in an older version of the game that ran at 30fps. At 60fps, no one seemed to notice overall.

 

[zed]

Then how come I've never noticed that >50ms of delay that you're referring to (30hz games, included)? I know I can notice 50ms of input latency, but in the vast majority of games, as soon as I press fire, I fire. As soon as I press jump, I jump.

Maybe I'm not paying close enough attention when I'm playing games, but I'm fairly certain I almost never come across any noticeable input delay in my games, because I would definitely notice 50ms.

halo3 has been tested (see gamasutra article)
input lag is 133msec -> 166msec
which does seem a lot, but perhaps its not easily noticable ( i was just mucking around today firing 4 events 30msec apart but to my eyes they all looked to happen at the same time (ignore refresh btw) )
though in the olympics as false start is someone starting quicker than 100msec

 

[Mr Deap]

There are indeed several title that I feel input lag such as(I only play on XBOX 360);

Dead Rising
Sonic Unleashed
Project Gotham Racing 4
Gears of War
Grand Thief Auto 4
GRID

A couple of games that didn't sold well & use Unreal Engine...

Sometime it come straight from the games, indeed the HDTV can also be the cupril, but mine does 15ms in 1080P & 30ms in 480i which ain't bad for an LCD(I also believe you can't get better from what I've seen in AVSforum).

I also notice by using my brother controller that use the recharge kit with the XBOX 360 controller also add extra lag in comparison of using nihm batteries instead.

Though, I do see some games with screen tearing & offline too & have that lag feeling into the control. Though as die hard as I am, I am wondering what kind of filter or any graphic related or physic related effect can actually add delay into the input of a controller. Older system didn't seem to suffer much from it in comparison to today games.

 

[SG79]

Both the software and the TV are to blame; it can vary greatly from one set to another.

I noticed lag on my older flat panel quite a bit, but it's barely an issue when I upgraded last year. Of course, I noticed a bit of a lag upon switching to a CRT for comparison's sake but nothing major. The most noticeable one was Ninja Gaiden Sigma; the difference was as if I was wearing a glove while playing on the HD flat panel.

 

[Nightz]

There are indeed several title that I feel input lag such as(I only play on XBOX 360);

Dead Rising
Sonic Unleashed
Project Gotham Racing 4
Gears of War
Grand Thief Auto 4
GRID

A couple of games that didn't sold well & use Unreal Engine...

Sometime it come straight from the games, indeed the HDTV can also be the cupril, but mine does 15ms in 1080P & 30ms in 480i which ain't bad for an LCD(I also believe you can't get better from what I've seen in AVSforum).

I also notice by using my brother controller that use the recharge kit with the XBOX 360 controller also add extra lag in comparison of using nihm batteries instead.

Though, I do see some games with screen tearing & offline too & have that lag feeling into the control. Though as die hard as I am, I am wondering what kind of filter or any graphic related or physic related effect can actually add delay into the input of a controller. Older system didn't seem to suffer much from it in comparison to today games.

So I guess input lag is what causes alot of cheap deaths in online shooters like Gears.

 

[JPT]

So I guess input lag is what causes alot of cheap deaths in online shooters like Gears.

I would assume network lag is a bigger culprite.

 

[homerdog]

In my experience the TV makes all the difference. I can't play Halo (or any FPS) on the 47" LCD downstairs, but it's fine on the 30" HDCRT in my room. It was funny figuring that out. My friend who usually play on the LCD played on my set one day and complained that the controls were too sensitive. I'd never played on the LCD, and when I checked it out I was shocked. No wonder he sucked so bad.

 

[patsu]

In that case, the TV lag may have pushed the existing lag into noticeable territory. The game may already has inherent lag due to the way it's programmed.

Also if you're playing multi-player, the LCD station downstairs may have different network characteristics from the 30" CRT station in your room (e.g., is it "further" away from the WiFi router ?).

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'd say that net lag is a much bigger issue than input lag, except maybe on older displays. One of my friends had an older HDTV that was pretty terrible. Display lag should be a non issue for the single player experience.

 

[homerdog]

In that case, the TV lag may have pushed the existing lag into noticeable territory. The game may already has inherent lag due to the way it's programmed.

Probably, though Rock Band is unplayable as well. No the calibration doesn't fix it, there's something about getting that visual feedback as soon as you hit the notes that keeps me (and my friends) on track; we fail miserably when we play on that TV no matter how much time we spend on calibration.

Also if you're playing multi-player, the LCD station downstairs may have different network characteristics from the 30" CRT station in your room (e.g., is it "further" away from the WiFi router ?).

Lags in single player too.

It's not just that TV, most fixed pixel HDTVs I've ever gamed on have had _noticeable_ lag. And I'm not talking about Vizios; Samsungs, LGs, Sharps, all lagtastic to the point of hilarity. It's the reason I created this thread.

 

[TrungGap]

My friends and I sometimes play Halo 3 local lan (3 on 3) on two TVs. One of the TV is older without *game mode*, the other one has it. However, we did notice something. While both TV looks fine and play fine in single player mode. When we do death match. The players playing on older TV, would always (okay, not always but close to 100%) lose. When we switch side, it the result would be the same, regardless of the players/team makeup.

As a whole, not everyone saw a lag on the older TV. Some said there was, some didn't think so. As for me, I definitely thought(1) there was.

Edit:
(1) I had not conclusive evidence, just a strange feeling something isn't right. Click on the button seem to fire the gun as expected and saw no delay.

So my point is sometime there's lag and you won't even notice it. But it could give unfair advantage...

 

[Scott_Arm]

My friends and I sometimes play Halo 3 local lan (3 on 3) on two TVs. One of the TV is older without *game mode*, the other one has it. However, we did notice something. While both TV looks fine and play fine in single player mode. When we do death match. The players playing on older TV, would always (okay, not always but close to 100%) lose. When we switch side, it the result would be the same, regardless of the players/team makeup.

As a whole, not everyone saw a lag on the older TV. Some said there was, some didn't think so. As for me, I definitely thought there was.

In a heavy twitch game it's definitely possible that even a small imperceptible difference could be a deciding factor in play, but for the most part people play online, and the difference in network lag would dwarf any display lag. If you're into lan play, then I could see it being an issue. For single player, if you can't notice it, then it really is irrelevant.