PS4 / DS4 controller related lag / latency issues

[Phil]

After posting about lag / latency issues (previously mistaken for network lag) in the Battlefield 4 thread, I decided to give this issue an own topic.

The problem seems to be controller lag / latency issues where your buttons you press are severly delayed. A common example I've experienced while playing a game is when your movements suddenly slow down / lag behind, by up to nearly a second. When it happens, pressing the analog stick left to make your character rotate will cause your player to rotate multiple times, even if you only just moved the stick for a short instance.

What also seems to be the case is that this issue is related to the headset being plugged it and in use. So far, it has only happened with it plugged in.

When lag / latency occurs, it will also cause everything coming from my mic / headset to be chopped off / inaudible, yet while at the same time, my friend over the partychat will remain audible without any issues. To me, this hints it could be a problem with the Controllers sending or PS4s receiving unit. I have also experienced this with two different controllers, so i am suspecting the fault lies with the PS4, not the controller.

Unplugging the headset seems to solve the lag immediately, as does connecting it to the PS4 through the usb cable and continuing wired. Restarting the controller also helps.

I've had this issue with two games indepentantly, both online and offline - but always while using a headset. Subjectively, in a high responsivness game like BF4, i think that slight lag / latency could be pressent whrn using a headset. I subjectively feel that there is slight lag, compared to playing without the plugged in headset.

Significant / noticable lag pops up usually after significant playtime (an hour) and can stick around for about up to a minute when not solving it by plugging it in through usb or unplugging the mic.


Anyone notice similar issues?

I am puzzled as to if this is a defect on my unit - or a bug that could be solved through future upgrade fixes. I'm leaning on it being the former, as through 20+ hours of online gameplay where the issue has popped up noticably 5 times so far (bear in.mind i've only had the ps4 for a week and played it on 5 evenings), i've never heard my friend (whom i play with online) break up the way he describes me breaking up when the lag / lateny happens. This makes me assume, he does not have it and is not affected.

I know there are others who have the same issues though - evident by searching google, but not everyone might be aware of what is causing it exactly, thinking it may be network related when it is not. I will post some links to other cases shortly after posting this topic.

Big issue? Solvable? Or do i need to return my unit?

Thanks.

 

[Phil]

Links to similar, likely identical issues:

Intermitant Input Lag between Controller and PS4 - PlayStation® Community Forums - http://community.us.playstation.com...-Lag-between-Controller-and-PS4/td-p/42225733


Dualshock 4 lag? - PlayStation Forum - http://community.singstar.com/t5/PS4-General/Dualshock-4-lag/td-p/20251039

 

[JPT]

Could this be related to interference? It uses bluetooth and just sending the controller data might not need much bandwith, but adding voice.
Especially since bluetooth does 1600 frequency hops per second, you might have something stuck in a send queue to long, while it changes channels.

Just guessing, would be interesting to see how your 2.4 Ghz band looks, ie very polluted or not.

 

[Phil]

Good suggestion. How do i best figure that out? would a program like Wifi analizer (for android smartphone) be sufficient enough to check my wifi emissions or are these too inaccurate?

For the record; i've never had any issues with my ps3 (although no voice sent through the console there). Also my sitting distance to my ps4 is around 3 meters (10 feet if my math is correct?). Large open livingroom, 3 neighbours (up, down and one side) - so not too overpopulated and the walls are quite thick / good isolated.

The problem occurs perhaps in 1 to 2 hours intervals, though not systematic. Example: I played for 8 hours last night. First occurance in KZ:SF during campaign shortly after enabling partychat with a friend (after 2 hours of playing at that point and 10minutes after connecting to partychat) - then second occurance 4 hours later while playing BF4 online, also while in partychat. Swapped the controller then and soon later, had another occurance of lag / latency.

At that point, i figured out it was related to the headset (or BT bandwidth related) at which I started playing around with unplugging/plugging in mic to see how and if it solves the issue. Also noticed that plugging it to the usb cable made it go away, as did turning on/off the controller - although the latter would sometimes see it come back shortly.

It was also then when i noticed that subjectively, the headset might be constantly using a substantial part of the bandwidth adding just a little bit of latency to the controls, although this might be unnoticable to most or might be me being a bit paranoid about it.

 

[Arwin]

Could this be related to interference? It uses bluetooth and just sending the controller data might not need much bandwith, but adding voice.
Especially since bluetooth does 1600 frequency hops per second, you might have something stuck in a send queue to long, while it changes channels.

Just guessing, would be interesting to see how your 2.4 Ghz band looks, ie very polluted or not.

Would be my first guess too. Some people think it was bad decision that Sony doesn't also support 5Ghz for that reason (Xbox One does).

I haven't had any issues yet myself and do occasionally have the headset plugged in.

 

[JPT]

Wifi Analyzer would give you an indication, but it will not really tell you much about noise/interference, especially if its not Wifi based signal. But if you got 250 AP's then I would hazard a guess. But Bluetooth vs WiFi is a decently researched area I think, so it should be easy to find out if its this or something else is needed.

We use Wi-Spy and software from Metageek when we poke around with interference for anything wireless we do. http://www.metageek.net/

But if lag is a worry, I would not use wifi at all on the PS4, just wire it to the gateway. The frame aggregation stuff in 802.11n is not nice if you need low latency.

 

[joker454]

Just curious, when the crackling audio happens have you tried putting the controller down on a table and seeing if that fixes it? It might the way you are holding it which makes it happen more, I have that happen with a wireless keyboard that I use ~10 feet from the tv, in certain positions I guess my skin covers the wireless hardware on it and sometimes it will stutter to where I'll type "N" and on screen I'll see "NNNNN". Simply moving the keyboard a bit on my lap fixes that. One other thing you can try is have a wireless laptop nearby and keep it's connection speed displayed on screen on the same 2.4ghz frequency. When you start having issues with lag on the ps4 controller look at your laptop screen and see if it's connection speed has suddenly dropped as well. That might indicate that your 2.4ghz range is a bit polluted by neighbors. Even though your neighbors may be behind thick walls, 2.4ghz generally travels very far and goes through walls better than the 5ghz range. My 2.4ghz Wifi for example works at the other end of the yard over 100 feet way, whereas switching to 5ghz mode means I don't see any wifi signal from that same location.

 

[JPT]

Phil are you using Wifi to connect the PS4 to you local network? Then it might be the PS4, since it supports Bluetooth and Wifi in the same chip, which means they should to be synced for their transmission to not interfere with each other.

If you are using wifi to connect to your local network, try and use the ethernet port instead and see if your controller still lags with the wifi turned off.

 

[Phil]

Just a quick reply: No, PS4 is hooked up directly over the ethernet port, not wireless. I assume the Wifi is turned off, though i never specifically looked for the setting since plugging it in just worked.

Also, thanks for the other suggestions. I'll try to look in how i hold the controller. Might be a bit tricky though, since it's not systematic and i havent found a way to reproduce it yet that it happens regularly enough.

Just to point it out again though; when lag / latency occurs, it seems to only impact the controllers sending or consoles receiving ability - when i apparently break up over the mic and i feel the latency, i hear my friends chat consistent and without any loss of connection.

Another way to discribe the lag / latency is that the controller feels as if its overloaded. i just cant make sense of it only being one way.

Perhaps i will try to increase the distance to the PS4 to see if i can reproduce the same lag to test it out further. Strangely i also tried to see if setting the option "all sound outputed through headset" has any effect or makes it worse - but it doesnt. The sound i hear through the headset never breaks up and it doesnt trigger the lag / latency of the controls.

At this point i am also rechecking if it is the controller. I have two and i am very sure it happened with both, though i am unsure if one is worse than the other. Maybe I was unlucky enough to pick up two controllers with defective BT transmitters?

What would cause one way (the controllers sending ability or consoles receiving) to be more affected than the other? :S

 

[Grall]

What would cause one way (the controllers sending ability or consoles receiving) to be more affected than the other? :S

Nearly impossible to say without intimate technical knowledge of BT protocol and sony's implementation thereof in the DS4 controller I suspect. It would just be speculation, but presumably the frequency channel(s) used by transmission is more polluted than the receiving band...?

You purchasing two defect controllers is almost a statistical impossibility. Try your controllers on someone else's PS4 is an easy check to see if they are the root cause or not, but like everybody else in this thread it seems I would rather suspect network interference. Hook up a USB wire when you play and see if that helps.

 

[JPT]

Without more info on the communication protocols used etc, it will be just guess work.

But as you mentioned, over worked controller. Maybe they have set the sample size for the voice to small and it needs to do more sampling than it is able to.
Or if they do not use TCP/IP from the controller but the PS4 needs to unpack the data from the controller and repackage it to send of to the other players, it might be some time/priority issue there.

The controller might have good receive sensitivity, but to weak transmit power for your environment. I am not a radio guy, so I am getting out of my depth here.

 

[Phil]

does this help? while not exactly *not* poluted, i can't imagine this being that high that it should cause problems. As said, I only have 3 neighbours who live in close proximity - i would say the general average consumer in at least Europe and anyone living in a city apartement is bound to have far more than, that, surely?!

Edit: Sorry the large picture - typing this from phone. Too tired / lazy to move myself from the couch. Thinking of doing a chandler / joey and order pizza to my neighbours door so i dont have to get up....

 

[JPT]

In my mind that should be no issue, there are AP's there, but most of them got a quite weak signal. Ie -80 or less, so they should not really affect your system imho, but once again not a radio guy

Some helpful tips on bluetooth, but from a Mac os X pov.

http://osxdaily.com/2013/01/08/monitor-bluetooth-device-connection-strength-mac-os-x/

It mentions low battery as a root cause for bad signaling for bluetooth, could this been your problem?

 

[Phil]

Sadly no, controller was fully charged and at least able to play for another multiple hours after the first occurance of that latency issue....

 

[Wkdintent]

Sadly no, controller was fully charged and at least able to play for another multiple hours after the first occurance of that latency issue....

Hi

A Google search found this thread. Did you ever solve this issue? My console last week started having the exact same problem. No change in set up, two different controllers (one brand new), very little WiFi around to cause interference, but works perfectly with a USB cable.

 

[Globalisateur]

I have some severe input lag problems (leading to an unplayable game) when I let my window open and when I play near the opened window. And except my PS4 and its controller there are no Wifi nor bluetooth EM fields inside or outside (I have no neighbors close to my home and I always deactivate all useless EMF pollution sources).

I strongly suspect it could be caused by a aerial located ~1km from my home (what else could it be?). It's not a mobile related antenna: it's used to exchange data between this antenna and another.

 

[Phil]

Hi

A Google search found this thread. Did you ever solve this issue? My console last week started having the exact same problem. No change in set up, two different controllers (one brand new), very little WiFi around to cause interference, but works perfectly with a USB cable.

Nope. It kind of just went away and didn't return. To be fair, I only really noticed it when playing BF4 (Battlefield 4) competitively online. My gaming has reduced significantly to the point I only play a bit of Fusion Trials and Witcher 3 here and there. In both these games, I haven't come across the issue anymore. Witcher would be a bad example because it's a slower paced game as opposed to when I had the issue with Battlefield. Then again, I haven't played for those prolonged hours and rarely used the headset since, which, when I read this topic and my older post, was one of the things it required it to happen in the first place.

But I do feel that after my last post in here, it kind of went away. Not sure if this was due to an update or some other interference simply going away.

I'm not sure now, but I think I read somewhere that the Dualshock transmits its data over bluetooth irregardless if its plugged in through USB or not. The USB is only there to charge the controller.... Not sure if this is either accurate or true. Wouldn't make sense in regards to the latency issues being solved when plugged in. Unfortunately I never tried back then if it made a difference plugging in the controller into a USB charger or connecting it with a USB with the console... It would be what I would advice you to test though if you experience the latency issues on a regular, almost predictable basis. If it goes away either way, it may be power related. If it only goes away when connecting directly to the PS4, make note if it goes away because of you connecting it through the USB port or because you may have reduced the distance to your PS4. It could be due to either. That's what I would check for to pin point the issue...

 

[JPT]

These shows things that are in the 2.4Ghz range and causes interference with each other, albeit this article is from a Wifi perspective, it still is noise for everything else in the 2.4Ghz range.

https://support.metageek.com/hc/en-us/articles/200628894-Wi-Fi-and-non-Wi-Fi-Interference-Examples

A friend told me about an issue he came across at home. His home wifi was really bad and he ended up buying a wispy to track down the source. Turns out it was is headless mac server that went mad with its bluetooth trying to find a keyboard. This happened after he upgraded to el capitan i believe.
But this situation would also affect other bluetooth signals

 

[orangpelupa]

thats why i almost always left my controller plugged using cable...
if you play on PC, you can easily see when the controller lagging (the LED will flash rapidly Red).

i have never got any of that problem with wireless x360 (on PC and xbx)

 

[Wkdintent]

These are all good things for me to look at. Cheers all.