4 ms·

Oof. I play piano (as a hobby, but seriously). When practicing on an electric piano, anything more than 20ms of latency is VERY noticeable for me, possibly even

by dheera 4y ago

Oof. I play piano (as a hobby, but seriously). When practicing on an electric piano, anything more than 20ms of latency is VERY noticeable for me, possibly even 10ms. There's a reason people still use wired headphones for practicing on electric pianos. Bluetooth just does not work. The latency interrupts the emotional state of flow and it's extremely jarring. Typing on a computer is a different story. The latency perception via the eyes is very different than through the ears.

prophet_margin 4y ago
I play guitar, but I'm in the same boat (probably with a longer signal chain) -- 10ms is about the limit before it's noticeable. The idea that people don't notice 100ms is crazy talk; anyone playing 16th notes at a pretty reasonable 120bpm is hitting a note every 125ms.
bob1029 4y ago
Our brains are much more sensitive to phase/delay in audio sources than any other stimuli. There is a reason the lip sync setting on many home theater setups can be changed in increments of 1ms or better.
snarfy 4y ago
I play a lot of video games. In Tekken e.g. Heihachi has a move called OTGF. The input sequence is listed as f,N,df+2. Each of those movements must be done in 16.6ms or it doesn't work. On an 8-way joystick, there are only 4 switches for the cardinal directions. That means the final movement of df+2 requires hitting the d switch, f switch, and 2 button within the same 16.6ms window to count as simultaneous. There are players that can do OTGF move every time they try. My audio interface for connecting my keyboard/guitar to my PC is USB-C. I tried USB2 devices and find they have too much latency. It's very noticeable. USB-C has 1ms latency or less. It's a world of difference playing FPS shooters online between a 50ms ping and a 100ms ping. If you care about your aim, 100ms ping is barely playable.
- awelxtr 4y ago
  I remember playing CS at the turn of the century on French or UK servers with 100ms or a bit more without problems, could it be that the problem is that now we are sending more stuff than before?
  - fredrikholm 4y ago
    I have friends who still play (making it 20 years). They're at a level where playing on public servers gets them banned for cheating (some are/have been semi-professional). Any latency, whether it's hardware, software or server, drops their performance significantly. It's at a point where they only play/practice under prime conditions, as their sensitivity is such that they will throw themselves off by practicing with more latency than they normally do. It's crazy.
  - orbital-decay 4y ago
    In FPSes in particular, every millisecond of latency typically translates into peeker's advantage due to how lag prediction works. Or sometimes disadvantage, in the netcode that is poorly implemented or optimized for poor connections. It also depends on the movement velocity. In games with really bad netcode it can get ridiculous, influencing the entire gameplay - for example in PUBG beta, which had about 200-300ms of actual client-to-client latency due to the very low server tickrate, you had to avoid running directly towards the corner to look around it, as enemies could see you running out in the open for a split second then rubberbanding back.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    CS (HL) lag prediction is a joke, you could sometimes see how an enemy 'leans back' to catch that headshot. Play Zandronum on 150ms server against people with 30ms. You will go for a new mouse (or maybe even a keyboard and monitor) in half an hour.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  >There are players that can do OTGF move every time they try. That has nothing to do with latency. Human nerve conduction velocities just aren't quick enough for things like that to be done closed-loop under the control of the brain - it's just physically impossible. Although the person doing the action may feel otherwise, that's just a well-trained sequence of actions performed open-loop.

by dheera 4y ago

prophet_margin 4y ago

I play guitar, but I'm in the same boat (probably with a longer signal chain) -- 10ms is about the limit before it's noticeable. The idea that people don't notice 100ms is crazy talk; anyone playing 16th notes at a pretty reasonable 120bpm is hitting a note every 125ms.

bob1029 4y ago

Our brains are much more sensitive to phase/delay in audio sources than any other stimuli. There is a reason the lip sync setting on many home theater setups can be changed in increments of 1ms or better.

snarfy 4y ago

I play a lot of video games. In Tekken e.g. Heihachi has a move called OTGF. The input sequence is listed as f,N,df+2. Each of those movements must be done in 16.6ms or it doesn't work. On an 8-way joystick, there are only 4 switches for the cardinal directions. That means the final movement of df+2 requires hitting the d switch, f switch, and 2 button within the same 16.6ms window to count as simultaneous. There are players that can do OTGF move every time they try. My audio interface for connecting my keyboard/guitar to my PC is USB-C. I tried USB2 devices and find they have too much latency. It's very noticeable. USB-C has 1ms latency or less. It's a world of difference playing FPS shooters online between a 50ms ping and a 100ms ping. If you care about your aim, 100ms ping is barely playable.

awelxtr 4y ago
I remember playing CS at the turn of the century on French or UK servers with 100ms or a bit more without problems, could it be that the problem is that now we are sending more stuff than before?
- fredrikholm 4y ago
  I have friends who still play (making it 20 years). They're at a level where playing on public servers gets them banned for cheating (some are/have been semi-professional). Any latency, whether it's hardware, software or server, drops their performance significantly. It's at a point where they only play/practice under prime conditions, as their sensitivity is such that they will throw themselves off by practicing with more latency than they normally do. It's crazy.
- orbital-decay 4y ago
  In FPSes in particular, every millisecond of latency typically translates into peeker's advantage due to how lag prediction works. Or sometimes disadvantage, in the netcode that is poorly implemented or optimized for poor connections. It also depends on the movement velocity. In games with really bad netcode it can get ridiculous, influencing the entire gameplay - for example in PUBG beta, which had about 200-300ms of actual client-to-client latency due to the very low server tickrate, you had to avoid running directly towards the corner to look around it, as enemies could see you running out in the open for a split second then rubberbanding back.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  CS (HL) lag prediction is a joke, you could sometimes see how an enemy 'leans back' to catch that headshot. Play Zandronum on 150ms server against people with 30ms. You will go for a new mouse (or maybe even a keyboard and monitor) in half an hour.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
>There are players that can do OTGF move every time they try. That has nothing to do with latency. Human nerve conduction velocities just aren't quick enough for things like that to be done closed-loop under the control of the brain - it's just physically impossible. Although the person doing the action may feel otherwise, that's just a well-trained sequence of actions performed open-loop.