7 ms·

To be fair, back in 2014 that was one frame at 60Hz or slower for some titles. At 80-120Hz, 3-5 frames is comparatively similar time.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
I don't think high frame rates are common outside of PC gaming yet. Wikipedia indicates the Switch maxes out at 1080p60, and the newest Zelda only at 900p30 even when docked https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  I believe both the PS5 and whatever nonsense string of Xs, numbers, and descriptors MS named this gen's console can do 144Hz output. I don't know how many games take advantage of that or whether that refresh rate is common on TVs.
  - philistine 2y ago
    60 FPS isn't even promised on PS5 Pro. Most graphically demanding titles still aim for 30 FPS on consoles, with any game able to support 60 FPS consistently worth noting.
    - Narishma 2y ago
      What they said is true. There are some games with 120 FPS modes on PS5 and Series X, maybe even series S. That doesn't mean every game (or even most) are like that, just that the hardware supports it. At the end of the day you can't stop developers targeting whatever framerate they want.
- marxisttemp 2y ago
  I play Fortnite and Call of Duty at 120Hz VRR on Xbox Series X.
astrobe_ 2y ago
I've heard that a good reaction time is around 200 ms, some experiments seem to confirm this figure [1]. At 60Hz, a frame is displayed every 17 ms. So it would take a 12 frames animation and a trained gamer for a couple of frames to make a difference (e.g. push the right button before the animation ends and the opponent's action takes effect). [1] https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics
- underdeserver 2y ago
  I'm not sure this is the right way to look at it. I can't find stats right now, but I recall reading top players making frame-perfect moves in games like Smash Bros. Melee and Rocket League.
  - philistine 2y ago
    Frame perfect moves are exceedingly common in most top fields. Just watch any video about the latest speedruns. The thing with latency is it needs to be consistent. If your latency is between 3 to 5 frames you blew it because you can't guarantee the same experience on every button press. If you always have 3 frames of latency, with modern screens, analog controls, and game design aware of those limitations, that's much better. Look at modern games like Celeste, who has introduced Coyote Time to account for all the latency of our modern hardware.
  - mywittyname 2y ago
    The mistake with focusing on reaction time is that humans can anticipate actions and can perform complex sequences of actions pretty quickly (we have two hands and 10 fingers). So someone playing one of those "test your reaction time" games might only score like 30ms. But someone playing a musical instrument can still play a 64th note at 120BPM. Imagine playing a drum that took between 0 and 5 extra frames at 60FPS between striking the head and it producing a sound. Most people would notice that kind of delay, even if they can't "react" that quickly. In games, frame delay translates to having to hold down a key (or wait before pressing the next one) for longer than is strickly necessary in order to produce an effect. Since fighting games are all about key sequences, the difference between needing to hold key for 0 frames and 5 frames is massive when you consider key combinations might be sequences of up to 5 key presses. 5 frames of delay x five sequential key presses x 8ms a frame = 1600ms vs 1 frame x 5 seq. key presses x 8ms = 40ms. There's a massive difference between taking 1.6s to execute a complex move and 0.040s.
munificent 2y ago
Why would you even bother running at a game at 120Hz if the user's response to what's being drawn is effectively 24-30 FPS?
- kragen 2y ago
  You've seen games running at 120Hz and at 60Hz. The difference is obvious, isn't it? The difference between 24Hz and 60Hz is certainly obvious: that's the visual difference between movies and TV sitcoms. I can type about 90 words per minute on QWERTY, which is about 8 keystrokes per second. That means that the average interval between keystrokes is about 120 milliseconds, already significantly less than my 200-millisecond reaction time, and many keystrokes are closer together than that—but I rarely make typographical errors. Fast typists can hit 150 words per minute. Performing musicians consistently nail note timing to within about 40 milliseconds. So it turns out that people do routinely time their physical movements a lot more precisely than their reaction time. Their jitter is much lower than their latency, a phenomenon you are surely familiar with in other contexts, such as netcode for games. If someone's latency is 200 milliseconds but its jitter (measured as standard deviation) is 10 milliseconds, then reducing the frame latency from a worst-case 16.7 milliseconds (or 33.3 milliseconds in your 30Hz example) to a worst-case 8.3 milliseconds, and average-case 8.3 milliseconds to average-case 4.2 milliseconds, you're knocking off a whole 0.42 standard deviations off their latency. If they're playing against someone else with the same latency, that 0.42σ advantage is very significant! I think they'll win almost 61% of the time, but I'm not sure of my statistics†. See also https://danluu.com/input-lag/#appendix-why-measure-latency https://danluu.com/input-lag/#appendix-why-measure-latency: > Latency matters! For very simple tasks, people can perceive latencies down to 2 ms or less. Moreover, increasing latency is not only noticeable to users, it causes users to execute simple tasks less accurately. If you want a visual demonstration of what latency looks like and you don’t have a super-fast old computer lying around, check out this MSR demo on touchscreen latency. > The most commonly cited document on response time is the nielsen group[sic] article on response times, which claims that latncies[sic] below 100ms feel equivalent and perceived[sic] as instantaneous. One easy way to see that this is false is to go into your terminal and try sleep 0; echo "pong" vs. sleep 0.1; echo "test" (or for that matter, try playing an old game that doesn't have latency compensation, like quake 1, with 100 ms ping, or even 30 ms ping, or try typing in a terminal with 30 ms ping). For more info on this and other latency fallacies, see this document on common misconceptions about latency. (The original contains several links substantiating those claims.) https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/#appendix-counter-arguments-to-common-arguments-that-latency-doesn-t-matter https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/#appendix-counter-argume... has a longer explanation. ______ † First I tried sum(rnorm(100000) < rnorm(100000) + 0.42)/1000, which comes to about 61.7 (%). But it's not a consistent 0.42σ of latency being added; it's a random latency of up to 0.83σ, so I tried sum(rnorm(100000) < rnorm(100000) + runif(100000, max=0.83))/1000, which gave the same result. But that's not taking into account that actually both players have latency, so if we model random latency of up to a frame for the 60Hz player with sum(rnorm(100000) + runif(100000, max=1.67) > rnorm(100000) + runif(100000, max=0.83))/1000, we get more like a 60.8% chance that the 120fps player will out-twitch them. I'm sure someone who actually knows statistics can tell me the correct way to model this to get the right answer in closed form, but I'm not sure I could tell the correct closed-form formula from an incorrect one, so I resorted to brute force.
chandler5555 2y ago
yeah but when people talk about input lag for consoles its generally still in the 60hz sense, rare for games to be 120hz smash brothers ultimate for example runs at 60fps and has 5-6 frames of input lag

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

I don't think high frame rates are common outside of PC gaming yet. Wikipedia indicates the Switch maxes out at 1080p60, and the newest Zelda only at 900p30 even when docked https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I believe both the PS5 and whatever nonsense string of Xs, numbers, and descriptors MS named this gen's console can do 144Hz output. I don't know how many games take advantage of that or whether that refresh rate is common on TVs.
- philistine 2y ago
  60 FPS isn't even promised on PS5 Pro. Most graphically demanding titles still aim for 30 FPS on consoles, with any game able to support 60 FPS consistently worth noting.
  - Narishma 2y ago
    What they said is true. There are some games with 120 FPS modes on PS5 and Series X, maybe even series S. That doesn't mean every game (or even most) are like that, just that the hardware supports it. At the end of the day you can't stop developers targeting whatever framerate they want.
marxisttemp 2y ago
I play Fortnite and Call of Duty at 120Hz VRR on Xbox Series X.

astrobe_ 2y ago

I've heard that a good reaction time is around 200 ms, some experiments seem to confirm this figure [1]. At 60Hz, a frame is displayed every 17 ms. So it would take a 12 frames animation and a trained gamer for a couple of frames to make a difference (e.g. push the right button before the animation ends and the opponent's action takes effect). [1] https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics

underdeserver 2y ago
I'm not sure this is the right way to look at it. I can't find stats right now, but I recall reading top players making frame-perfect moves in games like Smash Bros. Melee and Rocket League.
- philistine 2y ago
  Frame perfect moves are exceedingly common in most top fields. Just watch any video about the latest speedruns. The thing with latency is it needs to be consistent. If your latency is between 3 to 5 frames you blew it because you can't guarantee the same experience on every button press. If you always have 3 frames of latency, with modern screens, analog controls, and game design aware of those limitations, that's much better. Look at modern games like Celeste, who has introduced Coyote Time to account for all the latency of our modern hardware.
- mywittyname 2y ago
  The mistake with focusing on reaction time is that humans can anticipate actions and can perform complex sequences of actions pretty quickly (we have two hands and 10 fingers). So someone playing one of those "test your reaction time" games might only score like 30ms. But someone playing a musical instrument can still play a 64th note at 120BPM. Imagine playing a drum that took between 0 and 5 extra frames at 60FPS between striking the head and it producing a sound. Most people would notice that kind of delay, even if they can't "react" that quickly. In games, frame delay translates to having to hold down a key (or wait before pressing the next one) for longer than is strickly necessary in order to produce an effect. Since fighting games are all about key sequences, the difference between needing to hold key for 0 frames and 5 frames is massive when you consider key combinations might be sequences of up to 5 key presses. 5 frames of delay x five sequential key presses x 8ms a frame = 1600ms vs 1 frame x 5 seq. key presses x 8ms = 40ms. There's a massive difference between taking 1.6s to execute a complex move and 0.040s.

munificent 2y ago

Why would you even bother running at a game at 120Hz if the user's response to what's being drawn is effectively 24-30 FPS?

kragen 2y ago
You've seen games running at 120Hz and at 60Hz. The difference is obvious, isn't it? The difference between 24Hz and 60Hz is certainly obvious: that's the visual difference between movies and TV sitcoms. I can type about 90 words per minute on QWERTY, which is about 8 keystrokes per second. That means that the average interval between keystrokes is about 120 milliseconds, already significantly less than my 200-millisecond reaction time, and many keystrokes are closer together than that—but I rarely make typographical errors. Fast typists can hit 150 words per minute. Performing musicians consistently nail note timing to within about 40 milliseconds. So it turns out that people do routinely time their physical movements a lot more precisely than their reaction time. Their jitter is much lower than their latency, a phenomenon you are surely familiar with in other contexts, such as netcode for games. If someone's latency is 200 milliseconds but its jitter (measured as standard deviation) is 10 milliseconds, then reducing the frame latency from a worst-case 16.7 milliseconds (or 33.3 milliseconds in your 30Hz example) to a worst-case 8.3 milliseconds, and average-case 8.3 milliseconds to average-case 4.2 milliseconds, you're knocking off a whole 0.42 standard deviations off their latency. If they're playing against someone else with the same latency, that 0.42σ advantage is very significant! I think they'll win almost 61% of the time, but I'm not sure of my statistics†. See also https://danluu.com/input-lag/#appendix-why-measure-latency https://danluu.com/input-lag/#appendix-why-measure-latency: > Latency matters! For very simple tasks, people can perceive latencies down to 2 ms or less. Moreover, increasing latency is not only noticeable to users, it causes users to execute simple tasks less accurately. If you want a visual demonstration of what latency looks like and you don’t have a super-fast old computer lying around, check out this MSR demo on touchscreen latency. > The most commonly cited document on response time is the nielsen group[sic] article on response times, which claims that latncies[sic] below 100ms feel equivalent and perceived[sic] as instantaneous. One easy way to see that this is false is to go into your terminal and try sleep 0; echo "pong" vs. sleep 0.1; echo "test" (or for that matter, try playing an old game that doesn't have latency compensation, like quake 1, with 100 ms ping, or even 30 ms ping, or try typing in a terminal with 30 ms ping). For more info on this and other latency fallacies, see this document on common misconceptions about latency. (The original contains several links substantiating those claims.) https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/#appendix-counter-arguments-to-common-arguments-that-latency-doesn-t-matter https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/#appendix-counter-argume... has a longer explanation. ______ † First I tried sum(rnorm(100000) < rnorm(100000) + 0.42)/1000, which comes to about 61.7 (%). But it's not a consistent 0.42σ of latency being added; it's a random latency of up to 0.83σ, so I tried sum(rnorm(100000) < rnorm(100000) + runif(100000, max=0.83))/1000, which gave the same result. But that's not taking into account that actually both players have latency, so if we model random latency of up to a frame for the 60Hz player with sum(rnorm(100000) + runif(100000, max=1.67) > rnorm(100000) + runif(100000, max=0.83))/1000, we get more like a 60.8% chance that the 120fps player will out-twitch them. I'm sure someone who actually knows statistics can tell me the correct way to model this to get the right answer in closed form, but I'm not sure I could tell the correct closed-form formula from an incorrect one, so I resorted to brute force.

chandler5555 2y ago

yeah but when people talk about input lag for consoles its generally still in the 60hz sense, rare for games to be 120hz smash brothers ultimate for example runs at 60fps and has 5-6 frames of input lag