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Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

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Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#11

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

As per the post, I wrote this tool to confirm I was getting jerks of ~10ms every few seconds on one USB port and not the other. This would _suggest_ I can catch differences around the ballpark of 100 Hz.

I'm game for a randomized blinded test on 120 Hz refresh rate vs 240 Hz refresh rate. I would indeed be very curious to confirm I can tell the difference with a proper protocol.

Many years back (we were on CRTs), I was in similar shoes, convinced my friend couldn't tell the difference between 60 Hz and 90 Hz when playing video games.

Turns out he only needed to look at the pointer through one push of the mouse to tell right away, successful 100% of the time in a blinded experiment.

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#14

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

> I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely.

There are videos on youtube showing people perceive differences at much higher framerates. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX31kZbAXsA (long video, so you can skip to the end - they found that even casual players were performing measurably more consistently at 240Hz than even 144Hz.)

Anecdotally, I recently switched to playing racing games at 165FPS and the difference is massive!

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#15
post #11

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

As per the post, I wrote this tool to confirm I was getting jerks of ~10ms every few seconds on one USB port and not the other. This would _suggest_ I can catch differences around the ballpark of 100 Hz. I'm game for a randomized blinded test on 120 Hz refresh rate vs 240 Hz refresh rate. I would indeed be very curious to confirm I can tell the difference with a proper protocol. Many years back (we were on CRTs), I w…

As to how you can perceive the difference between 120 events per second and 240, I have what I hope is a fairly simple explanation.

It's like lightning strokes of tens of microseconds making a lasting impression on your perception of the scene. You don't "count" strokes over time, but in space.

When you make circles fast and large enough on screen, you can evaluate the number of cursors that appear before your eyes. At 4 circles per second, is each circle made of ~60 pointers or ~30? Belief not fact: it's not hard to guess.

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#16

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

Higher refresh rates don't have to be perceptible to be useful: they can shift the balance in head-to-head gaming.

Imagine 2 identical gaming setups with 2 players that have the same skill set. In an FPS game, you'd expect each of those players to win 50% of the games.

Now switch one monitor from 120Hz to 240Hz. On average, the player on the 240Hz monitor will see their adversary 4ms earlier than the player on the 120Hz monitor and thus be able to push the mouse button earlier too.

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#17
post #13

Does this tool measure something different than? https://joltfly.com/mouse-latency-test/

Yes, pointerrawupdate events for this one, mousemove for the one you linked. The latter tends to sync to the display in my very limited experience.

There are other differences in the tools, mine was designed for what I wanted to understand so I'm biased toward it.

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#18

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

There could be side-effects of these higher rates that are noticeable, or bugs in handling different rates.

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#19

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

Higher refresh rates don't have to be perceptible to be useful: they can shift the balance in head-to-head gaming. Imagine 2 identical gaming setups with 2 players that have the same skill set. In an FPS game, you'd expect each of those players to win 50% of the games. Now switch one monitor from 120Hz to 240Hz. On average, the player on the 240Hz monitor will see their adversary 4ms earlier than the player on the 12…

I think this sort of effect odd what makes people think they can tell the difference - they can notice the indirect side-effects that correlate with the difference.

A pro FPS player might notice that they loose contests peeking around corners more often. Obviously network latency in online games will be a factor as well, but since it likely averages out for both players over time, I would guess you can mostly discount it along with alternating who’s doing the peeking.

I don’t think anyone could look at a scene on a 120hz vs 240hz display and tell the difference, there needs to be some indirect clue.

Re: Toys/Lag: Jerk Monitor

#20

I can buy that humans can see at least 120hz at a minimum. 60Hz is the generally accepted threshold, but I’ve long suspected that 120Hz has mostly imperceptible effects that are still noticeable, if rarely. I can’t buy this: > I've also learnt I do benefit from the 8 kHz setting of my mouse, as even at 3200 DPI with fast & smooth motion, some frames still miss a pointer update It may be true that pointer updates were…

> Experiments like this have decisively settled the “Does higher sampling rate matter when listening to music?” debate...

Not really relevant. Music is experienced after a Fourier transform, in frequency space,

The more telling example is that experienced drummers get frustrated by lag of 2 ms from computer-generated effects. That's 500 Hz.

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