Question Polling Rate in games ?

[Inver_ShaRingan]

Well, I hope this is a good place for this thread 🙈

My mouse: Razer Deathadder Elite

I have quick question about polling rate. Which one is better 500hz or 1000hz. Will 500hz give me a smoother and more accurate feeling in games like CoD etc ?

Is there any downside for 1000hz other than a bit higher CPU usage ?

 

[kerberos_20]

whats you monitor refresh rate?

 

[Inver_ShaRingan]

whats you monitor refresh rate?

165hz

 

[kerberos_20]

then i dont think you will see any difference at this refresh rate

 

[hotaru.hino]

The theory is if say you have 1000Hz (report every 1ms) and your opponent is on 125Hz (report every 8ms), if you both click at the same time, your opponent's input may be delayed further than yours. So supposedly this gets into the computer faster, then gets shoved out to the world faster, which the server then receives before the other's.

So originally I thought "this only really matters if the client timestamps their packets and sends it to the server", which to me sounds iffy because 1. can you really trust the client and 2. what about clock drift? But apparently there are ways to accurately sync time across a network, so assuming the server and clients are all synced, being able to send out your command sooner could make a difference. And this is without regards to network latency, since any competent online game's server code would account for this.

However the only other issue is how the server processes client state. Most games still use a tick based system which means they only process everyone's state in discrete intervals. This could mean that even if your command technically arrived first, it'll be lumped in the same processing tick and as far as the server's concerned, you both shot at the same time.

tl;dr, polling rate is more to make sure your commands get out sooner. It doesn't affect how the mouse "feels" terms of movement or whatnot.

 

[Eximo]

Yep, a simple example. I more or less randomly picked numbers, and still got a decent result for the explanation.

So the monitor has ~6ms refresh rate at 165hz.
Monitor also has input lag and signal latency of some value, usually measured on gaming monitors in the 10s of ms.
Your vision and reflexes can add up to 100ms to that.

If the server is operating on a say a 60hz tick. Each tick is 16.67 ms.

Let's say the total monitor input lag is 15 ms + 6ms + reflexes at 60 ms:

Other player action happens at tick one. You won't see the result until tick 2, and you will take two more ticks to respond and be at the tail end of the tick (4.85 ticks). If your polling rate is 125Hz, your response will be measured in tick 6. If your mouse has a 1000hz polling rate it should register in tick 5.

The argument is that reducing any of the response times and input lags in the entire chain in any way possible gives you the best possible chance of getting your data registered to the server that will match your actions.