PC Latency
This one is where we typically deal with PC performance. It encompasses the game latency as well as the rendering latency. So that means the CPU, the operating system, and the graphics card are important here. While peripheral latency is one thing, that mouse click signal now moves into the simulation phase, where the game engine takes the input to generate animation and game state changes due to your input.
Now that the game has your click, it’s worked out what that will do, it’s time to send a render submission and call out the graphics API and drivers. The render queue is an important one, as sometimes multiple frames can be rendered, ensuring a smoother video output. However, this does increase latency. For faster response times, you would typically want the next frame rendered and displayed as quickly as possible, rather than added to a queue.
It’s this side of things where gamers can make the most improvements, by turning off features like V-SYNC, using faster-syncing methods in their graphics card settings, G-SYNC and other low-latency features like Nvidia Reflex basically prevent this queuing issue and render the frame and display them in harmony. Think of it like a motorway where all the cars are going at the same speed, if someone slows down or speeds up, everyone does the same simultaneously and everything goes smoothly. However, with V-Sync on or other things that make the system/display wait for the next, it’s like the person at the front pressing their brakes then everyone else doing the same one after the other.
