**The Lag Problem: Understanding Input Delay and Upscaling**

When it comes to gaming and high-performance computing, there's one issue that can be particularly frustrating: input delay. This phenomenon occurs when the image on your screen doesn't update in real-time, causing a lag between your actions and their corresponding effects on the game. But what causes this delay, and how can we mitigate it?

**Upscaling: The Post-Processing Process**

One of the main culprits behind input delay is upscaling, which involves taking an image from one resolution and scaling it to another. This process requires a significant amount of post-processing time, which can introduce noticeable lag into the system. There are different forms of upscaling, some of which look nicer than others, but they all require this extra processing power. The problem is that many algorithms used for upscaling analyze multiple frames held in the frame buffer to better understand what a high-res version of the same image should look like. This method can yield visual improvements, but it also introduces lag.

**A More Efficient Approach: Focusing on Key Elements**

To reduce lag time without sacrificing visual quality, some companies have turned to a more efficient approach. Instead of relying on multiple frames at once, algorithms focus on specific elements of a single frame that are sensitive to the human eye. Human brains are naturally attuned to edges, textures, and characters' eyes, making these features crucial for creating an immersive gaming experience. By focusing on these key visual elements, upscaling algorithms can greatly reduce lag time while improving visual quality.

**The Future of Upscaling: AI-Powered Scaling**

While the current approach to upscaling has its limitations, researchers are working on a new solution that promises to revolutionize the field. Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to train computer scientists to recognize complex objects and scenes accurately. By leveraging large amounts of data and machine learning algorithms, it's possible to create scalers that can handle even the most challenging images with ease. This technology has already shown promise in applications like NVIDIA's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), which uses AI to produce high-quality upscaling without sacrificing frame rates.

**Mitigating Lag: What Can You Do?**

So, what can you do to reduce lag time when playing games or using high-performance computers? First and foremost, make sure your hardware is capable of handling demanding applications. Regularly updating your drivers and software can also help improve performance. Another approach is to use techniques like frame skipping, which involves skipping certain frames in the animation to reduce the overall processing load on the system. While these methods may not completely eliminate lag, they can certainly help mitigate its effects.

**Staying Safe Online: Protecting Your Credit Card Information**

When it comes to protecting your personal and financial information online, there are few concerns more pressing than data breaches. If you're worried about hackers getting hold of your credit card info, check out today's sponsor, Privacy.com. Their service offers a free, easy-to-use tool that creates virtual credit cards with unique numbers for each merchant. This ensures that even if the merchant gets hacked, your real credit card information remains secure.

Privacy.com also offers a browser extension that auto-fills information for you when making purchases, and they're PCI DSS compliant to ensure maximum security. Best of all, there's no cost to you – Privacy.com makes money from merchants, so you can try it out risk-free. To take advantage of this offer, simply visit privacy.com/techwiki and use the code TECHWIKI at checkout.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthere's one big compromise that gamers have had to make for a long time do you want your games to look better or do you want them to run faster typically this is meant turning down your graphics setting to get more frames per second especially if you don't have a high end graphics card but today we're instead going to talk about the amount of input lag that gets introduced when you're trying to upscale a game we consulted with our friend amine Shaban over at Mercy to put this video together so we like to thank him for his help now to be clear I am NOT talking about your GPU rendering frames from scratch what I'm referring to instead is what happens after your GPU finishes rendering a frame and either the GPU or your display resizes the image to make it fit a certain resolution you can see this if you're running a PC game at below your monitors native resolution to improve performance or if you hooked up an older console to modern flat panel TV now there are different forms of upscaling some of which look nicer than others but they all require a certain amount of post-processing time which can introduce noticeable input lag meaning that there's a delay between when you press a button or move a thump stick or move the mouse and the corresponding action appearing on the screen and this can seriously hinder gameplay for obvious reasons especially in older titles like classic platforms where a responsiveness is a huge part of making the game feel like you remember but why does it introduce so much leg well to get the image looking as nice as possible some algorithms look at the frames that are rendered before and after the frame to the upscale to better understand what a high-res version of the same image is supposed to look like then they apply what they think are correct changes to the frame this method of analyzing multiple frames that are held in what's called the frame buffer before they're shown to the user can definitely yield visual improvements but not only is this a computationally time-consuming process that adds leg it can also result in worse image quality if the frames its examining or highly compressed for example if you're watching a movie and I'll turn it of approach to reduce lag is to instead of relying on multiple frames at one time have the algorithm look at certain elements of a single frame that human brains are typically sensitive to for example Mercedes mercy Mercedes mercy Mercedes M classics Mart HDMI cable has a built-in library of objects like edges and textures that we naturally key and on think about how jaggies caused by bad anti-aliasing of edges are often really noticeable to us interestingly characters eyes are also a focus as humans are psychologically programmed to be very sensitive to what someone else's eyes are doing this kind of strategy of focusing mostly on key visual elements can greatly reduce lag time while improving visual quality due to its reliance on predetermined visual cues for the algorithm to focus on as well as the fact it only examines one frame but like other upsampling methods it's not perfect so can we do better it turns out the answer is yes though we might still be some years away from seeing it becoming widely available rather than programming a staler to spot a few specific elements computer scientists have been training artificial intelligences to recognize what more complex objects are supposed to look like accurately stealing an HD image to 4k or even a K is a very computationally intensive problem so large amounts of AI training will reduce the reliance of predefined features and allow a scaler to recognize anything from whether or not an object is a dog to how it handles scenes with complicated lighting we're already seeing this to some extent with nvidia x' deep learning super sampling or a dl SS where a supercomputer is fed with lots of frames from different games and figures out an algorithm to produce something close to an ideally anti-aliased image these algorithms are then pushed out to individual users through software updates not only does this allow gamers to improve how their games look without lowering frame rates the more efficient post processing algorithms optimized through AI should hopefully make games feel more responsive as well but remember that if you just suck at games like csgo because you have straight-up terrible reflexes AI probably won't help you so you might want to just give turn-based games a shot are you concerned about a data breach causing your credit card info to fall into the wrong hands then check out today's sponsor privacy comm for a free easy-to-use service that hides your credit card number you see it works by creating a virtual credit card that's a lock to whichever merchant you're shopping at so even if the merchant gets hacked the bad guys won't be able to use your card anywhere they please and if they try you'll get a push notification so that you're always in the loop and can cancel the card immediately privacy also has a browser extension that auto fills information for you when you're making a purchase and they are PCI DSS compliant they use military-grade encryption to secure information ad they offer two-factor authentication and since privacy makes money from merchants there's no cost to you so if you sign up today you'll get five bucks five actual bucks so check it out at privacy com4 slash tech wiki so thanks for watching guys if you'd like this video give it a thumbs up subscribe and be sure to hit us up in the comment section for your ideas about future videos that we should make about tech topics that you want explained well do itthere's one big compromise that gamers have had to make for a long time do you want your games to look better or do you want them to run faster typically this is meant turning down your graphics setting to get more frames per second especially if you don't have a high end graphics card but today we're instead going to talk about the amount of input lag that gets introduced when you're trying to upscale a game we consulted with our friend amine Shaban over at Mercy to put this video together so we like to thank him for his help now to be clear I am NOT talking about your GPU rendering frames from scratch what I'm referring to instead is what happens after your GPU finishes rendering a frame and either the GPU or your display resizes the image to make it fit a certain resolution you can see this if you're running a PC game at below your monitors native resolution to improve performance or if you hooked up an older console to modern flat panel TV now there are different forms of upscaling some of which look nicer than others but they all require a certain amount of post-processing time which can introduce noticeable input lag meaning that there's a delay between when you press a button or move a thump stick or move the mouse and the corresponding action appearing on the screen and this can seriously hinder gameplay for obvious reasons especially in older titles like classic platforms where a responsiveness is a huge part of making the game feel like you remember but why does it introduce so much leg well to get the image looking as nice as possible some algorithms look at the frames that are rendered before and after the frame to the upscale to better understand what a high-res version of the same image is supposed to look like then they apply what they think are correct changes to the frame this method of analyzing multiple frames that are held in what's called the frame buffer before they're shown to the user can definitely yield visual improvements but not only is this a computationally time-consuming process that adds leg it can also result in worse image quality if the frames its examining or highly compressed for example if you're watching a movie and I'll turn it of approach to reduce lag is to instead of relying on multiple frames at one time have the algorithm look at certain elements of a single frame that human brains are typically sensitive to for example Mercedes mercy Mercedes mercy Mercedes M classics Mart HDMI cable has a built-in library of objects like edges and textures that we naturally key and on think about how jaggies caused by bad anti-aliasing of edges are often really noticeable to us interestingly characters eyes are also a focus as humans are psychologically programmed to be very sensitive to what someone else's eyes are doing this kind of strategy of focusing mostly on key visual elements can greatly reduce lag time while improving visual quality due to its reliance on predetermined visual cues for the algorithm to focus on as well as the fact it only examines one frame but like other upsampling methods it's not perfect so can we do better it turns out the answer is yes though we might still be some years away from seeing it becoming widely available rather than programming a staler to spot a few specific elements computer scientists have been training artificial intelligences to recognize what more complex objects are supposed to look like accurately stealing an HD image to 4k or even a K is a very computationally intensive problem so large amounts of AI training will reduce the reliance of predefined features and allow a scaler to recognize anything from whether or not an object is a dog to how it handles scenes with complicated lighting we're already seeing this to some extent with nvidia x' deep learning super sampling or a dl SS where a supercomputer is fed with lots of frames from different games and figures out an algorithm to produce something close to an ideally anti-aliased image these algorithms are then pushed out to individual users through software updates not only does this allow gamers to improve how their games look without lowering frame rates the more efficient post processing algorithms optimized through AI should hopefully make games feel more responsive as well but remember that if you just suck at games like csgo because you have straight-up terrible reflexes AI probably won't help you so you might want to just give turn-based games a shot are you concerned about a data breach causing your credit card info to fall into the wrong hands then check out today's sponsor privacy comm for a free easy-to-use service that hides your credit card number you see it works by creating a virtual credit card that's a lock to whichever merchant you're shopping at so even if the merchant gets hacked the bad guys won't be able to use your card anywhere they please and if they try you'll get a push notification so that you're always in the loop and can cancel the card immediately privacy also has a browser extension that auto fills information for you when you're making a purchase and they are PCI DSS compliant they use military-grade encryption to secure information ad they offer two-factor authentication and since privacy makes money from merchants there's no cost to you so if you sign up today you'll get five bucks five actual bucks so check it out at privacy com4 slash tech wiki so thanks for watching guys if you'd like this video give it a thumbs up subscribe and be sure to hit us up in the comment section for your ideas about future videos that we should make about tech topics that you want explained well do it\n"