The Best Input Lag Settings You're Not Using

**Optimizing Competitive Gaming: Reducing Input Lag in First-Person Shooters**

If you're into competitive first-person shooters like CS:GO or Overwatch, you know how crucial it is to have a responsive and lag-free gaming experience. Input lag, the delay between your mouse click and the action appearing on screen, can be the difference between winning and losing. But is reducing input lag as simple as lowering settings and boosting frame rate, or are there more nuanced approaches? Let's dive into what you need to know.

### What is Input Lag?

Input lag refers to the delay between a mouse click and the corresponding action appearing on your screen. This end-to-end latency is critical for competitive gaming, where even milliseconds can affect accuracy and response time. To achieve the most responsive experience, both frame rate and input lag consistency must be optimized.

### The Role of Frame Rate

One of the most effective ways to reduce input lag is by increasing your frame rate. Higher frame rates result in smoother visuals and faster rendering times, reducing the delay between actions. This can be achieved through hardware upgrades, lowering resolution, or decreasing in-game settings. Notably, higher frame rates not only improve responsiveness but also reduce GPU usage, minimizing the render queue waiting to be processed by the GPU.

### NVIDIA Reflex: A Superior Latency Reduction Technology

NVIDIA's Reflex is an advanced latency reduction technology designed to optimize competitive gaming. Unlike older methods like Ultra Low Latency Mode (ULLM), which operates at the driver level for all games, Reflex is implemented as an SDK that requires game support. This makes Reflex more effective in controlling and reducing the render queue.

Testing with various GPUs, such as the RTX 2060 and RTX 3070, revealed significant improvements when Reflex was enabled. For instance, in Apex Legends, Reflex reduced latency from 32.7ms to 23.7ms on an RTX 2060, a substantial improvement. On slower GPUs like the GTX 1060, Reflex still provided meaningful reductions, highlighting its versatility.

### AMD Anti-Lag: A Viable Alternative

AMD's Anti-Lag operates similarly to NVIDIA's ULLM, running at the driver level and benefiting any game. Testing showed modest improvements, with an RX 590 reducing latency in Apex Legends by about 8ms. However, in more powerful GPUs like the RX 5600 XT, no significant differences were observed.

### When to Cap Frame Rate

Capping your frame rate can eliminate the render queue entirely but comes at the cost of lower frame rates. This method is most beneficial in GPU-bound scenarios where rendering times are high. For competitive players with mid-range GPUs or higher settings, capping might offer similar latency reduction benefits as reflex technologies.

### Testing Across Games and Hardware

Testing across games like Apex Legends and Overwatch revealed varying effectiveness of these technologies. Reflex showed superior performance in Overwatch, reducing latency significantly when enabled. However, in highly optimized games like Valorant, the impact was minimal due to already low input lag and high frame rates.

### Summary of Findings

- **NVIDIA Reflex**: Most effective in GPU-bound scenarios with slower hardware or higher settings.

- **AMD Anti-Lag**: Similar to NVIDIA's ULLM, offering modest improvements but less refined.

- **Frame Rate Capping**: A viable alternative for eliminating the render queue, though it reduces frame rates.

### Conclusion

For competitive gamers seeking the most responsive experience, enabling NVIDIA Reflex (if supported) and AMD Anti-Lag is worth the effort. These technologies offer varying benefits depending on hardware and game settings. While reflex modes may have minimal impact at high frame rates, they are still valuable for those gaming on mid-range systems or with higher visual fidelity.

Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso if you're into competitive first-person shooters like valerian cs go or overwatch what are the most competitive settings you should be using specifically to lower input lag is it really as simple as just lowering your settings and boosting your frame rate as high as possible or perhaps should you be capping your frame rate to take some load off the gpu and reduce the render queue and what about all of these settings like nvidia's low latency reflex and amd anti-lag are they even worth enabling and what is the difference between them anyway so today we're going to take a look at exactly what you need to know because some of these settings are worth enabling and in some cases they might not do anything all right so first up when we're talking about input lag we're referring to the delay that you experience between a mouse click and that action being displayed on your screen in other words the end to end latency and when it comes to competitive gaming we want this value to be as low as possible but also very consistent this in addition to a high frame rate of course is what's going to create the most responsive and competitive gaming experience allowing you to aim and respond a lot more accurately we'll be measuring this with nvidia's in-house developed latency display analysis tool or ldap for short it's a pretty simple tool it consists of a luminance sensor which mounts directly to your monitor and detects changes in brightness for example a muzzle flash when shooting and it also detects the signal from a mouse click nvidia didn't actually ship a mouse with this one so that's something that i've hooked up on my own here wiring the ldap directly to the left mouse click on a logitech g pro so then now we can measure the precise latency between a mouse click and the action being displayed on a screen but before we even get to testing these latency reduction technologies let's get the obvious out of the way first and that's that one of the most effective ways to reduce the input lag while gaming and get the most responsive gaming experience is to increase your frame rate this can be done by upgrading your gpu playing at a lower resolution or lowering the in-game settings the benefits of a higher frame rate are two-fold here both a smoother image with more frames in a given second and a more responsive image seeing as the time to render each frame is cut down quite a bit not only that but the benefits of a lower input lag at higher frame rates are due to the both shorter render times but also largely because the gpu usage is reduced that's important because lower gpu usage indicates a smaller render queue for the gpu and actually this is a really important note because these settings that we're going to take a look at are all basically trying to achieve the same thing and that's reduced the render queue being sent to the gpu by reducing the render queue frame data that is waiting in queue to be rendered can be a lot faster the first time that we saw this implemented was with nvidia's ultra low latency mode which can be accessed through the nvidia control panel under 3d settings this operates at the driver level and works for all games since then nvidia have released a more optimized implementation called the reflex which instead is an sdk that needs to be supported by the game but in doing so the control over the reduced render queue is supposedly more effective so let's kick things off on the nvidia side of things first what can we expect with an rtx 2060 running apex legends at 1080p well with all of these settings disabled just running the card stock as most people would we get 147 fps with 98 gpu usage with 32.7 milliseconds of end to end latency by enabling reflex reflex boost or ultra low latency mode or null for short we can reduce input lag by around 9 milliseconds or 27 that's a really meaningful improvement but when we switch over to the rtx 3070 a much faster gpu which runs at around 240 fps here and at a lower gpu usage the benefits of null and reflex aren't nearly as impactful but they are still here at stock we're getting a pretty fast 25.3 milliseconds of input lag and we can only reduce that by a further three to four milliseconds at 240 fps that's basically a single frame also one way to force eliminate the render queue for the gpu is by capping your frame rate either in game or with river tuner although this does come at the cost of a lower frame rate reflex and null do impact game frame rate as well but typically it's not a significant difference then when we swing in the other direction and take a look at how this works with just a gtx 1060 we go from 42 milliseconds of input lag down to around 33 milliseconds which is a 23 reduction and funnily enough this really surprised me here we can't actually beat this input lag measurement simply by just lowering our settings and boosting our frame rate because even then with the 1060 running at 120 fps here we're still at 99 gpu usage which means that there's still input lag reduction to be had in fact there again we see a nine millisecond reduction with reflex enabled let's switch games now though and take a look at overwatch and again we see some pretty solid reductions here too 30 by enabling reflex but keep in mind that i've also tested at a 150 percent render scale and ultra settings this is not how most people would be playing overwatch but it does demonstrate where null and reflex are beneficial and that's in gpu bound lower frame rate scenarios also whereas in apex the input lag reductions between ultra low latency mode and reflex were about the same we can see here that reflex is the superior technology so if your game supports it that's the one to enable it's also okay if you do have both enabled reflex will be the one that takes precedence and will be the one that's actually in effect now with an rtx 2060 in overwatch we see similar results but to a much less degree this time around eight millisecond reduction when enabling reflex but then with an rtx 3070 and by also reducing the render scale back to 100 there are basically no input lag savings to be had so this is a very important note if you're already playing at very high frame rates with gpu usage under 85 or so there's not much that these settings have to offer with gpu usage so low there's basically no render queue here at all and with frames so high literally a frame every 2.8 milliseconds in this example any possible savings are going to be very very minimal in fact this is why my testing with valorem was so brief this game runs at insanely high frame rates and low input lag already that at least in the training map i couldn't measure any meaningful difference at all of course though frame rates in an actual match are going to be a little bit lower so the effectiveness of nvidia reflex there would be at least something worth enabling so at the end of the day the frame rate penalty is pretty small by enabling reflex if your gaming gpu supports it it is worth turning on but here's a little summary of the results blue is native or stock and white is with reflex enabled so for the most part there are benefits across the board by enabling reflex in apex legends but the higher frame rate and lower gpu usage you run into the less latency reduction you're going to experience with enabling reflex so if you are playing on a lower end gpu or with higher graphic settings or perhaps on a higher resolution monitor reflex is really damn effective there but if you're already playing at 1080p low settings with a decent graphics card like most competitive players are the benefits of nvidia reflex are going to be a lot more slim as for amd's anti-lag it runs at the driver level just like nvidia's ultra low latency mode so expect similar results there we save about 8 milliseconds with an rx 590 in apex legends although i couldn't measure any difference at all with an rx 5600 xt then very similar benefits to nvidia's null in overwatch so this is definitely a setting that i'd recommend enabling again it's going to be most effective in gpu bound scenarios in other words where gpu usage is pretty much maxed out so if you are interested in competitive first person shooters then nvidia's low latency mode reflex and amd's anti-lag are settings that are definitely worth enabling but do expect varying results across the board i would say that nvidia's reflex is the superior technology out of the three if there has to be one if you're on the nvidia side of things that is definitely the one to look out for and enable in those supported games and also when it comes to nvidia's ultra low latency mode and amd's anti-lag you may also be better off with just a straight up frame rate cap there you can get pretty much the same input delay as if nvidia's reflex was enabled although it'll work in any game and also with amd gpus so really hope this video helped you out as always a huge thanks for watching and i will see you all in the next oneso if you're into competitive first-person shooters like valerian cs go or overwatch what are the most competitive settings you should be using specifically to lower input lag is it really as simple as just lowering your settings and boosting your frame rate as high as possible or perhaps should you be capping your frame rate to take some load off the gpu and reduce the render queue and what about all of these settings like nvidia's low latency reflex and amd anti-lag are they even worth enabling and what is the difference between them anyway so today we're going to take a look at exactly what you need to know because some of these settings are worth enabling and in some cases they might not do anything all right so first up when we're talking about input lag we're referring to the delay that you experience between a mouse click and that action being displayed on your screen in other words the end to end latency and when it comes to competitive gaming we want this value to be as low as possible but also very consistent this in addition to a high frame rate of course is what's going to create the most responsive and competitive gaming experience allowing you to aim and respond a lot more accurately we'll be measuring this with nvidia's in-house developed latency display analysis tool or ldap for short it's a pretty simple tool it consists of a luminance sensor which mounts directly to your monitor and detects changes in brightness for example a muzzle flash when shooting and it also detects the signal from a mouse click nvidia didn't actually ship a mouse with this one so that's something that i've hooked up on my own here wiring the ldap directly to the left mouse click on a logitech g pro so then now we can measure the precise latency between a mouse click and the action being displayed on a screen but before we even get to testing these latency reduction technologies let's get the obvious out of the way first and that's that one of the most effective ways to reduce the input lag while gaming and get the most responsive gaming experience is to increase your frame rate this can be done by upgrading your gpu playing at a lower resolution or lowering the in-game settings the benefits of a higher frame rate are two-fold here both a smoother image with more frames in a given second and a more responsive image seeing as the time to render each frame is cut down quite a bit not only that but the benefits of a lower input lag at higher frame rates are due to the both shorter render times but also largely because the gpu usage is reduced that's important because lower gpu usage indicates a smaller render queue for the gpu and actually this is a really important note because these settings that we're going to take a look at are all basically trying to achieve the same thing and that's reduced the render queue being sent to the gpu by reducing the render queue frame data that is waiting in queue to be rendered can be a lot faster the first time that we saw this implemented was with nvidia's ultra low latency mode which can be accessed through the nvidia control panel under 3d settings this operates at the driver level and works for all games since then nvidia have released a more optimized implementation called the reflex which instead is an sdk that needs to be supported by the game but in doing so the control over the reduced render queue is supposedly more effective so let's kick things off on the nvidia side of things first what can we expect with an rtx 2060 running apex legends at 1080p well with all of these settings disabled just running the card stock as most people would we get 147 fps with 98 gpu usage with 32.7 milliseconds of end to end latency by enabling reflex reflex boost or ultra low latency mode or null for short we can reduce input lag by around 9 milliseconds or 27 that's a really meaningful improvement but when we switch over to the rtx 3070 a much faster gpu which runs at around 240 fps here and at a lower gpu usage the benefits of null and reflex aren't nearly as impactful but they are still here at stock we're getting a pretty fast 25.3 milliseconds of input lag and we can only reduce that by a further three to four milliseconds at 240 fps that's basically a single frame also one way to force eliminate the render queue for the gpu is by capping your frame rate either in game or with river tuner although this does come at the cost of a lower frame rate reflex and null do impact game frame rate as well but typically it's not a significant difference then when we swing in the other direction and take a look at how this works with just a gtx 1060 we go from 42 milliseconds of input lag down to around 33 milliseconds which is a 23 reduction and funnily enough this really surprised me here we can't actually beat this input lag measurement simply by just lowering our settings and boosting our frame rate because even then with the 1060 running at 120 fps here we're still at 99 gpu usage which means that there's still input lag reduction to be had in fact there again we see a nine millisecond reduction with reflex enabled let's switch games now though and take a look at overwatch and again we see some pretty solid reductions here too 30 by enabling reflex but keep in mind that i've also tested at a 150 percent render scale and ultra settings this is not how most people would be playing overwatch but it does demonstrate where null and reflex are beneficial and that's in gpu bound lower frame rate scenarios also whereas in apex the input lag reductions between ultra low latency mode and reflex were about the same we can see here that reflex is the superior technology so if your game supports it that's the one to enable it's also okay if you do have both enabled reflex will be the one that takes precedence and will be the one that's actually in effect now with an rtx 2060 in overwatch we see similar results but to a much less degree this time around eight millisecond reduction when enabling reflex but then with an rtx 3070 and by also reducing the render scale back to 100 there are basically no input lag savings to be had so this is a very important note if you're already playing at very high frame rates with gpu usage under 85 or so there's not much that these settings have to offer with gpu usage so low there's basically no render queue here at all and with frames so high literally a frame every 2.8 milliseconds in this example any possible savings are going to be very very minimal in fact this is why my testing with valorem was so brief this game runs at insanely high frame rates and low input lag already that at least in the training map i couldn't measure any meaningful difference at all of course though frame rates in an actual match are going to be a little bit lower so the effectiveness of nvidia reflex there would be at least something worth enabling so at the end of the day the frame rate penalty is pretty small by enabling reflex if your gaming gpu supports it it is worth turning on but here's a little summary of the results blue is native or stock and white is with reflex enabled so for the most part there are benefits across the board by enabling reflex in apex legends but the higher frame rate and lower gpu usage you run into the less latency reduction you're going to experience with enabling reflex so if you are playing on a lower end gpu or with higher graphic settings or perhaps on a higher resolution monitor reflex is really damn effective there but if you're already playing at 1080p low settings with a decent graphics card like most competitive players are the benefits of nvidia reflex are going to be a lot more slim as for amd's anti-lag it runs at the driver level just like nvidia's ultra low latency mode so expect similar results there we save about 8 milliseconds with an rx 590 in apex legends although i couldn't measure any difference at all with an rx 5600 xt then very similar benefits to nvidia's null in overwatch so this is definitely a setting that i'd recommend enabling again it's going to be most effective in gpu bound scenarios in other words where gpu usage is pretty much maxed out so if you are interested in competitive first person shooters then nvidia's low latency mode reflex and amd's anti-lag are settings that are definitely worth enabling but do expect varying results across the board i would say that nvidia's reflex is the superior technology out of the three if there has to be one if you're on the nvidia side of things that is definitely the one to look out for and enable in those supported games and also when it comes to nvidia's ultra low latency mode and amd's anti-lag you may also be better off with just a straight up frame rate cap there you can get pretty much the same input delay as if nvidia's reflex was enabled although it'll work in any game and also with amd gpus so really hope this video helped you out as always a huge thanks for watching and i will see you all in the next one\n"