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In one form or another, lag is something that most gamers have had to contend with.
In the 90s, "lag" usually referred to network latency. It was a direct reflection of the speed and stability of your internet connection. A low ping time could be the difference between a visceral game of Quake and trudging through a soup of seemingly random death.
Thanks to more widespread broadband internet access and better programming tricks, network latency isn't as big a problem as it once was. Unfortunately, modern technology has introduced a new type of lag into our games: HDTV processing lag.
What causes processing lag?
HDTV processing lag ( also known as "input lag" ) is a phenomenon that is unique to modern televisions. In the pursuit of making the end picture better, TV manufacturers have built a myriad of video processing filters into their products. These filters have been designed to aesthetically benefit the playback of movies and broadcast TV.
This video processing lengthens the time between a signal being passed from its source ( your DVD player, antenna, or game system ) and the resulting picture being displayed on the screen.
Please note that processing lag is a completely seperate entity from response time, which is the time it takes any given pixel of a display to go from black to white and back again. Manufacturers often advertise their response time figures in milliseconds ( ms ). Response time has no bearing on processing lag.
How does processing lag affect videogames?
Generally speaking, this delay is in the ballpark of a fraction of a second. In the case of non-real-time media like broadcast TV and movies, it doesn't make much of a difference. The signal may be delayed, but it doesn't matter because you aren't interacting with it.
In the case of console videogames, this situation is less than ideal. Your console is working in real-time; When you press the A button it makes Mario jump. If your display is portraying the jump late, the game begins to fall somewhere between sloppy and unplayable.
This type of lag is most apparent in games where split-second timing is an inherent part of how they're played. Music games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution can be crippled by processing lag.
What about in-game calibration?
In the cases of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, game developers have implemented video calibration options that attempt to compensate for this lag. The newest Rock Band instruments have even gone so far as to include sensors you can use to calibrate the game automatically by holding them up to your screen.
These options work well enough to combat video lag, but there's another issue that calibration alone can't alleviate: audio lag.
Audio signals are subject to similar degrees of laggy processing. The end result is the same; audio is played slightly later than the source sends it out.
Modern music games have additional calibration settings for audio lag but you will quickly discover that they provide no substitution for real-time sound. When you beat the drums during a freestyle fill or sing into the microphone, the actual sound is reflected by your TV later than "truth". This results in a very unpleasant echo effect that drains the fun out of improvised drumming.
How can I eliminate processing lag?
We've established that modern TVs introduce video/audio lag and that it's a bad thing for games. What can we do about it?
Sadly, there is no way to entirely eliminate processing lag in modern flat-panel televisions. Every flat-panel TV currently being manufactured for the consumer market will introduce some degree of lag. Older non-HD CRT ( cathode ray tube ) displays are your only option for real-time gameplay.
Without going off the deep end and buying outdated analog TVs, let's do our best to mitigate the damage. You can try to find an HDTV that utilizes less video processing and therefore introduces less lag. Unfortunately, TV manufacturers do not include this information in their specifications. Worse yet, most professional audio/video reviewers don't mention processing lag in their reports. This kind of information can only be found online anecdotally in places like the AV Science forums ( a fantastic resource, for a message board ).
Before making a big purchase, you should absolutely test out prospective TVs in person. Bring your console to the electronics store, plug it into a set, and measure the lag ( again, music games are best for this ). You might look obsessive but you'll be much happier later on knowing that you bought the best device for your hobby.
If you own a big fancy HDTV and you want to cut down its processing lag, you have a few options.
1. Ensure that your console is outputting video at the display's native resolution whenever possible. The native resolution of a television is generally the highest resolution it can display. If you have a 1080p display but your console is feeding it 720p, the TV will have to perform additional calculations to make it fit the screen.
2. Check to see if your TV has a "game mode". Some TVs have a lower-latency video setting that turns off some bells and whistles to get the picture to the screen faster. Some have multiple game settings, so be sure to delve into your TV's manual to find them all.
3. Manually turn off every video processing option your TV gives you access to. You can usually identify these as a stream of acronyms: DRE, ACL, CTI, 3DNR. Turn them all off. You will sacrifice some picture clarity but you'll gain precious milliseconds.
4. You can eliminate audio lag by connecting the audio cables from your console directly into an analog stereo receiver. This may prove problematic if you're using a digital audio output method like HDMI, but you may be able to find a good digital receiver that's faster than your TV if you're using external speakers.
5. If you're using an AV receiver, be sure to turn on its video pass-through option to send your console's signal along without any laggy preprocessing. Some receivers don't have this option, so be careful.
HDTV processing lag is a complicated issue that is widely swept under the rug. This post is intended as a starting point to combat the general lack of knowledge about this subject. If you've got any other tips for reducing lag, please post them in the comments -- these are the solutions that have worked best for me, and I'm sure there's a great deal more to learn. |
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| 2024 Chris Maguire |
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