How to reduce input lag on monitor

Are you tired and frustrated of constantly having your inputs delayed or dropped? Well there are different solutions to deal with this problem and while input lag can never be fully removed because it will always take time for information to be processed and transmitted. There are several methods that can be used to drastically reduce input lag and improve response times. Lets examine the solutions to this issue.

Solutions to reduce input lag

• Use a monitor or television with low display lag
• Turn on game mode or pc mode for your monitor/television,
• Turn off all post processing options on your monitor/television,
• Disable all power saving settings and ambient screen dimming settings on your monitor/television
• Turn off HDMI CEC on your monitor/ television
• Test all HDMI/AV/Display ports on your monitor/ television some ports have less input lag than others.
• Use quality HDMI/AV/Display port cables for your monitor/television
• Avoid adapters or other devices that add input lag
• Use low latency wired controllers, keyboards, and mouses
• Play games in Fullscreen mode
• Turn off Vertical Sync
• Lower the Resolution
• Disable the graphical settings in your game and AMD/NVIDIA panel
• Turn off triple buffering in GPU panel (AMD/NVIDIA panel)
• Turn off frame buffering in GPU panel (AMD/NVIDIA panel)
• Lower Render Scaling

This is just a short summary of the options available to reduce input lag. Below is a more in depth examination into each of these processes.

Monitor/Television with low display lag

One of the most efficient methods to reduce input lag is to use a monitor/television with low display lag and a high refresh rate. Choosing an inefficient monitor/television can add massive amounts of lag we are talking about 25 – 150 milliseconds of extra input lag. This is a big boo boo. So it is critical that you are precise in your selection of a quality monitor/television. These websites measure the input lag of monitors and televisions. So this can be a helpful resource for you.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tests/inputs/input-lag

https://displaylag.com/

Turn game mode/pc mode on

Televisions/Monitors come with many different features and modes. The game/pc mode on most television/monitors reduces input lag by removing all the extra graphical features. This can be of great benefit in lowering the input lag of your television/monitor. Depending on the monitor/television the reduction could be about 10- 50 milliseconds for input lag just by switching game mode on.

Turn off all post processing options

Post processing options are additional graphical effects added to your monitor/television. All of these extra effects increase input lag but increase the visual fidelity of the image. Turning off the post processing options can help reduce the total amount of input lag.

Disable power settings and ambient screen settings

Power settings and ambient screen settings might seem to be insignificant but these additional features introduce input lag. Turning these options off will ensure that you will get the most responsive experience possible on your monitor/television and game system/ computer.

Turn off HDMI CEC

HDMI CEC is another feature that causes input lag. If you have this feature on your television/monitor jettison this thing into a black hole. Unless of course you love input lag.

Test all HDMi/AV/Display ports

One interesting facet that I recently learned about is that the ports on your television and monitors have different levels of input lag. Some of the monitors and televisions have special ports designed specifically for gaming. These ports in particular have faster input response times than the other ports on the monitor/television. I recommend testing the ports on your monitor/television individually to find out which port is best to use.

Use Quality HDMI/AV/Display port cables

It is critical that you use quality cables that are not damaged or of poor quality. Check and compare performance of different cables to see if you can gain any increase in performance. Poor quality cables and damaged cables can cause a delay in the transfer of information from your system to your television/monitor. So it is important to avoid these issues by using quality cables.

Avoid adapters and other devices that add input lag

Specific adapters such as multi hdmi adapters and game recorder devices actually add input lag. Other devices can also have detrimental effects on your systems and slow down response times. Avoid adding anything extra if possible and avoid any devices that may be detrimental to any task that requires responsive inputs.

Use low latency wired controllers/keyboards and mouses

Wireless technology is a great innovation that is very convenient and accessible for the end users. However the connection quality and performance are not always perfect. This key factor leads to an increase in input delay. To avoid fluctuations and connection issues it is highly recommended to use wired controllers, keyboards and mouses.

However even when using wired input devices there can be differences between how well they perform. It is important to look carefully at specifications such as the polling rate, dots per inch (dpi), matrix scan rate, debounce algorithm, and most important input latency or input lag. More important than these specifications is to personally test these devices to see how well they perform. Actually performance is far more important than marketing hype.

Here are few resources that might benefit you.

https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/

https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1836

Play games using Full screen mode

It’s important to use fullscreen mode instead of window or borderless window mode because using either of those two modes will lead to an increase of input lag. Using the fullscreen mode will help reduce input lag and reward you with a more responsive experience.

Turn off Vertical Sync (Vsync)

Vertical Sync is one of the largest factors that lead to increased input lag. I highly recommend turning off Vertical sync to reduce input lag if possible. This is one of the best options available to remove input lag. Although the downside to turning off Vertical sync is annoying screen tearing. The benefits of reduced input lag are definitely worth it as far as I’m concerned. However there are solutions to fix screen tearing without using Vertical sync such as Freesync, Gsync, fast sync and RivaTuner Statistics Server. Note that you should turn off Vertical Sync in the GPU options menu as well as in game.

Lower the Resolution

Another way to reduce input lag is to lower the resolution of the game or app. Reducing the resolution to 1080p or 720p can be helpful in getting the application or game to perform better essentially raising the frame rate. But you can reduce the resolution even more if you want. Typically the less burden there is on the GPU to render the higher the frame rate is. Typically the higher the frame rate is the the lower the input lag will be.

Turn off graphical settings

To increase the frame rate and reduce input lag turning off other graphical settings can also help with performance. Turning off these features can lead to improved performance: ambient occlusion, anisotrphic filtering, antialiasing, reflections, motion blur, bloom, depth of field and shadows.

Turn off triple buffering

Typically Triple buffering is a tool that is used to deal with screen tearing. However there is a downside to triple buffering. That downside is an increase in input lag. I recommend turning this off to decrease input lag.

Turn off frame buffering

Frame buffering is typically located in GPU settings menu. This setting allows the Central Processing Unit (CPU) to pre-render frames in advance before sending them to the graphical processing unit (GPU). While it can help the prevent a burden from being placed on the graphical processing unit (GPU) it increases the input lag. Turning off or reducing frame buffering to 1 frame will help improve performance but will place more of a burden on the Graphical Processing Unit (GPU).

Lower the Render Scale

Another method to reduce input lag is to lower the render scale settings. Typically this setting is located inside a video games graphical settings. By lowering the render scale you can get a decent boost to your frame rate thereby reducing your overall input lag. If you need to improve the frame rate just lower this feature to your liking to get a frame rate improvement. Its very similar to lowering the resolution in a game.

Conclusion

These are some of the solutions that you can implement to reduce the amount of input lag you experience when using your computer/gaming system. I hope this article has been helpful for you.