Me too, I was worried maybe a USB 2.0 hub with my keyboard and mouse connected would be worse than connecting both to a dedicated USB 3.0 port, even though both are USB 2.0 devices of course. But it seems like USB hubs don't add any big amount of lag and it's barely even measurable.
Brilliant test, exactly the scenarios I was looking for! And the results are so surprisingly positive! Thanks for tackling this question the right way and absolving me of my latency concerns. Subbed!
Thanks for taking the time to conduct and publish these test. I'm sure we've all seen hundreds of posts with anecdotes or theoretically arguments over whether hubs affects input lag. But it takes controlled testing to get a definitive answer. This makes me feel better as my keyboard, mouse and sound-card are connected through a KVM switch (acts like a hub but lets me switch between two systems). I guess I'll have to go back to blaming internet lag and bad hit-boxes when someone beats me in CS:GO.
In theory, it's not surprising at all that the latency does not increase even during a bulk transfer, because that's the whole idea behind the USB polling scheme -- since the traffic is completely shaped by the host controller, it can bound the latency for interrupt-class endpoints and the bulk transfer cannot interfere. It's very nice to see that being confirmed in practice by testing, however! If anything, it might be interesting to test whether the latency is affected by having more devices on the same USB root hub, since that means more devices that need to be polled, which might affect the overall polling rate.
Great video. Curious why click latency isn't effected by hubs but sometimes double clicks can be registered because of hubs. I've experienced this several times and have read other cases of it happening online.
Well it does add additional lag to the raw signal, since speed of electricity through copper = speed of light. It's just that the timing of the USB protocol itself forces the USB controller to wait for the next packet anyway, to keep everything at a very predictable and steady update rate, much higher than what the extra copper length could introduce.
Well, by definition, electricity can't travel at the speed of light due to it being dependent to some degree on baryonic interactions. If it were solely dependent on bosons (like the photon) it would be able to move at the speed of light. I'm not a nerd; _you're_ a nerd!
From the moment I saw the title, I was prepared to answer "no"....the reason: USB is a polling communication, with the controller as master (why you can't just connect 2 PCs with a simple USB cable). While it's communicating with a device, that is the only time the device can give back data (unlike ethernet where packets can come and go independently). So all actual communication is directly between USB controller and device. All that USB hubs do is identify to which port they have to make ELECTRICAL connection. If that would be delayed, USB controller would close the communication window and "disconnect" the device. The only delay a hub could do is the "repeating" of the electrical signal, but even that should be done shorter than the USB clock signal (I assume; even if longer, we are talking nano/micro-seconds, not milliseconds).
@@Tufet Delay, no. The only worry with extenders is signal degradation and wire resistance, but 1m should be negligible. I personally use 3m USB3 extender for my simracing setup, which goes to hub with KB, mouse and wheel. The wheel has it's own power, so it's a small load on the hub. But I would avoid charging a phone, even with USB3.
@@mateiberatco500 i will use for a headset with rgb and condesator microphone fifine k669, should it be ok? My USB hub has a type c power supply port as well
@@Tufet I don''t know how much power they need, but if you have usb3 up to the hub, it should be fine. USB2 hub/extender might be problematic, but I guess you should see that immediately when listening at high levels. My biggest worry is HDDs, as that could screw their content on writing.
Thank you for yet another great test! I haven't been able to use one of my USB hub inputs because I feared I would get additional input delay, so I had to plug a larger connector in which blocked one of the inputs. Now I can swap that and use all of the inputs :)
Thanks for doing this video. Just thought of this question this morning when I was considering getting a USB switch to quickly swap my mouse and keyboard between my gaming computer and work laptop. Didn't want my work life to potentially slow my gamer reflexes!
Finally found someone covering a related topic! I was wondering if I introduce any sensor error or input latency while using an USB A adapter for USB c gaming mouse or keyboard. I pick them to have a 5 ms advantage, but if it's diminished by the adapter and not having a USB c port in my pc, it doesn't make sense of course. Thanks!
This definitely used to be more of an issue with USB devices stressing old CPUs more than their PCI or PS/2 equivalents. I used to avoid USB network devices and such like the plague, but now with the limited PCI-E lanes and multi-core on modern processors I do the opposite. lol how times have changed.
This is a cool video. Wondering if there’s an update. I noticed if results had been on a line graph showing normalized data (perhaps a simple % increase/decrease) then there are a number of places where you said “no change” that was actually a 5% change. Perhaps you could argue that it’s negligible, but it’s not zero.
Interesting results! At 200fps (5ms per frame), I would have expected much less variance in the min/max results. Can you publish the raw results of each trial/test? I would like to see the distribution of the results of each test. As a follow up, I'd be very curious to see a comparison of 125/250/500Hz mice vs 1000Hz, in both min/avg/max as well as a latency distribution.
PS2 Mice ARE better for input lag since they are interrupt driven. This means that as soon as you move, and the mouse has data to send, the mouse notifies the CPU that the mouse should move right now. With USB polling, when you move the mouse, it sits there holding that data until the PC asks for it 1ms later. But when we're talking about 33ms input lag vs 32, it's not worth the trouble really. If we're looking at 125/250/500Hz refresh rates, it's the same, but the delay between polls is now 2ms/4ms/8ms.
Interesting. Then do you know why isn't there a PS/2 gaming mouse market as far as I can tell? "Pro gamers" buy hardware to get 500+ FPS on CSGo, they would buy a mouse that gives them 1ms better input lag I think.
This makes me wonder about raw PS/2 mouse vs USB->PS/2 converted mouse vs raw USB mouse. I've heard that PS/2 has its benefits because it sends interrupts to the CPU but I've never looked into if it actually works.
thank you for this awesome test. i always hesitated to use my monitors usb hub for my input devices because of being worried that it might cause "problems", but now i have to rethink my cable management thanks to you!
-BY design, delay will be added. It might be just millisecond or two, but its still an existing delay. USB is not designed with daisychaining in mind, and its polling based system, which will literally always add delay, from your case, to that fancy USB hub on your monitor, keyboard, or standalone, and the more you chain, the longer the delay gets. However, an extension cable *shouldn't* add more delay, as there is no inbetween point where input and output has to be handled. Now, you can decide if few milliseconds is worth worrying about or not, thats a whole other topic.
What? USB WAS designed for daisy chaining, this is why single controller can adress and poll up to 127 devices/hubs. Obviously it wasn't designed to daisy chain 50hub's and then mouse at the end, but no system was.
I am going to conect two monitors to the same pc at different roms for playing. I ordered this: - 10 meters USB 2.0 active extensión usb cable (not 3.0 for costs). - USB 3.0 USB hub that will be connected to the extension usb cable. - 10 meters HDMI cable. I'll conect a mouse, keyboard and Xbox controller. Just for gaming and multimedia. This video encouraged me to do this because I was worried about input lag. I hope that the USB hub conected to the USB 2.0 10m extension cable doesn't affect input lag. I think that it was the only missing part at your tests. I'll try to make a comparation with you same metod but with a smarthponecamera at 960 fps (Galaxy S9).
I have a powered USB 3.0 10 slot replicator. I was wondering if I should plug my Mouse/KB dongles directly into the PC or on the hub itself with other stuff. Good video.
This is strange. I got a different result with my test using my MIDI keyboard and Audacity. I recorded myself tapping the drum pad while FL Studio played a sharp sound, and I looked at the waveform on the screen. I could measure the space between the peak of my tap to the beginning of the triggered sound. I found that connecting the keyboard through an unpowered USB 2.0 hub consistently added to the lag. I can't remember if it was 5 or 10 ms.
I've run a USB 2.0 hub for gaming in the past in specific setups and can for sure say there is a difference in input latency. I was running a SNES emulator while talking over voice and could measure the difference in input delay. I was streaming at the time as well so I had footage somewhere and talked about the issue with and without the USB hub. I ended up purchasing a powered USB 3.0 hub because of that problem.
Hello! I was wondering if with the introduction of new technologies and possibilities you could do an updated video! Is there a lag input between using a usb c hub with an hdmi connection to the monitor when compared to simply using the hdmi port in the pc?
Bro I haven't watched the video yet but I just wanted to say that I literally just had this thought while on the toilet and immediately after that, I go on youtube and I find you with this video. God it's like you read people's minds or something. God bless you man you are doing life saving work.
I genuinely think you are the best tech RUclipsr on the planet. You have answered all the tough gaming questions with objective test results on so many topics I have needed answers from. We all really appreciate your hard work.
Great video! (I was planning the very details of my new PC setup when this question came up.) I expected to only find the usual "guesswork / non technically founded" discussions, but your video really blew my mind. Physically _measuring_ and then _veryfiying_ the results is a very scientific approach, I really appreciate this :).
You earned yourself a sub! This nice, good to understand and accurate testing is what i personally prefer to some "5 min production" videos. Keep the great work up!
I never actually thought about it. I had a bit thought, about that distance to motherboard a bit longer when connecting mouse/keyboard to front panel instead of rear, but it is like 0.5 or less meters, what is like maybe 0.01ms delay. So, thanks for such informative video!
The reason why you couldn't/shouldn't see any difference between back 2.0 and 3.0 ports is because those are usually operated by same physical controller. (USB3.0 controller can work ports as 2.0 no problem). Even on my old Z87 its just single 3.0 controller for all back USB ports. And the reason why there was no difference with added controller load is polling. Devices are polled at given frequency and no device can "steal" all communication.
I mean there is a difference, it's within 3 or 4 percent, but it does seem that there is a difference between the hypothetical fastest and slowest instances. It would be interesting to see if this type of test could be automated to allow for a much larger sample size. Awesome channel by the way, nice to see an actual breakdown of this kind of thing rather than just seeing peoples opinions and hearsay
mouse and keyboard take priority over every other action/imput that goes through the chipset. it is really only the length of the cable or the performance of the device that will create lag
Short answer no, long answer, for high bandwidth USB 3 ports no but usb 2.0 maybe like 1 or 2 ms which for some may be worth while moving shuffling your USBs around, I know I moved my mouse directly into my laptop after this and I have a lot plugged into my hub, sometimes even hdmi, ethernet and drives.
How about usb extension cables? Is it possible to play competitively while your mouse is connected to your pc via let's say 5m extension cable, maybe even a usb connected to that?
My tested showed than an extentions cable did not increase the delay. However there is a limit to how far you can extend it. But when you reach that the attached devices will simply not show up in the operating system, or disappear.
Alright, thanks for the answer! I was thinking of this because I own multiple different gaming mice, and I like to swap between them depending on my mood, and reaching to the back of my computer becomes pretty annoying after a while. I was thinking if I would get a usb extension cable, I would be able to swap mice a lot easier. Probably not going for 5 meters, but just something that reaches from the pc that sits on the floor, to my desk behind the monitor. Thanks again for the quick answer!
Maxmum allowed for USB (atleast for USB 2) is 5m without repeater. Would be interesting to know if such a repeater for more than 5m of total cable would increase inputlag.
Fantastically in-depth, but to the point video. Thanks! I use a mac and PC on the 1 monitor and unfortuntely most monitors only have 1 port to connect to its internal hub so i'll be confidently be using a USB 3.0 switching hub!
Should use a simple application that changes colour on receiving mouse input. Games can introduce latency on input, also as you saw framerate made it hard to collect data for you last test.
The reason (I think) the stress and additional hubs cause no delay is that the OS or the mouse itself probably gets to tell the USB hubs to prioritize the mouse and not to delay its messages (delaying messages to combine them could reduce stress on the cpu for some devices).
Yeah i think every device gets its own transmission window within the 1ms USB frame, so far for interrupt endpoints like HID input. Then isochronous endpoints get a piece of the frame, like soundcards, webcams and capture cards, and finally bulk devices like USB disk volumes. The hubs can't buffer any data either if i'm not mistaken, the timeframes are host-defined. It's pointless to test a USB 3.0 harddisk together with a USB 2.0 mouse though, because they're not even on the same bus, even if they're on the same physical port. You can just reconfigure the harddisk to USB2.0 for a potentially more interesting test, by using a USB 2.0 cable instead of the one that came with the disk, which however will still show nothing changing, i think. The common webcams like C920/C922 are USB2.0 and use a lot of the bandwidth, and that's still not a problem. One might expect differences in behaviour between cheap mice, operating on a LowSpeed bus, and gaming mice, which operate on FullSpeed, because the LowSpeed devices consume more time out of a frame, but it makes them share and simply staggers the frames during which they talk, so say keyboard talks during one frame and mouse during another, this is why there's 8ms between messages. And yet, i don't expect this to actually be an issue still, because the bus must foresee enough time for interupt endpoints, though isochronous endpoints eat into the available time per frame overall.
Thanks for your analysis! I want to make my setup cleaner and when I was doing my cable management I was wondering if I just plug 1 USB into my PC (USB Hub hidden under my table) and then I connect my mouse, keyboard and headset to the hub, if there would be any input lag. But based on this video, there shouldn't be anything to worry about :)
I love how every website out there swears that usb hubs gives you a shit ton of input lag and you should never use one for gaming, but they provide no data.
I'm experiencing issues if my mouse is connected to the new monitor's ports or the front 3,5" card reader, if there are other USB pendrives or external HDD connected to the same HUB. it would be a good position to place the receiver in the back of the monitor, to spare a port in the mother board, but damn it's making me go nuts!
Amazingly clear answer and explanation of a commonly asked question. Thank you, sir. Your diagrams were exceptionally clear... I just finished the video. Amazingly concise and the results are somewhat surprising as you say. Webcams now connected to monitor to eliminate cable run. Thanks again.
Thank you so much!!! Thought about this so much as I need to switch computers but only have one set of mic, mouse and keyboard for my streams and recordings. This helps a lot mate!
I wish you could make some test with usb extanders/repeaters/usb-lan adapters with 15m or more for guys want to try to outsource pc from living room. You've done amazing job. Subscribed!
i do think about this, ive troubleshooting the hell out of it and think i got it under control, well done for shining a spotlight on this usb can be messy, cpu, power settings, network, windows 10, nvidia, theres, chipset, hard ware etc etc a long list
No input lag, but occasionally my mouse freezes up completely if using a powered hub, my controller locks up, and my blue snowball mic doesn't even receive power to turn itself on.
I switched my wireless mouse (Attack Shark X3) to my Vention USB 3.0 Hub (GL3510 chip) and my plots are very very good and it doesn't lost connection for a second. It always lost if I plug my extension directly to the back or front of the PC. But on my USB hub, I no longer get the problem.
Hi there! I have question... Logitech Unifying connectors - what input lzg it gives (mouse AND keyboard)? These Logitech devices have 1-2 years of battery lofe wtf 🤯, then question about input lag comparing with 2.4ghz dongle wireless mouses...
Great video as always! Although the input delay is barely affected by USB hubs etc., the polling stability will most likely suffer. If you've had measured the polling rate while having your test scenarios running, the fluctuation would have been most likely much higher. Whether this is relevant is debatable of course. Btw, could you do a button to pixel lag analysis of ULMB? I think your monitor does have ULMB (along with G-Sync), so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Would be much appreciated
Well I can tell you that I just tried out my Logitech G603 mouse, and a mouse polling rate tester, through my very very old ancient USB 1.0 USB (yeah that's right, USB 1.0), and even IT did not affect polling rate whatsoever and I still got 1000hz.
Unfortunately, in my case, the hub do causes delay. Not minimal, but perceptible delay. Im using a laptop and dont know if this make some kind of difference. Can be hub+mouse only and still delay. edit 2022/oct/14 : it was the laptop usb ports. i tested on other system and it was fine/ without delay when conected to my hub, so its was my old laptop (it may happen with you too).
Nice, it would be interesting to see the results on the moving mouse test. I would advice to, instead of "pulling the mouse really fast", to use some weight attached to the rope, for repeatibility sake...
The case-by-case variance seems to have bigger differences than if a USB-hub is hooked up or not. So I guess the easy answer is no, a USB-hub does not add any (meaningful) latency if at all.
Not really surprising. What i really want to know though is the input lag those “logitech” mices are stating. The G903. Apparently its like a wired mouse that you wouldn’t even notice the difference.
isnt that you should record your finger or ideally a robot that presses the mouse and then watch when the gun shoots? i think that on different usbs the light will switch on after latency but the light and gun action will always be the same
If he woud go really into detail, how about testing the effect of different anti virus solutions (Windows Defender, Avast, Kaspersky, AVG, Antivir, BitDefender, Sophos, Panda in their free versions to keep the cost down) and some of their settings (like "game mode" and modules like behaviour scan)
Overall, only the USB under parallel stress test is surprising. Thank you for confirming the different scenarios though! The rest is not as surprising considering that USB generations do not decrease latency across them (i.e. the input time of USB 2.0 is the same up to usb 3.1) only the bandwidth has been improved (by much) over the generations. Now, if we had a native thunderbolt mouse and capable controller, we may see a new baseline altogether :D Might be overkill though ;)
saw a comment "The thing is PCI USB cards are good cause it reduces IRQ and input lag." how important is it to have IRQ? basically i want a way to make my mouse, keyboard, webcam, elgato stream deck longer. i like to make a nice cute harness. and throw my computers somewhere farther away from my actual setup. i believe the biggest limiting factor right now is how far my hdmi cables can go before fps / hertz issues.
so they are massive input lag monsters if you have one running from a long usb cord, a usb hub with a 6 inch cable not gonna cause lag but it will if you are streaming data from the usb like having your game stored on a usb hub you will get input lag, i have done my own tests, in the situations you made your not gonna get lag but in my cases i got input lag so bad the games became unplayable. edit addon note:= my usb hub is 30feet long
I know this is a old video, still I hope someone can answer my question: Does this also count for USB KM switches? Like a KVM switch, just without the video, so a USB switch for periphals to have multiple USB devices output to two different PCs with a button switch.
i dont know about those 5 ms, but i can definitely feel it being more inaccurate if i do my mouse thru the usb hub. its like i have to grab it harder someway, the inaccuracy makes me do this cause theres this very very slight delay. perhaps the values are different on a low-end 8yo laptop
![MISSING: SLIM SHADY [Expanded Mourner’s Edition Trailer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xh8qgHrOO1g/mqdefault.jpg)
TL;DW -- USB Hubs Are Input Lag Monsters? No.
MVP
Nigga needs a scholarship for his comprehension skills
U da man
The thing is PCI USB cards are good cause it reduces IRQ and input lag.
You daaa man!
Back this guy on Patreon so he can get a better high speed camera!
The gaming scene needs more people like you. Great video.
Googled this because I'm out of usb ports, did not expect to find such a well tested answer. new sub
Hi. I'm using a gaming laptop and also running out of USB ports. Have you tried using a USB hub? How was your result?
Thanks in advance.
It works very well for me i i use usb hubs
Me too, I was worried maybe a USB 2.0 hub with my keyboard and mouse connected would be worse than connecting both to a dedicated USB 3.0 port, even though both are USB 2.0 devices of course. But it seems like USB hubs don't add any big amount of lag and it's barely even measurable.
@@laLuminescence ilmao same problem did you try i?
Same
Never even tought about this till you made this video
He's lying, don't listen, Danny!
Conclusion: 6:24 it does not affect the input lag
Brilliant test, exactly the scenarios I was looking for! And the results are so surprisingly positive! Thanks for tackling this question the right way and absolving me of my latency concerns. Subbed!
You are really answering the questions humanity needs answers to
Thanks for taking the time to conduct and publish these test. I'm sure we've all seen hundreds of posts with anecdotes or theoretically arguments over whether hubs affects input lag. But it takes controlled testing to get a definitive answer.
This makes me feel better as my keyboard, mouse and sound-card are connected through a KVM switch (acts like a hub but lets me switch between two systems). I guess I'll have to go back to blaming internet lag and bad hit-boxes when someone beats me in CS:GO.
exactly. My chipset caused problems with usb hub delay, for example.
U really went deep... Very deep.
Give this man a nobel price for this research.
6:40 - That's a Dirty Bomb. If someone is interested.
F
I was not expecting this video to be so informative. I guess LTT has been lowering my expectations for tech videos. Good job!
aged like fine wine lol
@@Maebbie fr
In theory, it's not surprising at all that the latency does not increase even during a bulk transfer, because that's the whole idea behind the USB polling scheme -- since the traffic is completely shaped by the host controller, it can bound the latency for interrupt-class endpoints and the bulk transfer cannot interfere. It's very nice to see that being confirmed in practice by testing, however!
If anything, it might be interesting to test whether the latency is affected by having more devices on the same USB root hub, since that means more devices that need to be polled, which might affect the overall polling rate.
Great video. Curious why click latency isn't effected by hubs but sometimes double clicks can be registered because of hubs. I've experienced this several times and have read other cases of it happening online.
Very good to know that an extension cable is completely fine to use without any additional lag.
Well it does add additional lag to the raw signal, since speed of electricity through copper = speed of light. It's just that the timing of the USB protocol itself forces the USB controller to wait for the next packet anyway, to keep everything at a very predictable and steady update rate, much higher than what the extra copper length could introduce.
Well, by definition, electricity can't travel at the speed of light due to it being dependent to some degree on baryonic interactions. If it were solely dependent on bosons (like the photon) it would be able to move at the speed of light.
I'm not a nerd; _you're_ a nerd!
@@redchris05 you got the you're part right tho idiots dont check their grammar before typing like complete a holes.
But 2m at speed of lights is an increase of a few nanoseconds? You might get in to the millisecond category when your cable starts to be 100km...
@@aplatypus7651 this aint about gramar, check you're privilege
From the moment I saw the title, I was prepared to answer "no"....the reason:
USB is a polling communication, with the controller as master (why you can't just connect 2 PCs with a simple USB cable). While it's communicating with a device, that is the only time the device can give back data (unlike ethernet where packets can come and go independently).
So all actual communication is directly between USB controller and device. All that USB hubs do is identify to which port they have to make ELECTRICAL connection. If that would be delayed, USB controller would close the communication window and "disconnect" the device. The only delay a hub could do is the "repeating" of the electrical signal, but even that should be done shorter than the USB clock signal (I assume; even if longer, we are talking nano/micro-seconds, not milliseconds).
If I connect a 1 meter USB 3.0 extender to a 15 cm USB Hub 3.0, will I get any delay?
@@Tufet Delay, no. The only worry with extenders is signal degradation and wire resistance, but 1m should be negligible. I personally use 3m USB3 extender for my simracing setup, which goes to hub with KB, mouse and wheel. The wheel has it's own power, so it's a small load on the hub. But I would avoid charging a phone, even with USB3.
@@mateiberatco500 i will use for a headset with rgb and condesator microphone fifine k669, should it be ok? My USB hub has a type c power supply port as well
@@Tufet I don''t know how much power they need, but if you have usb3 up to the hub, it should be fine. USB2 hub/extender might be problematic, but I guess you should see that immediately when listening at high levels. My biggest worry is HDDs, as that could screw their content on writing.
Thank you for yet another great test! I haven't been able to use one of my USB hub inputs because I feared I would get additional input delay, so I had to plug a larger connector in which blocked one of the inputs. Now I can swap that and use all of the inputs :)
Thanks for doing this video. Just thought of this question this morning when I was considering getting a USB switch to quickly swap my mouse and keyboard between my gaming computer and work laptop. Didn't want my work life to potentially slow my gamer reflexes!
man you have alot of patience for all these tests...
Finally found someone covering a related topic! I was wondering if I introduce any sensor error or input latency while using an USB A adapter for USB c gaming mouse or keyboard. I pick them to have a 5 ms advantage, but if it's diminished by the adapter and not having a USB c port in my pc, it doesn't make sense of course. Thanks!
This definitely used to be more of an issue with USB devices stressing old CPUs more than their PCI or PS/2 equivalents. I used to avoid USB network devices and such like the plague, but now with the limited PCI-E lanes and multi-core on modern processors I do the opposite.
lol how times have changed.
This is a cool video. Wondering if there’s an update. I noticed if results had been on a line graph showing normalized data (perhaps a simple % increase/decrease) then there are a number of places where you said “no change” that was actually a 5% change. Perhaps you could argue that it’s negligible, but it’s not zero.
Interesting results! At 200fps (5ms per frame), I would have expected much less variance in the min/max results. Can you publish the raw results of each trial/test? I would like to see the distribution of the results of each test. As a follow up, I'd be very curious to see a comparison of 125/250/500Hz mice vs 1000Hz, in both min/avg/max as well as a latency distribution.
and maybe a PS/2 mouse? I've been told they are better in term of input lag, but that seems odd.
XseuguhX They work with interrupts instead of polling so they are in theory 0ms latency but it would be a nice thing to actually have a test :)
At 1000Hz you can expect at least 2ms variance even in the perfect world. He's only getting max 3. That's pretty close to baseline.
PS2 Mice ARE better for input lag since they are interrupt driven. This means that as soon as you move, and the mouse has data to send, the mouse notifies the CPU that the mouse should move right now. With USB polling, when you move the mouse, it sits there holding that data until the PC asks for it 1ms later.
But when we're talking about 33ms input lag vs 32, it's not worth the trouble really.
If we're looking at 125/250/500Hz refresh rates, it's the same, but the delay between polls is now 2ms/4ms/8ms.
Interesting. Then do you know why isn't there a PS/2 gaming mouse market as far as I can tell? "Pro gamers" buy hardware to get 500+ FPS on CSGo, they would buy a mouse that gives them 1ms better input lag I think.
This makes me wonder about raw PS/2 mouse vs USB->PS/2 converted mouse vs raw USB mouse. I've heard that PS/2 has its benefits because it sends interrupts to the CPU but I've never looked into if it actually works.
ruclips.net/video/AWkvzycD5PE/видео.html look this video, short answer , ps/2 its not better.
Excellent! Will plug my mouse and keyboard into my monitors USB hub then :D Should make cable management easier with a sit/stand desk!
Great video. I was curious about this for a while and it's really interesting that there's no disadvantage!
thank you for this awesome test. i always hesitated to use my monitors usb hub for my input devices because of being worried that it might cause "problems", but now i have to rethink my cable management thanks to you!
Wouldn't it be easier to just look at the Desktop Cursor (or Game Cursor) to see when it starts moving?
Okay but does that still apply with a wireless USB dongle mouse? Or would having less power to it affect it?
This video answered and solved several of my problems:
1. Lack of USB ports
2. Cables too short
3. Bad cable management
Thank you!
-BY design, delay will be added. It might be just millisecond or two, but its still an existing delay. USB is not designed with daisychaining in mind, and its polling based system, which will literally always add delay, from your case, to that fancy USB hub on your monitor, keyboard, or standalone, and the more you chain, the longer the delay gets. However, an extension cable *shouldn't* add more delay, as there is no inbetween point where input and output has to be handled.
Now, you can decide if few milliseconds is worth worrying about or not, thats a whole other topic.
What? USB WAS designed for daisy chaining, this is why single controller can adress and poll up to 127 devices/hubs. Obviously it wasn't designed to daisy chain 50hub's and then mouse at the end, but no system was.
I came here hoping to find an excuse for why I'm getting my butt kicked in CoD...now I must look elsewhere
7:08 wow that deagle is larger than the m16
I am going to conect two monitors to the same pc at different roms for playing. I ordered this:
- 10 meters USB 2.0 active extensión usb cable (not 3.0 for costs).
- USB 3.0 USB hub that will be connected to the extension usb cable.
- 10 meters HDMI cable.
I'll conect a mouse, keyboard and Xbox controller. Just for gaming and multimedia. This video encouraged me to do this because I was worried about input lag. I hope that the USB hub conected to the USB 2.0 10m extension cable doesn't affect input lag. I think that it was the only missing part at your tests.
I'll try to make a comparation with you same metod but with a smarthponecamera at 960 fps (Galaxy S9).
I have a powered USB 3.0 10 slot replicator. I was wondering if I should plug my Mouse/KB dongles directly into the PC or on the hub itself with other stuff. Good video.
This is strange. I got a different result with my test using my MIDI keyboard and Audacity. I recorded myself tapping the drum pad while FL Studio played a sharp sound, and I looked at the waveform on the screen. I could measure the space between the peak of my tap to the beginning of the triggered sound. I found that connecting the keyboard through an unpowered USB 2.0 hub consistently added to the lag. I can't remember if it was 5 or 10 ms.
I've run a USB 2.0 hub for gaming in the past in specific setups and can for sure say there is a difference in input latency.
I was running a SNES emulator while talking over voice and could measure the difference in input delay. I was streaming at the time as well so I had footage somewhere and talked about the issue with and without the USB hub. I ended up purchasing a powered USB 3.0 hub because of that problem.
in my case the problem was the chipset in my laptop+hub's in general
Hello! I was wondering if with the introduction of new technologies and possibilities you could do an updated video!
Is there a lag input between using a usb c hub with an hdmi connection to the monitor when compared to simply using the hdmi port in the pc?
Those input numbers are small enough that they could be the result of the game's delay rather than any USB delays. Was triple buffering turned off?
nice to see youre still trying to improve the content with new tests like the mouse movement, good job
Nice video, i was impressed with the way you came up to measure USB latency with high camera and rigging a LED to mouse.
Bro I haven't watched the video yet but I just wanted to say that I literally just had this thought while on the toilet and immediately after that, I go on youtube and I find you with this video. God it's like you read people's minds or something. God bless you man you are doing life saving work.
you could have chained a few hubs together and then get the delay per hub by dividing by the amount of hubs
would be crazy if difference was imperceptable
I genuinely think you are the best tech RUclipsr on the planet. You have answered all the tough gaming questions with objective test results on so many topics I have needed answers from. We all really appreciate your hard work.
Great video! (I was planning the very details of my new PC setup when this question came up.)
I expected to only find the usual "guesswork / non technically founded" discussions, but your video really blew my mind.
Physically _measuring_ and then _veryfiying_ the results is a very scientific approach, I really appreciate this :).
You earned yourself a sub! This nice, good to understand and accurate testing is what i personally prefer to some "5 min production" videos. Keep the great work up!
I never actually thought about it. I had a bit thought, about that distance to motherboard a bit longer when connecting mouse/keyboard to front panel instead of rear, but it is like 0.5 or less meters, what is like maybe 0.01ms delay.
So, thanks for such informative video!
The reason why you couldn't/shouldn't see any difference between back 2.0 and 3.0 ports is because those are usually operated by same physical controller. (USB3.0 controller can work ports as 2.0 no problem). Even on my old Z87 its just single 3.0 controller for all back USB ports.
And the reason why there was no difference with added controller load is polling. Devices are polled at given frequency and no device can "steal" all communication.
I mean there is a difference, it's within 3 or 4 percent, but it does seem that there is a difference between the hypothetical fastest and slowest instances. It would be interesting to see if this type of test could be automated to allow for a much larger sample size.
Awesome channel by the way, nice to see an actual breakdown of this kind of thing rather than just seeing peoples opinions and hearsay
In theory, just having more copper makes lag worse by some nanoseconds, but it's not even measurable outside margin of error preceptable
mouse and keyboard take priority over every other action/imput that goes through the chipset. it is really only the length of the cable or the performance of the device that will create lag
Short answer no, long answer, for high bandwidth USB 3 ports no but usb 2.0 maybe like 1 or 2 ms which for some may be worth while moving shuffling your USBs around, I know I moved my mouse directly into my laptop after this and I have a lot plugged into my hub, sometimes even hdmi, ethernet and drives.
How about usb extension cables? Is it possible to play competitively while your mouse is connected to your pc via let's say 5m extension cable, maybe even a usb connected to that?
My tested showed than an extentions cable did not increase the delay. However there is a limit to how far you can extend it. But when you reach that the attached devices will simply not show up in the operating system, or disappear.
Alright, thanks for the answer! I was thinking of this because I own multiple different gaming mice, and I like to swap between them depending on my mood, and reaching to the back of my computer becomes pretty annoying after a while. I was thinking if I would get a usb extension cable, I would be able to swap mice a lot easier. Probably not going for 5 meters, but just something that reaches from the pc that sits on the floor, to my desk behind the monitor. Thanks again for the quick answer!
You can recondition the signal using a USB hub to extend the cable length limit somewhat; this is sometimes marketed as active extenders.
Maxmum allowed for USB (atleast for USB 2) is 5m without repeater. Would be interesting to know if such a repeater for more than 5m of total cable would increase inputlag.
So how about if you connected multiple usb controllers to a hub for local multiplayer? Do you thing that many inputs would cause problems?
Fantastically in-depth, but to the point video. Thanks!
I use a mac and PC on the 1 monitor and unfortuntely most monitors only have 1 port to connect to its internal hub so i'll be confidently be using a USB 3.0 switching hub!
Should use a simple application that changes colour on receiving mouse input. Games can introduce latency on input, also as you saw framerate made it hard to collect data for you last test.
The reason (I think) the stress and additional hubs cause no delay is that the OS or the mouse itself probably gets to tell the USB hubs to prioritize the mouse and not to delay its messages (delaying messages to combine them could reduce stress on the cpu for some devices).
Yeah i think every device gets its own transmission window within the 1ms USB frame, so far for interrupt endpoints like HID input. Then isochronous endpoints get a piece of the frame, like soundcards, webcams and capture cards, and finally bulk devices like USB disk volumes. The hubs can't buffer any data either if i'm not mistaken, the timeframes are host-defined.
It's pointless to test a USB 3.0 harddisk together with a USB 2.0 mouse though, because they're not even on the same bus, even if they're on the same physical port. You can just reconfigure the harddisk to USB2.0 for a potentially more interesting test, by using a USB 2.0 cable instead of the one that came with the disk, which however will still show nothing changing, i think. The common webcams like C920/C922 are USB2.0 and use a lot of the bandwidth, and that's still not a problem.
One might expect differences in behaviour between cheap mice, operating on a LowSpeed bus, and gaming mice, which operate on FullSpeed, because the LowSpeed devices consume more time out of a frame, but it makes them share and simply staggers the frames during which they talk, so say keyboard talks during one frame and mouse during another, this is why there's 8ms between messages. And yet, i don't expect this to actually be an issue still, because the bus must foresee enough time for interupt endpoints, though isochronous endpoints eat into the available time per frame overall.
Your test setup and experiments are beautiful! Thanks for sharing :)
Man you are the frikin BEST!!!
I'm shocked and super happy with the outcome.
Thanks for your analysis! I want to make my setup cleaner and when I was doing my cable management I was wondering if I just plug 1 USB into my PC (USB Hub hidden under my table) and then I connect my mouse, keyboard and headset to the hub, if there would be any input lag. But based on this video, there shouldn't be anything to worry about :)
I love how every website out there swears that usb hubs gives you a shit ton of input lag and you should never use one for gaming, but they provide no data.
Hey Battle(non)sense - what about KVM switches (like in the Gigabyte M27Q) - does that induce any input lag or is it similar to usb-hubs? :-)
I'm experiencing issues if my mouse is connected to the new monitor's ports or the front 3,5" card reader, if there are other USB pendrives or external HDD connected to the same HUB. it would be a good position to place the receiver in the back of the monitor, to spare a port in the mother board, but damn it's making me go nuts!
Amazingly clear answer and explanation of a commonly asked question. Thank you, sir. Your diagrams were exceptionally clear... I just finished the video. Amazingly concise and the results are somewhat surprising as you say. Webcams now connected to monitor to eliminate cable run. Thanks again.
Thank you so much!!! Thought about this so much as I need to switch computers but only have one set of mic, mouse and keyboard for my streams and recordings. This helps a lot mate!
Man, you Optimum Tech, and GN are honestly the best. This video is exactly what I was looking for. Well done!
Great video! A question: Can I assume all tests you made are comparable to playing with a USB Controller on the Nintendo Switch plugged in a USB hub?
I’m tryna figure out if the adapter will make smash unplayable 👀
I wish you could make some test with usb extanders/repeaters/usb-lan adapters with 15m or more for guys want to try to outsource pc from living room. You've done amazing job. Subscribed!
i do think about this, ive troubleshooting the hell out of it and think i got it under control, well done for shining a spotlight on this
usb can be messy, cpu, power settings, network, windows 10, nvidia, theres, chipset, hard ware etc etc a long list
This is surprisingly interesting. Keep up the good work and cheers from Finland.
You deserve so much more subs and views. So much work done in those videos! :D
I'm glad to see someone doing this sort of testing, to get rid of these dumb myths for good.
No input lag, but occasionally my mouse freezes up completely if using a powered hub, my controller locks up, and my blue snowball mic doesn't even receive power to turn itself on.
So you completely dropped the 'niche' phrase in your outro. Love the confidence. Keep it up :)
I switched my wireless mouse (Attack Shark X3) to my Vention USB 3.0 Hub (GL3510 chip) and my plots are very very good and it doesn't lost connection for a second. It always lost if I plug my extension directly to the back or front of the PC. But on my USB hub, I no longer get the problem.
Hi there! I have question... Logitech Unifying connectors - what input lzg it gives (mouse AND keyboard)? These Logitech devices have 1-2 years of battery lofe wtf 🤯, then question about input lag comparing with 2.4ghz dongle wireless mouses...
Great video as always! Although the input delay is barely affected by USB hubs etc., the polling stability will most likely suffer. If you've had measured the polling rate while having your test scenarios running, the fluctuation would have been most likely much higher. Whether this is relevant is debatable of course.
Btw, could you do a button to pixel lag analysis of ULMB? I think your monitor does have ULMB (along with G-Sync), so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Would be much appreciated
But who cares what the polling rate is as long as the input delay is good? Nobody.
I completely forgot that it would be an interrupt. That explains it then.
Well I can tell you that I just tried out my Logitech G603 mouse, and a mouse polling rate tester, through my very very old ancient USB 1.0 USB (yeah that's right, USB 1.0), and even IT did not affect polling rate whatsoever and I still got 1000hz.
Unfortunately, in my case, the hub do causes delay. Not minimal, but perceptible delay. Im using a laptop and dont know if this make some kind of difference. Can be hub+mouse only and still delay.
edit 2022/oct/14 : it was the laptop usb ports. i tested on other system and it was fine/ without delay when conected to my hub, so its was my old laptop (it may happen with you too).
Mouse + Keyboard on your built in USB Ports
Microphone + Webcam + "RGB Mousepad" on USB Hub just incase you do happen to get input lag
Nice, it would be interesting to see the results on the moving mouse test. I would advice to, instead of "pulling the mouse really fast", to use some weight attached to the rope, for repeatibility sake...
that's a really surprising result and trying to not be biased against Hubs for responsiveness is going to be hard!
The case-by-case variance seems to have bigger differences than if a USB-hub is hooked up or not. So I guess the easy answer is no, a USB-hub does not add any (meaningful) latency if at all.
Not really surprising. What i really want to know though is the input lag those “logitech” mices are stating. The G903. Apparently its like a wired mouse that you wouldn’t even notice the difference.
They really are great.
isnt that you should record your finger or ideally a robot that presses the mouse and then watch when the gun shoots? i think that on different usbs the light will switch on after latency but the light and gun action will always be the same
You should make a video about windows 10 services and 3rd party programs effect on input lag.
Malwarebytes is definitely one of them
If he woud go really into detail, how about testing the effect of different anti virus solutions (Windows Defender, Avast, Kaspersky, AVG, Antivir, BitDefender, Sophos, Panda in their free versions to keep the cost down) and some of their settings (like "game mode" and modules like behaviour scan)
Well constructed and clear analysis, with a cool accent too! :) Thank you for doing this. Subbed.
Finally some good testing set up. Really appreciate it.
I was curious about this topic and couldn't find extensive information on it. Thank you
Overall, only the USB under parallel stress test is surprising. Thank you for confirming the different scenarios though! The rest is not as surprising considering that USB generations do not decrease latency across them (i.e. the input time of USB 2.0 is the same up to usb 3.1) only the bandwidth has been improved (by much) over the generations. Now, if we had a native thunderbolt mouse and capable controller, we may see a new baseline altogether :D Might be overkill though ;)
im watching this to determine if i should make a usb hub for my pc to connect controllers with for my emulators
saw a comment "The thing is PCI USB cards are good cause it reduces IRQ and input lag." how important is it to have IRQ? basically i want a way to make my mouse, keyboard, webcam, elgato stream deck longer. i like to make a nice cute harness. and throw my computers somewhere farther away from my actual setup. i believe the biggest limiting factor right now is how far my hdmi cables can go before fps / hertz issues.
42 people are still living under usb1.0 environment today.
so they are massive input lag monsters if you have one running from a long usb cord, a usb hub with a 6 inch cable not gonna cause lag but it will if you are streaming data from the usb like having your game stored on a usb hub you will get input lag, i have done my own tests, in the situations you made your not gonna get lag but in my cases i got input lag so bad the games became unplayable.
edit addon note:= my usb hub is 30feet long
Great Work, that was exactly what i wanted to know because i start running out of USB Ports for all of my Wireless Logitech Devices!
Miss you, but glad you're out for you and yours.
If I have a 1 meter USB 3.0 extender connected to a 15 cm USB Hub 3.0, will I have input lag? Great video man, jus subscribed
I know this is a old video, still I hope someone can answer my question: Does this also count for USB KM switches? Like a KVM switch, just without the video, so a USB switch for periphals to have multiple USB devices output to two different PCs with a button switch.
i dont know about those 5 ms, but i can definitely feel it being more inaccurate if i do my mouse thru the usb hub. its like i have to grab it harder someway, the inaccuracy makes me do this cause theres this very very slight delay. perhaps the values are different on a low-end 8yo laptop
very usful video for the MisTer FPGA budget set ups that use USB hubs! Wonderful info that makes me comfortable with my build.