Gaming by the Numbers: Lag

Editor's note: Like his former Crispy Gamer cohort John Keefer, Kyle Orland has stuff to write for Bitmob because "it doesn't fit anywhere else." Glad to be home to to your "alternative" content, guys! -Shoe

A recent MTV Multiplayer report says that Project Natal demos include a tenth-of-a-second delay between real-world and on-screen movement. How bad is that delay in terms we can really understand? We need some context....

Average delay between real-world movement and on-screen movement for Project Natal demos: 100 milliseconds (ms) (source)
Average time for a college-aged individual to react to a visual stimulus: 190ms (source)
Duration of a human blink: 267 - 400ms (source)
Approximate time for a 100 mph fastball to reach home plate: 412ms (source)
Average delay between fret press and on-screen display in the PS3 version of Guitar Hero 3: 50ms (source)
Average delay between button press and on-screen gunshot in PS3 version of Grand Theft Auto 4: 167ms (source)
Average lag introduced when an SD signal is upscaled to HD resolution: 0 - 68ms (source)
Time it takes a hummingbird to flap its wings once: 5 - 55ms (source)
Timing window available to score a "Perfect" rating on a note in the arcade version of Dance Dance Revolution 8th Mix: 30ms (source)
Reported average time between button presses for famous button-masher Takahashi-meijin, in his prime: 62.5 ms (source)

Also see: Gaming by the Numbers: Hours and Hours

Tags: Takahashi Meijin, Grand Theft Auto 4, DDR, Guitar Hero 3, Dance Dance Revolution 8th Mix, Natal

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Dan "Shoe" Hsu

February 26, 2010

Hmm... I guess 100ms isn't so bad, then!

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Jeff Grubb

Great, so when I come across trolls on the Internet ready to complain that Natal will be laggy because it isn't on PS3 I can just point them to Kyle Orland... or here.

Glad to see your stuff on here, Kyle. Always enjoyed your writing.

Joshua McCluskey

@Dan wouldn't a 100ms delay in a multiplayer game be doubled since it must travel two directions?

Ian Culver

Hm... not to flame bait or anything, but I wonder what how ms's are between you pressing on the right analog stick and the movement happening in the release build of Killzone 2.

Nicholas Garboden

@Joshua No, you wouldn't double it. The amount of delay is measuring from your physical action to it showing on the screen. With a multiplayer game you wouldn't double this but you would simply add the lag to it. So 100ms + 30-46ms internet lag? At 130-160ms that's still decent enough that it wouldn't bother too many people unless it was for a really twitchy type game. You wouldn't want that delay in a first-person shooter but you could get away with it in some action/adventure games and such.

But to be honest do we think there's going to be a lot of twitch heavy action on Natal?

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Derek Lavigne

February 27, 2010

I just think this shows that there probably won't be any rhythm games on Natal.

Callum Rakestraw

Hm... not bad. Guess the lag won't be anything to worry about.

@Derek -- We can hope, but I wouldn't be surprised if a developer or two try to make one of some sort anyway. They are all the rage these days, after all.