TV Have Bad Input Lag For Gaming? I Might Have A Solution

[iamdarkyoshi]

So I currently own a 55in Samsung TV from about 2010. It was about $1,500 retail back then.

 

I've been using it to watch movies from my HTPC, but the input lag was absolutely unusable for gaming, aside from maybe Shellshock Live.

 

These TVs often have a ton of image processing (like frame interpolation, etc) that adds delay from the input to the LCD.

 

But with my recently obtained knowledge on these things, I figured that VGA would bypass a lot of this stuff.

 

And it does.

 

I've always said never to use VGA anymore, but TVs (ESPECIALLY older ones) may have less input delay, and some even look loads BETTER on VGA.

 

However, to get the absolute best possible image, I've found that running Auto Adjust on the TV while displaying a pixel by pixel checkerboard with this software's test mode, VGA can look as crisp as HDMI with a good cable.

 

But I went one step further. 

 

I got a male-male VGA coupler (basically the shortest VGA cable physically possible) on ebay, connected it to a displayport to VGA converter, and put a displayport extension on the converter.

 

This puts the DAC in the displayport adapter as close as possible to the ADC inside the TV, bringing interference down to a practically undetectable level. So now I've got a TV with low input lag AND displayport!

 

I do like the frame interpolation for watching movies though, so a simple fix is to plug in HDMI and VGA, and mirror them in windows, switching inputs to enable or disable frame interpolation (which adds input lag)

 

So if you've got a TV that you'd like to game on but the input lag is too bad, it might actually be worth trying its VGA input

[8uhbbhu8]

Damn.... Now that's a genius idea!

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, 8uhbbhu8 said:

Damn.... Now that's a genius idea!

And it frees up an HDMI port

[captain_to_fire]

Is ther a way to get rid of frame interpolation? 

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just now, hey_yo_ said:

Is ther a way to get rid of frame interpolation? 

I tried turning it off in my TV, sadly it didn't make a difference in the input delay...

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, iamdarkyoshi said:

I tried turning it off in my TV, sadly it didn't make a difference in the input delay...

I’m guessing frame interpolation is hardware controlled then

[vanished]

This assumes the TV has a VGA input though, which I do not believe is common.  Perhaps it's just because I've never gone looking but I do not recall seeing one on any of the TVs I've used.

 

Furthermore, I don't doubt your results, but I do find them very much at odds with what I would have expected.  For one, I know our old TV had much greater latency, not less, when converting from analog (yellow RCA video) to digital than it did when digital was fed in directly though HDMI.  Second, it would make sense that any processing is done between receiving the signal and pushing it to the panel, meaning no particular input would have more or less processing than another - if anything, the analog may have more to try and clean it up.

 

Interesting findings nevertheless.  I suspect not all TVs are equal in how they will respond, however.

[bcguru9384]

13 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

This assumes the TV has a VGA input though, which I do not believe is common.  Perhaps it's just because I've never gone looking but I do not recall seeing one on any of the TVs I've used.

 

Furthermore, I don't doubt your results, but I do find them very much at odds with what I would have expected.  For one, I know our old TV had much greater latency, not less, when converting from analog (yellow RCA video) to digital than it did when digital was fed in directly though HDMI.  Second, it would make sense that any processing is done between receiving the signal and pushing it to the panel, meaning no particular input would have more or less processing than another - if anything, the analog may have more to try and clean it up.

 

Interesting findings nevertheless.  I suspect not all TVs are equal in how they will respond, however.

vga does carry all needed signals for whats called analog hd

red blue green yellow rca ports on most tvs (either composet or component i dont remember)

my tv is locked to 60hertz for all the ports except the vga(is called pc 150hertz in tv specs)

 

[iamdarkyoshi]

4 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

This assumes the TV has a VGA input though, which I do not believe is common.  Perhaps it's just because I've never gone looking but I do not recall seeing one on any of the TVs I've used.

 

Furthermore, I don't doubt your results, but I do find them very much at odds with what I would have expected.  For one, I know our old TV had much greater latency, not less, when converting from analog (yellow RCA video) to digital than it did when digital was fed in directly though HDMI.  Second, it would make sense that any processing is done between receiving the signal and pushing it to the panel, meaning no particular input would have more or less processing than another - if anything, the analog may have more to try and clean it up.

 

Interesting findings nevertheless.  I suspect not all TVs are equal in how they will respond, however.

Every TV I have serviced at work has had VGA actually, and they've all had lower response time on it as well...

 

However, the newest model I've serviced is from 2015. I just checked, and our 4k sony bravia does not have VGA.

[ProjectBox153]

Wow, I hadn't ever thought of that. VGA isn't bad, I use it on my 1080p monitor because it looks fine. 

[AshleyAshes]

Exactly how are you measuring the changes in input lag?  Or is this just your highly subjective experience that is vulnerable to the placebo and nocebo effects?

[iamdarkyoshi]

2 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Exactly how are you measuring the changes in input lag?  Or is this just your highly subjective experience that is vulnerable to the placebo and nocebo effects?

The fact that I don't overshoot everything when I move the mouse.

 

The input lag on this old samsung is REALLY bad. Even navigating windows is hard because I tended to overshoot what I wanted to click on.

 

If you really don't believe me, I can set up a PC and record a video.

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

The fact that I don'r overshoot everything when I move the mouse.

 

The input lag on this old samsung is REALLY bad. Even navigating windows ia hard because I tended to overshoot what I wanted to click on.

So, zero actual measurements, got it.

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

So, zero actual measurements, got it.

No actual measurements, because its a night and day difference.

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, iamdarkyoshi said:

No actual measurements, because its a night and day difference.

Right, so, can you specify the actual model of the television in question so it's actual stats can be looked up?

 

More so, this line concerns me:

 

10 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

These TVs often have a ton of image processing (like frame interpolation, etc) that adds delay from the input to the LCD.

 

But with my recently obtained knowledge on these things, I figured that VGA would bypass a lot of this stuff.

You make no mention of turning interpolation OFF on the HDMI input in your comparison.  Are you comparing an HDMI input with interpolation enabled against this VGA input...?

[iamdarkyoshi]

2 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Right, so, can you specify the actual model of the television in question so it's actual stats can be looked up?

 

More so, this line concerns me:

 

You make no mention of turning interpolation OFF on the HDMI input in your comparison.  Are you comparing an HDMI input with interpolation enabled against this VGA input...?

Its a Samsung LN55C630

 

Forgot to mention in the original post (though I mentioned in the comments) that I tried turning off every image inhancement feature and it made no noticable difference in the input delay.

[AshleyAshes]

19 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Its a Samsung LN55C630

 

Forgot to mention in the original post (though I mentioned in the comments) that I tried turning off every image inhancement feature and it made no noticable difference in the input delay.

So, in reading the manual and some other stuff online, I'm about to burst your bubble:

 

The TV is just as capable in doing this over HDMI as it is over VGA.  However it is pretty stupid that 'GmaeMode' alone can't achive the lowest latency.  This has clearly been improved since 2009 when this TV was released because Rtings has hard tested my 2016 Samsung 4K TV to manage 20ms input lag with 'Gamemode' simply enabled. (Vs about 33ms without it and 100ms with interpolation enabled).

 

So, obviously, a VGA input will ALWAYS be in the TV's 'PC Mode' and that's what you are accomplishing by using the VGA Input.  However if you RENAME the HDMI inputs to 'PC' or 'DVI PC' then you will enable 'PC Mode' on those inputs and achieve the same input lag.  Some possibly questionable sources say that HDMI2 will run faster in HDMI1 but there's no real testing to confirm this.

 

So, you didn't discover that VGA is faster than HDMI on TV (Because that wouldn't make sense) but you instead discovered that your TV's menu system is stupid as hell. (Like SO many other TVs.)  It is for SURE counter intuitive to have Game Mode NOT be the fastest mode but if you read the manual it checks out.  A lot of the 'enhancing options' for the TV even explicit say that they will be disabled in PC mode but make no mention of them being disabled in Game Mode.

 

Quote

Natural is not available in PC mode

In PC mode, you can only make changes to Backlight, Contrast and Brightness

In PC mode, you can only make changes to Dynamic Contrast, Gamma and White Balance.

Shadow Detail: Increase the brightness of dark images. ✎ Disabled under PC mode.

In PC mode, you can only make changes to the Color Tone, Size and Auto Protection Time.

 

And so on.  Why some Samsung engineers would NOT make Game Mode disable everything that it does in PC mode is beyond me but that's apparently how it works on that model.

[vanished]

5 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Every TV I have serviced at work has had VGA actually,

Hm, perhaps I just haven't noticed it then.  I can't imagine why they would though

5 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

and they've all had lower response time on it as well...

I continue to struggle with why that would be the case, but in reading the rest of this perhaps we have an answer

5 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

However, the newest model I've serviced is from 2015. I just checked, and our 4k sony bravia does not have VGA.

good, it really shouldn't

45 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

So, zero actual measurements, got it.

We also had a Samsung TV from this era with horrendous input lag.  In default settings it was around 100+ ms (I know because I did actually test it by running a timer on my laptop and cloning the display out and taking a photo) and this is enough you would definitely feel a substantial issue so I would trust that impression.

15 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

So, in reading the manual and some other stuff online, I'm about to burst your bubble:

 

The TV is just as capable in doing this over HDMI as it is over VGA.  However it is pretty stupid that 'GmaeMode' alone can't achive the lowest latency.  This has clearly been improved since 2009 when this TV was released because Rtings has hard tested my 2016 Samsung 4K TV to manage 20ms input lag with 'Gamemode' simply enabled. (Vs about 33ms without it and 100ms with interpolation enabled).

Well that would make a lot more sense... I know (at least with our TV) settings can be either synced across them all, or customized on an input by input basis, but regardless the same options should be available for every input.

15 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

So, obviously, a VGA input will ALWAYS be in the TV's 'PC Mode' and that's what you are accomplishing by using the VGA Input.  However if you RENAME the HDMI inputs to 'PC' or 'DVI PC' then you will enable 'PC Mode' on those inputs and achieve the same input lag.  Some possibly questionable sources say that HDMI2 will run faster in HDMI1 but there's no real testing to confirm this.

Interesting, that would make sense.  I have seen this insanely stupid behaviour before, where using a certain input (HDMI1, etc.), and/or renaming the input actually changes the operation if you can fucking believe it.  This of course all being above and beyond what game mode will do alone

 

[AshleyAshes]

4 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Interesting, that would make sense.  I have seen this insanely stupid behaviour before, where using a certain input (HDMI1, etc.), and/or renaming the input actually changes the operation if you can fucking believe it.  This of course all being above and beyond what game mode will do alone

And of course the manual makes NO mention that 'PC Mode' reduces lag.  It just says it's 'Suggested' for a PC hooked up to the TV and then in different color/processing options says 'Oh yeah, this one doesn't work in PC Mode'.  ...Cause why would anyone want that information when reading the manual, right?

[iamdarkyoshi]

11 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

And of course the manual makes NO mention that 'PC Mode' reduces lag.  It just says it's 'Suggested' for a PC hooked up to the TV and then in different color/processing options says 'Oh yeah, this one doesn't work in PC Mode'.  ...Cause why would anyone want that information when reading the manual, right?

This TV is chock full of unpleasant surprises...

[vanished]

13 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

And of course the manual makes NO mention that 'PC Mode' reduces lag.  It just says it's 'Suggested' for a PC hooked up to the TV and then in different color/processing options says 'Oh yeah, this one doesn't work in PC Mode'.  ...Cause why would anyone want that information when reading the manual, right?

TV makers really need to clue in that their systems are poorly documented and unnecessarily complex, and both could be fixed by just having a master "processing" switch.  Turn it on for normal viewing (of course the various options like shadow adjustment, colour temperature, frame interpolation, etc. would still be toggleable individually), and turn it off to basically turn it into a PC monitor.  No processing, period.  No messing around with game mode, renaming inputs, choosing the right input, etc. - just a global switch that can turn it all on or off at will.

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

TV makers really need to clue in that their systems are poorly documented and unnecessarily complex, and both could be fixed by just having a master "processing" switch.  Turn it on for normal viewing (of course the various options like shadow adjustment, colour temperature, frame interpolation, etc. would still be toggleable individually), and turn it off to basically turn it into a PC monitor.  No processing, period.  No messing around with game mode, renaming inputs, choosing the right input, etc. - just a global switch that can turn it all on or off at will.

Also maybe a CEC way to switch those modes.  Since often a video game console needs low latency for a game one moment and then needs pretty colors while running Netflix or a Bluray the next moment.  It'd be nice if a device could say 'I need this mode right now plz' depending on what it's doing.

[vanished]

5 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Also maybe a CEC way to switch those modes.  Since often a video game console needs low latency for a game one moment and then needs pretty colors while running Netflix or a Bluray the next moment.  It'd be nice if a device could say 'I need this mode right now plz' depending on what it's doing.

Yeah that would be nice actually.  Although about the consoles, that could be a gray area.  I recently watched BoTW be played on our TV and I have to say the frame interpolation was a godsend.  I don't think I could have done it had it been 30 the whole time.  Of course it wasn't able to do anything about the frequent drops to what seemed like 10 or 15 fps but at least those were so slow it doesn't even register as motion any more.  30 just hurts my eyes and brain though.  My point being, sure, having that on adds input lag, but if (somehow) as a player, you can tolerate it (and lets be honest, if you're running at 30 fps and playing on a TV, it's not gonna be quick anyway so may as well), you may want to use it because it brings the framerate up to acceptable levels, so having a manual control would probably not be a bad idea since different people may prioritize different things.

[tezza192]

If this works maybe someone should flag this to the team and they could do a video on it I think it could be an interesting one - especially given that they can do the accurate input lag tests..... 

 

good job by the way

[AshleyAshes]

3 hours ago, tezza192 said:

If this works maybe someone should flag this to the team and they could do a video on it I think it could be an interesting one - especially given that they can do the accurate input lag tests..... 

 

good job by the way

...This is why it's not always a good idea to only read the FIRST post...