What causes Input Lag?

[KnightTechQuery]

Hi!

 

For the past year, ever since I've upgraded to a brand new intel i5 7500 cpu, I've been experiencing occasional, but intense mouse lag. It occurs whenever I have multiple windows, and a game open. For example, I'll randomly get a input lag spike whilst playing DotA or Pubg, if I have my internet browser open. I've researched this online, and as far as I know, this is caused by my CPU being overtaxed. However, in a different post here on this form, I've asked whether I need to upgrade my CPU or my GTX 960 2G. According to the reply, my i5 7500 cpu should still be fine to handle most operations. I use a 2 monitor setup, and frequently have multiple windows open, so this is an issue I'd like to resolve asap. Since it's not consistent, I'm not sure if my CPU is really the problem. Do I need to upgrade my CPU, or might there be a different issue?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[.Apex.]

3 minutes ago, PetrusKnight said:

Hi!

 

For the past year, ever since I've upgraded to a brand new intel i5 7500 cpu, I've been experiencing occasional, but intense mouse lag. It occurs whenever I have multiple windows, and a game open. For example, I'll randomly get a input lag spike whilst playing DotA or Pubg, if I have my internet browser open. I've researched this online, and as far as I know, this is caused by my CPU being overtaxed. However, in a different post here on this form, I've asked whether I need to upgrade my CPU or my GTX 960 2G. According to the reply, my i5 7500 cpu should still be fine to handle most operations. I use a 2 monitor setup, and frequently have multiple windows open, so this is an issue I'd like to resolve asap. Since it's not consistent, I'm not sure if my CPU is really the problem. Do I need to upgrade my CPU, or might there be a different issue?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

your CPU is fine if you wanna do gaming alone, but once you start multitasking then your CPU gets heavily used and reach 100%, and that will cause your input lag.

i mean be realistic, heavy multitasking with a game open on one monitor? that's just too much for a 4 core CPU.

[.Apex.]

your CPU will handle heavy multitasking just fine, no issue with that... just without a game running.

[KnightTechQuery]

Just now, syn2112 said:

your CPU is fine if you wanna do gaming alone, but once you start multitasking then your CPU gets heavily used and reach 100%, and that will cause your input lag.

i mean be realistic, heavy multitasking with a game open on one monitor? that's just too much for a 4 core CPU.

Thanks for the reply! Do you think that my issue will be solved by going for an 8th gen 6 core i5, or rather a i7?

[.Apex.]

Just now, PetrusKnight said:

Thanks for the reply! Do you think that my issue will be solved by going for an 8th gen 6 core i5, or rather a i7?

if you think you're a very heavy multitasker then yes the more cores the better.

[.Apex.]

3 minutes ago, PetrusKnight said:

Thanks for the reply! Do you think that my issue will be solved by going for an 8th gen 6 core i5, or rather a i7?

and also check your CPU usage when those lag spikes appear.

open Task manager on a different screen, and pay attention to the usage.

if its under 80% then you might have a different issue, even 90% is okay, but if its constantly on 100% then thats the issue

[KnightTechQuery]

Just now, syn2112 said:

and also check your CPU usage when those lag spikes appear.

open Task manager on a different screen, and pay attention to the usage.

if its under 80% then you might have a different issue.

Yes, I've done just that. For some reason, my CPU manages to hang around 100% with barely anything running as well. I suspect it might have a minimum core utilisation or something. 

[.Apex.]

well what do you have running ? 100% usage is not normal if you're just web browsing

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, PetrusKnight said:

Yes, I've done just that. For some reason, my CPU manages to hang around 100% with barely anything running as well. I suspect it might have a minimum core utilisation or something. 

check what's using your CPU

 

[KnightTechQuery]

When I have a game running, it will use as much as the CPU can give it. Regardless of the settings I have the game on. Is a i5 7500 really not capable of running WoW at reduced settings without using everything available?

[.Apex.]

@PetrusKnight

WoW is only using 40.7% of your CPU.

but look at how many things are running in the background, if you add them all up that's a total of 100%.

so that's your issue... too many things running at once.

[KnightTechQuery]

@syn2112

 

At that point, yes. However, a couple of seconds later, the other processes would use less and then wow would take up 60%+. Either way, I'll look into upgrading to a good i5 8th gen CPU, should solve my problem. Thank you!  

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, PetrusKnight said:

@syn2112

 

At that point, yes. However, a couple of seconds later, the other processes would use less and then wow would take up 60%+. Either way, I'll look into upgrading to a good i5 8th gen CPU, should solve my problem. Thank you!  

is Vsync enabled in WoW? if you limit your FPS then your CPU won't use as much as it has available.

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, PetrusKnight said:

@syn2112

 

At that point, yes. However, a couple of seconds later, the other processes would use less and then wow would take up 60%+. Either way, I'll look into upgrading to a good i5 8th gen CPU, should solve my problem. Thank you!  

 

 

this is my usage

[.Apex.]

3 minutes ago, PetrusKnight said:

@syn2112

 

At that point, yes. However, a couple of seconds later, the other processes would use less and then wow would take up 60%+. Either way, I'll look into upgrading to a good i5 8th gen CPU, should solve my problem. Thank you!  

and to be honest with you the 8th gen i5 is not a huge upgrade considering your usage that im seeing right now.

if you're spending money then i suggest going for the 8th gen i7, i7-8700 non-k is a really good upgrade

[KnightTechQuery]

It is enabled yes. My FPS is limited in WoW to 90 FPS. I have a 144Hz monitor, so of course I'd prefer to remove this limitation in order for the game to run more smoothly. That said, I'd rather provide higher priority to the game than other processes. To make them lag rather than the game. If I don't have anything running, my CPU idles at around 15%. I assume this is the amount my background processes are using in general?

 

[KnightTechQuery]

Just now, syn2112 said:

and to be honest with you the 8th gen i5 is not a huge upgrade considering your usage that im seeing right now.

if you're spending money then i suggest going for the 8th gen i7, i7-8700 non-k is a really good upgrade

Okay cool! That's great advice. Thank you  I'll look into it

 

[Eastman51]

Just now, PetrusKnight said:

Okay cool! That's great advice. Thank you  I'll look into it

 

Ryzen is also a decent upgrade if you like lots of multitasking. If you looked at a Ryzen 5, you'd probably be better of with the i7 since they are both 6 core 12 threads. But if you look at a Ryzen 7, those are 8 core 16 threads, better for multitasking, but you do lose some single thread performance with AMD. 

[.Apex.]

2 minutes ago, PetrusKnight said:

It is enabled yes. My FPS is limited in WoW to 90 FPS. I have a 144Hz monitor, so of course I'd prefer to remove this limitation in order for the game to run more smoothly. That said, I'd rather provide higher priority to the game than other processes. To make them lag rather than the game. If I don't have anything running, my CPU idles at around 15%. I assume this is the amount my background processes are using in general?

 

yes that's your typical CPU usage at idle, which is alot in my opinion, and i also recommend the Ryzen 7 2700X (8 cores / 16 threads), that would run like a dream for your multitasking purposes
 

[KnightTechQuery]

Alright, I never really considered AMD. I'll compare prices. I'd prefer the most performance per price, of course. I have to preface this by saying, that the "multitasking" I do, is mainly either gaming, whilst at the same time browsing youtube or streams, nothing advanced. Nothing against AMD, I've just been a habitual intel user  

 

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, PetrusKnight said:

Alright, I never really considered AMD. I'll compare prices. I'd prefer the most performance per price, of course. I have to preface this by saying, that the "multitasking" I do, is mainly either gaming, whilst at the same time browsing youtube or streams, nothing advanced. 

 

currently nothing has more price/performance than the Ryzen 2700X.

and also you have LOTS of crap running in the background, i call that multitasking, if you remove all that clutter then you might have a much better experience.

i idle at 0-2%. and that's how it should be.

i have idled on 0-2% even on a crappy 5 year old i3.

[.Apex.]

i just hate having useless things run in the background, just a waste of CPU resources

[KnightTechQuery]

I agree completely, I'll definitely try and sort it out I know it's hard to look at. Thank you for all the advice @syn2112

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, PetrusKnight said:

I agree completely, I'll definitely try and sort it out I know it's hard to look at. Thank you for all the advice @syn2112

youre welcome  

[Eastman51]

10 minutes ago, PetrusKnight said:

Alright, I never really considered AMD. I'll compare prices. I'd prefer the most performance per price, of course. I have to preface this by saying, that the "multitasking" I do, is mainly either gaming, whilst at the same time browsing youtube or streams, nothing advanced. Nothing against AMD, I've just been a habitual intel user  

 

I had an AMD laptop at one point, the CPU sucked so badly I switched to Intel for good.

 

lo and behold I now have a 2600x in my PC because my i5-4670k couldn't keep up.