It's worth noting that it's still possible to achieve low latency with modern hardware and even software to some extent, even with all the input filtering on touchscreens. The modern GPU rendering stack won't be able to do it, but I was able to do it in software without giving up the Linux kernel, IRQs, or the input stack.<p>My experiment got down to ~10 ms average tap latency on a 60 Hz phone with a touchscreen scanning at 240 Hz: <a href="https://twitter.com/kdrag0n/status/1291213993219039232" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/kdrag0n/status/1291213993219039232</a><p>Source code: <a href="https://github.com/kdrag0n/touchpaint" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/kdrag0n/touchpaint</a><p>I have to say that writing on phones really feels much more interactive and natural when the latency is so low. I don't personally feel like these ranges of latency are that big of a deal on desktop computers where input is indirect, but it feels much more significant on phones where your interactions are right underneath your finger.
Anyone that has used a 120Hz+ display will immediately notice that everything feels more responsive even with simple things like moving your mouse and scrolling.<p>I also find the responsiveness noticeable when typing. You'll be able to tell that the text appears faster on the screen.<p>I wouldn't say it's a requirement. But it does make the user experience nicer.
I love the new Windows Terminal (wt.exe) but this is one area where they really messed up. The latency between a keypress and a character appearing on screen makes the whole thing feel like a cheap experience. I have no idea what's causing the latency.<p>I suspect there some very big fancy rendering pipeline occurring, because when I open Windows Terminal I get the nVidia overlay popup which normally only comes up when I launch games, indicating the terminal is using a GPU-based rendering engine. Which I'm sure confers some interesting benefits, but it's a heavy price to pay when, at the end of the day, it's just a terminal.
Discussed at the time, 162 comments: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16001407" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16001407</a>
This reminds me of graphing calculators in the late 90s when I was at school. I initially had a HP, but it took what felt like 500ms to respond when I pressed a key. I switched to a TI-83 and it was chalk and cheese - instant response; you could even write programs in assembly. There was a small cottage industry of traded programs for it.
Please please please point me to instructions on how to build a low latency PC.<p>I crave some good old fashioned responsive computing, but moreover I want to fill my classroom with these devices and show a new generation that, to borrow a catchphrase from a far more noble cause, <i>it gets better</i>.
Regarding monitors, OLEDs have a much faster response compared to LCDs. See this [1] for an example. As of why keyboard scanning has become so abysmally slow, it's beyond me. You'd think that this would be a solved problem even for cheap wired keyboards.<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/x9n8Hz_RLqw" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/x9n8Hz_RLqw</a>
I would love for CRT monitors to make a comeback.<p>Sure, they are less portable and difficult to manufacture/repair. But their combination of refresh rate (without blur), image quality, and color reproduction are still second to none.<p>Considering the price of an nVidia 3080, which is standard PC gaming equipment, there must be a market for high end screens for gamers.
At least I know I'm not wearing nostalgia goggles when I remember my early days on my Windows 95, and how fast the input responses were. It definitely <i>feels</i> as if input latency has degraded.
I’ve recently upgraded from a gtx550ti (~10 y.o.) card to an RX 570 (3 y.o.), and even though I get way more performance, it introduced a noticeable inputlag in csgo.<p>It just doesnt feel right, and slowmo video capture confirms it.
It would be interesting to measure input latency on the new M1 Macs and add them to the table. It certainly <i>feels</i> like they’ve managed to claw a bit back.
I use both Microsoft Office 97 and LibreOffice for writing. The former runs on virtualized Windows Me. The latter runs "native".<p>Keypress responsiveness when typing is night and day, and given where I'm posting this comment, you can guess who has the advantage.<p>Platform: GNU(Linux)Mint Xfce
FWIW, why the Windows Terminal is so responsive from its collaborator: <a href="https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/327#issuecomment-447391705" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/327#issuecommen...</a><p>This was posted here few times but it's still an interesting read in this context.
One thing I haven't seen is how does the M1 fare in terms of input latency (e.g. in text editors, like in those old tests done with vim, sublime, intellij, etc: <a href="https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/" rel="nofollow">https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/</a>).<p>I have a hunch it eliminates some...
> Although we don’t have enough data to really tell why the blackberry q10 is unusually quick for a non-Apple device, one plausible guess is that it’s helped by having actual buttons, which are easier to implement with low latency than a touchscreen.<p>The Blackberry q10 runs Blackberry OS 10, which is based on QNX, which has a realtime microkernel.
I'm surprised the Apple 2e's is so high, given the seemingly simplistic nature of the machine. I'm also surprised the TI-99/4A's isn't higher, given how complex it is - with its BASIC interpreter implemented on top of a virtual machine.
Back in the day (early 80's) I remember using a VAX 780 @ 1 MIPS via time-sharing with 60 other simultaneous users.<p>Editing with EDT felt quite snappy. Amazing.
Too bad the author (perhaps strategically) dodged the two seminal for their era microcomputer braches, the 16-bit Ataris and the Amigas.<p>I once read that properly written Amiga software achieved around 16ms latency and would like to see that verified or debunked.
I once got so frustrated with the typing latency of editing a Confluence page that I remarked to my coworkers that the "baud rate is unacceptable".
In the appendix they mention something interesting - that apples CPU performance advantage isn’t magic, but very careful planning and testing on the right things, namely the entire App Store’s contents. That’s a huge dataset of real world applications you can test your designs against.
This is interesting but perhaps shows that keyboard/screen latency isn't as important as it once was.<p>Just about every application on Apple 2e relied on keypresses being shown on the screen. Modern devices and operating systems are displaying 'windows', streaming 3d graphics etc. and running a myriad of other services at the same time.