Input latency is the total time between a physical action and the result appearing on your monitor. The average unoptimized gaming PC has 50–100ms of system latency. A properly optimized system can get this below 20ms.
The Latency Chain
The chain goes: mouse hardware (1–2ms) → USB polling (0–1ms) → Windows input processing (1–5ms) → game engine (frame time / 2) → GPU render queue (5–20ms) → display response (1–5ms). You need to optimize each link.
Frame Rate Is the Biggest Variable
Higher FPS is the single most impactful latency reduction. At 60 FPS, each frame takes 16.7ms. At 240 FPS, it drops to 4.2ms. Pushing FPS as high as possible is directly tied to how responsive the game feels.
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See Services →Exclusive Fullscreen Mode
Always run games in exclusive fullscreen. Borderless windowed routes rendering through Windows DWM, adding at least one frame of additional display latency. Exclusive fullscreen lets the game control the display directly.
NVIDIA Reflex and AMD Anti-Lag
NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency synchronizes CPU and GPU work to minimize the render queue depth — enable it with Boost in supported games. AMD Anti-Lag similarly reduces the CPU-GPU queue. Both are free, require no tradeoffs, and can reduce system latency by 20–40%.
Mouse Polling Rate and USB
- Set mouse to 1000Hz polling rate for 1ms input intervals
- Plug mouse into a rear USB port on the motherboard
- Disable mouse acceleration (Enhance Pointer Precision in Windows)