Project: Latency Measurement

Processing time is an inherent property of all computer systems. In human-computer interaction, this leads to latency between user input and system response. As there is no latency in the physical world, physical-digital applications should be designed with the goal of minimizing latency. In order to minimize the latency of a system, measuring it is a necessary first step to find bottlenecks within the processing pipeline.

The end-to-end latency between user input and system response comprises several partial latencies, for example the latencies of input and output devices, as well as processing times of the operating system and user space applications. As those partial latencies interfere with each other due to polling, scheduling, and other delays, we regard it as necessary to measure all of those partial latencies individually. To this end, we developed different methods for measuring such partial latencies.

If possible, we use cheap and off-the-shelf components for our measuring devices and release all source code and circuit diagrams to the public. This way, our measuring devices can be replicated by others to validate our results and measure the latencies of device we don't have access to.

This page serves as an overview of our research on latency. More detailed information on individual projects can be found on the corresponding project pages.

• Get a better understanding of latency and latency jitter
• Develop tools for exactly measuring the latency of input devices, displays and software
• Provide users with advice on which hardware to choose

• Method for measuring Input Device Latency (finished)
• Yet Another Latency Measuring Device: a simple method for measuring end-to-end latency (finished)
• DIY Approach to Measuring Display Reaction Time (finished)
• Effect of Latency on User Performance (work in progress)
• Measuring and comparing the latency of different graphics frameworks and rendering engines (work in progress)

• conducting a small study on the effects of input latency on performance in a simple game (first study conducted, second study needs to be prepared)
• test more, current, devices (when time permits)
• measure the latency of audio devices (audio interfaces, speakers/headphones)

• PC Games Hardware, Andreas Link (10.05.2019, German): Wissenschaftliche Studie: Wie schnell sind Mäuse, Tastaturen und Gamepads wirklich?

• Documents tagged "Latency" in our Zotero library
• LagBox on GitHub
• Data of our measurements on GitHub
• CHI 2018 Poster