When it comes to precision within video games, there’s one factor that’s probably more important than any other: Input latency. Put simply, this is how long it takes for the game to respond to your commands, and in a perfect world, it should be — or at least feel — instantaneous. In practice, though? There are plenty of factors that can get in the way. Everything from a badly-coded game to your TV’s image processing to lag introduced by running your console or computer through a soundbar or AV receiver can slow down your inputs. TV manufacturers have tried to help out with auto-detected gaming modes that focus on performance over image processing, but that only solves one problem, not all of the potential hurdles.
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Ideally, the GPU manufacturers would be lending a helping hand here, and sure enough, NVIDIA has. Generally considered the industry leader in graphics cards, NVIDIA stepped up in September 2021 with a set of tools, NVIDIA Reflex, that are designed to do everything possible to reduce input latency while also measuring it, all with the goal of optimizing competitive gaming. Specifically, NVIDIA has a special SDK for developers to use to introduce the Reflex features into their games, with the compatible list topping 100 titles in January 2024. With the right graphics card, monitor, and game, your gameplay should become more responsive while also providing simple tools to better understand how much latency your system has introduced and how much it can be rectified.
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