Hollow Knight Switch's Input Lag bums me out

linko9 · Jun 23, 2018

Bomblord said:
Because from everything I know on the subject it's absolutely not possible.

I'm actually interested in this, handheld response time isn't something I know much about, just heard it can be extremely low (which checks out from personal experience). Can't seem to find any sources testing lag on earlier handhelds, which would be neat to see. Haven't played blossom tale myself, but that video looks legit, so I don't see how we can't accept it. If you've got any sources on the issue, I'd be interested.

edit: Interesting that OP says BT "barely beats SMO" which obviously has well over 2 frames of input lag. I took OP at his word that it was really 1 frame for BT, but since there's no frame data from the camera displayed in the video, that's hard to confirm. I wonder if OP's method of counting frame delay is off a bit. Perhaps BT is closer to 2 frames and HK is closer to 5? Anyway, would be nice to get clarification from OP.

Misterman · Jun 23, 2018

I feel the same way. Happens rarely but still annoying to wall right off a ledge when I clearly jumped, especially when coming from Celeste

nib95 · Jun 23, 2018

Dude, 66.6ms is basically nothing. We're talking 0.067 seconds. It's on the lower end of the scale as far as popular games go.

Owarifin · Jun 23, 2018

Just bought the game on the Switch last night...
Haven't played it yet, but almost regretted my purchase.

Wondering though, is there a difference in input lag between portable and docked?

low-G · Jun 23, 2018

nib95 said:
Dude, 66.6ms is basically nothing. We're talking 0.067th of a single second. It's on the lower end of the scale as far as popular games go.

It's a 15th of a second :P

Bomblord · Jun 23, 2018

linko9 said:
I'm actually interested in this, handheld response time isn't something I know much about, just heard it can be extremely low (which checks out from personal experience). Can't seem to find any sources testing lag on earlier handhelds, which would be neat to see. Haven't played blossom tale myself, but that video looks legit, so I don't see how we can't accept it. If you've got any sources on the issue, I'd be interested.

Well to put it simply some of the best TVs and monitors on the market have input lag around 9-10ms and Nintendo isn't using a high end OLED panel.

https://displaylag.com/display-database/

So even if they somehow had the game engine have the least amount of input lag ever the display isn't going to allow that to happen GOOD IPS LCDs are around 20ms. Which is greater than 1 frame.

Spider-Man · Jun 23, 2018

What is with so many Switch platformer ports having these issues.

Mega Man did too.

hey it's that dog · Jun 23, 2018

AtomicShroom said:
70ms of input lag is simply *horrible* by any kind of metric. Most 60fps games are within the 16-33ms range.

If people can play Street Fighter 4 at the highest level of competitive play with 4+ frames of input lag you can certainly play Hollow Knight.

jett · Jun 23, 2018

SpokkX said:
Hmm yeah me too and i have no issue here

66ms is not THAT high though

66ms of input lag is downright excellent. This thread is borne out of ignorance.

TeenageFBI · Jun 23, 2018

Tain said:
You guys think he doctored the video or something?

A lot of this goes on whenever someone mentions input lag in Hollow Knight threads. I still haven't seen a video that proves their clim though.

For my part, I notice a slight delay when jumping in the Switch version. I can work around it but I occasionally miss jumps that it feels like I should have nailed.

DanteMenethil · Jun 23, 2018

Spider-Man said:
What is with so many Switch platformer ports having these issues.

Mega Man did too.

A game having a button to screen response time of 4f is not an issue.

Nacho Papi · Jun 23, 2018

hey it's that dog said:
If people can play Street Fighter 4 at the highest level of competitive play with 4+ frames of input lag you can certainly play Hollow Knight.

Ofc you can but that doesn't negate the fact there is a fair amount of input lag for a game like this. For what it's worth I don't think it's bad at all in handheld mode but when docked and adding extra latency from my receiver + tv it feels like I'm playing 'online' with a crappy connection...

Spider-Man · Jun 23, 2018

Helacious said:
A game having a button to screen response time of 4f is not an issue.

Clearly it is for some people?

Given they are likely in the same pool of people who like retro gaming and how people treat any input lag there it seems fully understandable to me.

Kyra · Jun 23, 2018

I've never played on switch but the steam version is one of the most responsive games I've played.

hey it's that dog · Jun 23, 2018

Nacho Papi said:
Ofc you can but that doesn't negate the fact there is a fair amount of input lag for a game like this. For what it's worth I don't think it's bad at all in handheld mode but when docked and adding extra latency from my receiver + tv it feels like I'm playing 'online' with a crappy connection...

"For a game like this" is not going to convince me given that SF4 requires some inputs to be accurate to a single frame. 4 frames of lag is just not an issue for a game like Hollow Knight which is certainly challenging but not nearly that demanding of perfect inputs.

DanteMenethil · Jun 23, 2018

Spider-Man said:
Clearly it is for some people?

Given they are likely in the same pool of people who like retro gaming and how people treat any input lag there it seems fully understandable to me.

its 1 frame more than gaming on a CRT. If 4 frame is an issue for people they wouldn't be able to play 99.99% of post crt games. I don't think you grasp how good 4f actually is.

RockmanBN · Jun 23, 2018

Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 on switch undocked had a MUCH worse lag. This was easily tolerable.

Why would you do that? · Jun 23, 2018

I noticed severe* input lag in a couple of Switch games, including Vs. Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 (not 2!). Those games are pretty much unplayable to me, sadly. But I haven't noticed any lag at all in Hollow Knight.

*Severe to me

Custódio · Jun 23, 2018

After playing on the PC for dozens of hours, I felt the input lag on the Switch on the first jump, and I actually was using the Switch Pro Controller on the PC version. That being said, I have a really good g-sync monitor, so is not a fair comparison.

Discokuningas · Jun 23, 2018

There is funny comments here considering OP has been basically disproven.

AtomicShroom · Jun 23, 2018

Bomblord said:
Because from everything I know on the subject it's absolutely not possible. Taking the panel (it's IPS) lag, the time for the controller to send the signal, and the time for the game engine to process it there's just no way the input lag is at 16ms.

Look I don't pretend that my methodology is flawless. I started counting frames at the moment where my finger was fully pressed in, but it's not impossible that the signal was sent earlier when the button was partially pressed in, which could mean it's 2 frames (33ms) and not 1 frame (16ms). In any case I counted the same for both games and what ultimately matters is that Hollow Knight takes 3 more frames to respond to input.

Mars People · Jun 23, 2018

Never noticed any input lag on the PC.

But Unity on consoles is always a nightmare. Hell I've run into problems with that crap engine on pc too.
I hate it. I really do.

Jader7777 · Jun 23, 2018

The game has input lag on PC too. It has a terrible ''sticky" feeling not present in other 2D platformers.

PaulloDEC · Jun 23, 2018

I just did a test on the PC version using a wired 360 controller. My phone is a OnePlus 3T shooting slowmo at 120fps (according to the info I could find, the phone itself doesn't tell you this).

It took 16 frames after my finger had fully depressed the A button before the character reacted (that is to say the 16th frame after hitting the button is when the animation began). Who wants to do the math for me?

InfiniDragon · Jun 23, 2018

PaulloDEC said:
I just did a test on the PC version using a wired 360 controller. My phone is a OnePlus 3T shooting slowmo at 120fps (according to the info I could find, the phone itself doesn't tell you this).

It took 16 frames after my finger had fully depressed the A button before the character reacted. Who wants to do the math for me?

Yeah, that's my experience with the Switch version. It's only jumps, so if it's also on PC i guess it's all versions.

Mcjmetroid · Jun 23, 2018

I didn't notice any input lag however the Switch analogue on the joy cons are horrendous. I'm now using my PS4 controller with the USB adapter and using the DPAD, it's the only way to get those down slash moves perfectly every time.

DanteMenethil · Jun 23, 2018

PaulloDEC said:
I just did a test on the PC version using a wired 360 controller. My phone is a OnePlus 3T shooting slowmo at 120fps (according to the info I could find, the phone itself doesn't tell you this).

It took 16 frames after my finger had fully depressed the A button before the character reacted (that is to say the 16th frame after hitting the button is when the animation began). Who wants to do the math for me?

Should be 8 frames of delay if this is 120fps. Do you happen to know your monitor model so we can substract that lag from the total?

entremet · Jun 23, 2018

Tain said:
You guys think he doctored the video or something?

Input lag seems to one of those thing some are more sensitive than others.

PaulloDEC · Jun 23, 2018

Helacious said:
Should be 8 frames of delay if this is 120fps. Do you happen to know your monitor model so we can substract that lag from the total?

Absolutely, monitor is a DELL U2410 over DisplayPort.

I just did a quick test for the slash too, and it came out at around 14 frames before animation started. So very slightly quicker, but that could be an error in my testing.

linko9 · Jun 23, 2018

So it seems that the input lag is almost certainly higher than 4 frames for the jump in both versions. Should probably update the OP.

low-G · Jun 23, 2018

PaulloDEC said:
I just did a test on the PC version using a wired 360 controller. My phone is a OnePlus 3T shooting slowmo at 120fps (according to the info I could find, the phone itself doesn't tell you this).

It took 16 frames after my finger had fully depressed the A button before the character reacted (that is to say the 16th frame after hitting the button is when the animation began). Who wants to do the math for me?

Don't forget you can probably lock the prerendered frames in your display driver to a lower number than default. Set it to 1 frame render-ahead and test again.

Personally I do 3 frames only for modern taxing games. Anything 2D or slightly old can set to 1 frame.

Odrion · Jun 23, 2018

I fucking KNEW it. The game feel is terrible and many times I felt like I was somehow too slow to react to a certain enemy.

DanteMenethil · Jun 23, 2018

PaulloDEC said:
Absolutely, monitor is a DELL U2410 over DisplayPort.

I just did a quick test for the slash too, and it came out at around 14 frames before animation started. So very slightly quicker, but that could be an error in my testing.

That monitor has 33ms of input lag, so 2 frames. Plus whatever amount of frames pre-rendered in nvidia settings if you have that.

linko9 said:
So it seems that the input lag is almost certainly higher than 4 frames for the jump in both versions. Should probably update the OP.

Not really, that test is a completely different environment and doesn't say much toward the switch version.

Johnny Ryall · Jun 23, 2018

I'm a good 16 hours in with lots of lots of the map uncovered and not once have I thought I died due to lag. Like this entire thread is baffling to me, I've been going around thinking the game is really responsive.

Shrug.

PaulloDEC · Jun 23, 2018

low-G said:
Don't forget you can probably lock the prerendered frames in your display driver to a lower number than default. Set it to 1 frame render-ahead and test again.

Okay, new test. Same everything, except max prerendered frames reduced to 1 in Nvidia control panel, and in-game Vsync disabled. This time the character reacted on the 9th frame of animation rather than the 16th, which is a pretty massive difference. Will get a GIF edited into this post in a few minutes.

Skittzo · Jun 23, 2018

Johnny Ryall said:
I'm a good 16 hours in with lots of lots of the map uncovered and not once have I thought I died due to lag. Like this entire thread is baffling to me, I've been going around thinking the game is really responsive.

Shrug.

Nah the majority of people agree with you, only a handful seem to actually find this to be an issue. Even though it's apparently pretty good input lag compared to most modern games.

SkekesisVR · Jun 23, 2018

Pretty sure unity is the engine they use?

A common Unity pitfall is doing your input polling in FixedUpdate. FixedUpdate is the physics update loop, runs independent of the display framerate, usually lower (especially on mobile). A common optimization technique is relaxing the physics engine framerate.

The only reason to update in this way is if it's rigidbody based movement vs transform manipulation, which would be an interesting choice given the game they made, but not unheard of

linko9 · Jun 23, 2018

Helacious said:
Not really, that test is a completely different environment and doesn't say much toward the switch version.

I'm referring more to the fact that OP's analysis of 1 frame of input lag for BT is very unlikely, probably at least 2, which would make HK's jump at least 5 frames. Would be interesting to see the PC version tested in an environment with the lowest lag possible for comparison. Seems likely that this issue has nothing to do with the switch port though.

edit: or maybe so, if PC can really get as low as a couple frames. Again, would be nice to see some more tests.

Johnny Ryall · Jun 23, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
Nah the majority of people agree with you, only a handful seem to actually find this to be an issue. Even though it's apparently pretty good input lag compared to most modern games.

I mean holy smokes I couldn't imagine doing the

Mantis Lords

boss with lag.

Or god the

soul master

that made me swear and it was all me, no lag.

Shepherd · Jun 23, 2018

I didn't find it any different from the steam version. 15h in and didnt bother me once.

Radline · Jun 23, 2018

I've been portable only, and I haven't noticed any input lag for over 10 hours.

low-G · Jun 23, 2018

PaulloDEC said:
Okay, new test. Same everything, except max prerendered frames reduced to 1 in Nvidia control panel, and in-game Vsync disabled. This time the character reacted on the 9th frame of animation rather than the 16th, which is a pretty massive difference. Will get a GIF edited into this post in a few minutes.

That's more like it. With a monitor with better latency you'd probably be looking at 5-6 frames with your kit, or about 41ms of latency. (Game probably is doing something funny to add latency in the first place judging from your results)

74.7 - 33.3 (your display) + some nominal latency

KLoWn · Jun 23, 2018

Johnny Ryall said:
I mean holy smokes I couldn't imagine doing the

Mantis Lords

boss with lag.

Or god the

soul master

that made me swear and it was all me, no lag.

Add

Nightmare King Grimm

to that list. And put him at the number 1 spot.

Skittzo · Jun 23, 2018

KLoWn said:
Add

Nightmare King Grimm

to that list. And put him at the number 1 spot.

Compared to the other two he's in the 0.00001 spot.

Alek · Jun 23, 2018

In general I find that even in a game with noticable input lag, like Ghost Recon Wildland's, 9/10 people don't notice it. So people saying 'I haven't noticed anything', likely just aren't sensitive to that type of thing.

Liquid Snake · Jun 23, 2018

TheIdiot said:
It's like four people complaining about it and it's 15 bucks. Just get it.

True, and after all of the additional info in this thread, it seems like input lag is actually better than average.

Deleted member 8001 · Jun 23, 2018

nynt9 said:
I do notice that sometimes I will randomly miss a jump or an attack by a few frames. It can be frustrating especially during boss battles or some of the harder platforming challenges.

Same, I had this issue happen yesterday and it was kinda annoying.

Ghgghggh · Jun 23, 2018

I don't detect any lag. Man what a cool game. Quickly becoming one of my fav switch games.

Toad King · Jun 23, 2018

Did a quick test with my phone recording the screen at 240fps.

I counted the number of frames between me pressing the Y button down all the way and the main character (Hollow Knight? Does he have a name? Haven't heard one from the game yet) doing the first frame of his attack animation where he turns his head away from the screen. This is on a Pro Controller in wireless mode. Here are my results:

Code:

22
23
20
23
23
25
22
21
22
24
21
23
24
23
22
23
N/A (camera angle bad, could not pinpoint when I pressed the button exactly)
21
21
22
19
23
23
23
21
20
20

Average: 22.076923076923077 frames

Average ms at 239.998fps: ~92ms

Video I used for reference (download it to get the full 240fps version): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sOVRha85zcNFyp20QEc-olFLa4lom_zk/view

Done on an ASUS VS247H which according to displaylag.com has a very good 11ms of input latency. The Switch HDMI is also going through an HDMI matrix but I doubt that's adding any extra latency.

At 60FPS, that's ~5.5 frames of input latency.

Mzo · Jun 23, 2018

Sounds like it's just the jumps and it's part of the game.

I can't stand input lag and have been fine playing it on Switch.

Hollow Knight Switch's Input Lag bums me out

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