Radiosound + Mouse Lag Problem

[Caillin 0]

I've been tearing my hair out trying to get rid of the mouse lag and after playing around with "maximum pre-rendered frames" which usually fixes input lag problems (in games like Oblivion) I found setting it to 1 totally eliminated my lag. I can actually hit two targets in a row in the training now without overshooting the second one.

I've seen some optimisation threads saying you should set this setting to 8, and that will increase your frame rate, but at the expense of greater mouse lag. Be interested to see if this helps anyone.

This is with 2 x GTX260 in SLI and 190.15 Driver.

[Comm512 10]

I have found several forum posts on internet stating that by increasing the priority level of the mouse driver process the mouse lag decreases / goes away completely.

I have not been ale to test it fully, but it *may* help some others

i am referring to the (for example) the logitech or intellipoint driver exe process. Some say it has to do with the OS controling the mouse with its drivers instead of the game. Can someone (perhaps from BIS) confirm that arma2 does rely on the OS for mouse driver? Some games have their own mouse drivers? sounds weird and thats why i would like to have some confirmation on the mouse matter

Edited July 2, 2009 by Comm512

[Bulldogs 10]

Under windows 7 I have it set to 1 which worked for me, under Vista I have it set to 5 with no mouse lag

[Comm512 10]

Under windows 7 I have it set to 1 which worked for me, under Vista I have it set to 5 with no mouse lag

do you experience any difference between 1, 3, 5 or 8 in vista?

mouselag and fps wise

[Bulldogs 10]

I just finished testing it out, 5 minutes on each setting and showing no difference in mouse lag, that said, around 4 I get rather smooth looking frames, any lower number I get lower framerate, any higher number I get an effect of frame skipping when turning fast (barely noticeable but I'm extremely picky)

---------- Post added at 01:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 AM ----------

Sorry, I should define frame skipping. I mean when I turn normally I would see and image for degrees of 2deg, 4deg, 6deg, etc, if I raise the number it's like seeing 5deg, 10deg, 15deg, etc

You've still gotta have fast focusing eyes to notice it, but since I was looking for it then I noticed it and now it's like the zit that won't go away.

[Armchair Allstar 10]

I have found several forum posts on internet stating that by increasing the priority level of the mouse driver process the mouse lag decreases / goes away completely.

I have not been ale to test it fully, but it *may* help some others

i am referring to the (for example) the logitech or intellipoint driver exe process. Some say it has to do with the OS controling the mouse with its drivers instead of the game. Can someone (perhaps from BIS) confirm that arma2 does rely on the OS for mouse driver? Some games have their own mouse drivers? sounds weird and thats why i would like to have some confirmation on the mouse matter

Interesting. I am a little hesitant to try it though as there is probably a reason it is set where it is. My mouse lag is barely noticeable but it would be cool to eliminate it. Has anyone here tried this?

[Bulldogs 10]

Actually, that makes a whole lot of sense as basically every command you put to the mouse (including axis movement) has to go to the driver for reference. This would also explain why I haven't experienced issues as I run a Sidewinder mouse but I disabled the driver software.

[someboy 0]

@2:50 you mean the turn just after I accidentally fire? That's just general FPS stutter not mouse lag, I deliberately had the video settings on high and went to the largest city I could find (I'd also done nothing to lighten the load on my OS such as closing programs and doing a fresh boot etc).

Well, watching @2:50 again I see no shot. I just see how your mouse moves right, but your weapon suffers a delay of ~0.1-0.2 secs until it starts moving.

Hmm, I'm not seeing lag in the vid (Placebo's one). Are you possibly confusing the floating zone for mouse lag?

If so, just change the setting in game options. 0% no float at all

No, I'm not confusing the floating zone for mouse lag. The weapon does not start moving when his mouse moves, it takes a certain amount of time. At least that's what my eyes see. Am I the only one? :confused:

[Bulldogs 10]

hmm.. I watched it very closely this time and at first I thought I was noticing a lag then I realised my eyes were getting confused when he picked up the mouse and moved it.

If you are spotting a lag there, you could be useful... seriously.

I've studied human response and 5% of the population can detect differences between 110 fps and 100 fps. If you are spotting that lag then you are most likely in that percentile. Could be useful for you in a career choice.

Than again... My eyesight is degrading every day and I'm not exactly the most focused person in the world.

[someboy 0]

Well, thanks for the compliment, but I really do not believe I have anything close to a good sight :). I already completed my degree a few years ago (do not let my nick fool you, it was just one of those lazy days in which you really do not feel like choosing a nice and appropriate nick for a new forum account), and it both allowed me to learn a few things and to downgrade my eyesight. I don't know... watching the video and trying to concentrate only in the mouse and the gun I perceive a non-synchronized movement of those two objects (sorry, that's the best I can explain it). Maybe some others who said had this problem can confirm this?

By the way, thanks to all who do not have/not sense this problem and that are still sticking in this thread trying to help.

[axure 10]

Well, maybe Arma2 simply has much higher requirements than advertised. That is: it may well give you bearable FPS on low settings on older hardware (within min reqs) - but due to some strange mouse implementation in Arma2 it may produce a noticeable lag. (BTW, it's not 100 vs 110 FPS, it's more like half a second.)

I have a ThinkPad T61p laptop with a Quadro 570m graphics card, which is basically an equivalent of GeForce 8600 GT, and it runs Arma2 terribly. Even in lo-res, even with lowest settings, I still get a lag that makes playing impossible. (BTW, there's been another guy with T61p who simply gave up and decided to sell his game.)

Now, you would think that maybe my laptop is simply not up to the task, but doesn't seem to be the case. With a 2,5 GHz Core2 Duo and 2GB of RAM, the weakest point would be the Quadro. Except it actually fits within the minimal requirements. And more importantly - I've had absolutely no problem playing Crysis for instance (lowered res, med details, no AA), which is a very demanding game too.

What Placebo tells us here isn't very helpful. He assumes the usual helpdesk attitude: "Lady, I just did what you said on my computer, and it works just fine here." Of course, it doesn't matter what works for him, because this is the Troubleshooting forums and what matters is what the users experience. If it were just a handful of people with some weird hardware configurations (like mine), I wouldn't blame him. But there's a lot of people and there's already 21 pages of head scratching, which shows you that there is a real problem.

EDIT: Tried setting pre-rendered frames to 1, with no visible effect.

Edited July 2, 2009 by axure

[Placebo 29]

What Placebo tells us here isn't very helpful. He assumes the usual helpdesk attitude: "Lady, I just did what you said on my computer, and it works just fine here." Of course, it doesn't matter what works for him, because this is the Troubleshooting forums and what matters is what the users experience. If it were just a handful of people with some weird hardware configurations (like mine), I wouldn't blame him. But there's a lot of people and there's already 21 pages of head scratching, which shows you that there is a real problem.

Try reading my words again before you take digs at me thank you.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1342632#post1342632

[axure 10]

Placebo, you're right, I was too quick to shoot at you. Sorry for my "yell at the helpdesk guy" attitude. ;) There's so many pages, I went really quickly through the last few.

That said, I think it is the highest time that BI actually do something about this problem. Perhaps you could use your Moderator powers to bring this to their attention? So that they actually treat it with certain priority (because it ruins fun for quite a few people) and not just add at the bottom of bugs/improvements list... Because that would mean we're screwed for months.

Edited July 2, 2009 by axure

[rowdied 44]

I just did my own version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJsFSrg5d0A&fmt=22

Unless I'm missing something blatantly obvious, where's the lag? We're running the same game right? He has terrible lag, I don't, yet the accusation is that the issue is inherent to ArmA2 and is not hardware related, is not driver related, is not system configuration related?

Thanks for posting that video, I was just sitting down to do my own. :D

What you showed in that video is what I experience on my 3 systems and what 6 other friends also experience. 9 vastly different hardware configs that show no lag.

I'm really puzzled as to why some still experience horrible lag even though they've tried all the fixes mentioned in this thread.

It could it be some combination of hardware/software that is causing this or is it gremlins?

I've tried replicating this problem on an older amd socket 939 machine but have had no luck.

This sucks because the game is going to get a bad rap and people who might not experience the lag won't purchase it when they hear/read about this on other forums.

There has to be a solution.

someBoyWell, watching @2:50 again I see no shot. I just see how your mouse moves right, but your weapon suffers a delay of ~0.1-0.2 secs until it starts moving.

No, I'm not confusing the floating zone for mouse lag. The weapon does not start moving when his mouse moves, it takes a certain amount of time. At least that's what my eyes see. Am I the only one?

What you are seeing is not lag or the floating zone. What you are seeing is the game loading when he spins that way and hence a stutter or delay. When I plop myself in the editor or start a mission the first thing I do is spin 360 degrees to preload the surrounding world so I dont' get that loading delay. This does happen however as you advance futher into the world but seems less noticeable the higher your system specs are.

[someboy 0]

Hmmm, might be that I am way to picky... :). Anyway next week I will have a fresh windows install and will do some more testing with the demo. Thanks for your replies.

[Placebo 29]

That said, I think it is the highest time that BI actually do something about this problem. Perhaps you could use your Moderator powers to bring this to their attention? So that they actually treat it with certain priority (because it ruins fun for quite a few people) and not just add at the bottom of bugs/improvements list... Because that would mean we're screwed for months.

They read the troubleshooting forum don't worry, and they also follow the bug tracker and such, the simple fact is that if you add up the available man hours for fixing bugs, improving performance and working on patches etc. etc. then deduct time spent posting on forums, replying to PM's/Emails you will see that unless they stick to absolute minimum amount of time spent posting here it really will slow down any possibility of getting the issue resolved. Don't get me wrong I know where you're coming from, I've been a gamer for 25 years, I know what it's like to not have a game working right, and you're waiting for a solution/patch and the like but unfortunately you just have to give them a little time and show a little faith :)

[bekster 0]

IMO you clearly see lag in placebos video, too! between 20sec and 30sec i think its quite visible!? And i dont mean the free aim area movemnt...

[Placebo 29]

What you are seeing is not lag or the floating zone. What you are seeing is the game loading when he spins that way and hence a stutter or delay. When I plop myself in the editor or start a mission the first thing I do is spin 360 degrees to preload the surrounding world so I dont' get that loading delay. This does happen however as you advance futher into the world but seems less noticeable the higher your system specs are.

Good point, and regarding the bold bit, it's also less noticeable if you take steps to free up resources before starting ArmA, I left most programs running and didn't do a fresh reboot when I made the video.

[Maw 0]

Hi everyone.

By the looks of it, it seemed to me that this looked like a V-Sync problem.

Indeed, ArmA II seems to cap one's FPS to its screen refresh rate, as can be seen by displaying the current number of FPS (via FRAPS or anything else).

Since the game did not offer to disable V-Sync via the in-game menu or the .cfg files, I tried forcing V-Sync off.

The Catalyst Control Center - even though set to "V-Sync always off" - failed to do so. Therefore I tried disabling it through ATI Tray Tools - which is supposedly lighter and more efficient.

And it worked - no more capped FPS (I can now reach 100 sometimes) and no more mouse lag!

Some friends of mine have confirmed this.

It would be great if some of you experiencing this problem could try that too, see if it fixes that bug for you too.

Then all BIS would have to do is create an option that allows those experiencing mouse lag to disable V-Sync.

[someboy 0]

Well, I just tried using Ati tray tools: fqs=0 and force vsync off, and I must say that mouse lag is almost gone. I don't have time to do more testing now, will do next week, but hopefully this solves mainly the issue for me (hope for others as well).

Thx.

[dreamweaver 0]

I just did my own version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJsFSrg5d0A&fmt=22

[YOUTUBEfJsFSrg5d0A&fmt=22[/YOUTUBE]

Unless I'm missing something blatantly obvious, where's the lag? We're running the same game right? He has terrible lag, I don't, yet the accusation is that the issue is inherent to ArmA2 and is not hardware related, is not driver related, is not system configuration related?

There is some lag. Its not much, but it is visible. And it is the same on my PC. Its visible and mainly noticeable while moving the mouse during gameplay.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Placebo

[83upwi 10]

Hi everyone.

By the looks of it, it seemed to me that this looked like a V-Sync problem.

Indeed, ArmA II seems to cap one's FPS to its screen refresh rate, as can be seen by displaying the current number of FPS (via FRAPS or anything else).

Since the game did not offer to disable V-Sync via the in-game menu or the .cfg files, I tried forcing V-Sync off.

The Catalyst Control Center - even though set to "V-Sync always off" - failed to do so. Therefore I tried disabling it through ATI Tray Tools - which is supposedly lighter and more efficient.

And it worked - no more capped FPS (I can now reach 100 sometimes) and no more mouse lag!

Some friends of mine have confirmed this.

It would be great if some of you experiencing this problem could try that too, see if it fixes that bug for you too.

Then all BIS would have to do is create an option that allows those experiencing mouse lag to disable V-Sync.

If you read the thread MANY of us have already tried forcing vsync off, among the other commonly (and redundantly...) repeated "fixes" of prerendered frames to 1 or 0 etc.

[Bulldogs 10]

I believe Maw was just mentioning that it didn't work for him with the standard V-Sync off so he used another method to turn it off which worked

Thanks for the post Maw

[kklownboy 43]

Sad to read they didnt remove that mouse lag in Arma2... hated it in arma and wont buy arma2 now! I can live with bugs an errors, but not with this absolutely unintuitive aiming / weapon handling!!

There are way better methods to simulate weapon-weight! But an actual movement-LAG is just totally unrealistic... I cant believe anybody really thinks this is a feature?!

no mouse lag, plays great. Only lag i get is when its to much game for my system. a all around lag thang,, like ALL games.... iam sure you will go on and post like a troll who doesnt own the game ,, wait you did in this very thread ....

---------- Post added at 09:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:56 AM ----------

I can only speak for Arma1 now, but seems like its still the same in Arma2:

I used a PS/2 mouse and use now a USB mouse, makes no difference in mouse lag for me!

@rowdied: there is no hiccup for me, its just that every mouse-movement is delayed. So if you keep moving the mouse when leading a target its ..ok, but if the target slows down/speeds up/changes direction, there is a delay in your mouse movement. (On top of your natural delay/reaktion time)

ARMA1 is really smooth for me with my usb mouse and system...hmmm

---------- Post added at 09:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:02 AM ----------

IMO you clearly see lag in placebos video, too! between 20sec and 30sec i think its quite visible!? And i dont mean the free aim area movemnt...

well there ya go, i dont really see any laggness in that vid... but i dont have your eye for lag in ARMA but i do own ARMA2

---------- Post added at 09:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 AM ----------

The mouse lag is not performence related. anything over 25 has the same delay.

No

You will learn to play with it but you wont get used to it. And i dont WANT to get used to it.

your keen insite is very helpfull, when you buy ARMA2 post some more, seems like you should be posting in ARMA1 about your mouse lag, you havent ever done that?

[sidhellfire 0]

Compare freelook (double tap alt key), with a gun in hands.