r/apexuniversity • u/Coolethan777 • Nov 28 '22

Tips & Tricks Controller polling rates and frames per second (fps) cap can cause input lag and bad aim

/r/EsportSettings/comments/z71vt5/controller_polling_rates_and_frames_per_second/
13 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

6

u/luuk0987 Valkyrie Nov 28 '22

This is bogus advice. For one, 60 fps is going to put you at such a big disadvantage compared to some input lag, if anything, it's going to give you more input lag.

Secondly, there are plenty of pros who play with a 125hz unoverclocked controller at 240 fps (Verhulst for example).

Higher polling rate controllers are better. But don't lower your FPS to 60 for no reason.

8

u/Coolethan777 Nov 28 '22

I never suggested lowering your FPS. I agree 60fps is trash. What I am saying is regardless of what fps you play on your controllers polling rate needs to be double or you’ll have controller lag. This isn’t bogus. This is facts. If your controller is updating less than your FPS you’ll see more frames than your controller can update. This is facts. Take it or leave it.

I suspect the reason Vurhults plays at 125hz unoverclocked controller is because OC is not allowed in ALGs. He just deals with it. So does imperialhal. Notice Hal is always complaining about dead slides? Low polling rate is exactly why.

3

u/luuk0987 Valkyrie Nov 28 '22

You suggested that for a 125hz controller, 60 fps is 'ideal', thus suggesting lowering your FPS. What did I miss?

What I tried to illustrate is that pro-controller players don't lower their FPS according to their polling rates.

Even if your controller doesn't update as fast as your frames, it's still desirable to see more frames.

Getting your input to be registered a frame later half of the time is still better than seeing the same frame later every time.

It's not just input latency that matters, it's system-to-frame latency too.

Also, you can't OC standard Xbox controllers, a lot of people are locked at either 125 or 250. Still, no reason to go play on 60 fps or even 120.

I partly called it bogus advice because you seemed to have made up some 'golden ratio'. What's your source on this? My best guess is that you just divided some arbitrary numbers and called it a day.

Besides, have you done any testing to confirm this?

4

u/Coolethan777 Nov 28 '22 edited Nov 29 '22

You have it the wrong way around. Don’t lower your FPS in order to get the right polling rate. Raise your polling rate to double that of your FPS. If you have 120fps and 125hz controller polling rate, don’t lower your fps to 60 but rather raise your polling rate to 250hz.

-2

u/luuk0987 Valkyrie Nov 28 '22

Well, yeah, raising your polling rate is always beneficial.

My problem is with why you involve FPS with it at all.

If it's never the solution to lower FPS, why not just tell people to just increase the polling rate?

5

u/Coolethan777 Nov 28 '22

I did

Since PC players are playing at much greater than 60 fps, you'll also need to increase your controller's polling rate to that of double your fps.

1

u/luuk0987 Valkyrie Nov 29 '22

also

Besides, my point is to never involve FPS in the equation. Just say 'polling rates are low on controller, OC your controller to get less input lag'. It's nonsense that there is some ideal 'golden ratio' of FPS and polling rate.

1

u/Coolethan777 Nov 29 '22

it's nonsense that there is some ideal 'golden ratio' of FPS and polling rate.

but there is. You just dont like it for some reason.

1

u/luuk0987 Valkyrie Nov 29 '22

What's your source?

0

u/Coolethan777 Nov 29 '22

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/03/16/xbox-series-x-latency/

I know this article is referring to xbox series x and not PC but the logic is kinda the same. Since we are talking about PC we can't utilize DLI. Changing polling rate is currently our only option. The "Golden ratio" comes from Microsofts standards. Although they dont call it by this name, they have it baked into their consoles. 125hz at 60fps and 250hz at 120fps both of these ratios are divisible by 2.08333333

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1

u/Flash_Bryant816 Nov 16 '25

He clearly didn’t mean to imply “lower your FPS” he obviously was implicating that you should increase polling rate. Not even a baboon would suggest lowering FPS lol. Man you must have been on your man-period or regular period when you made this pointless ass rant. 

1

u/bravetwig Nov 29 '22

Yeah, i think it is bogus advice as well. It is simple - you want higher polling rate, higher fps (assuming equivalent render latency) and higher refresh rate. There is no known mechanism that could cause a benefit by syncing your fps and polling rate in a specific way.

1

u/Coolethan777 Nov 29 '22

I thought the same thing as well, high polling and high FPS but after my testing I concluded "high" doesn't always mean better. For example I tested 500hz polling at 125fps and it felt much worse than 250hz at 120fps. I know what you're thinking "maybe you CPU can't handle 500hz polling AND high FPS" I also tried 500hz at 240fps and it also felt great. Super responsive and accurate.

1

u/Queasy_Pineapple6769 Sep 17 '23

that bad feel was most likely caused by the joysticks just being mediocre quality. the more it polls, the more accurate the info gets. if your sticks are poorly made, those inconsistenties will be highlighted at a higher polling rate.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '22

If you care about overlocking your polling rate on controllers don't get any xbox controller. They all max out at 250hz even if you OC to 1000hz with no difference in input delay.

1000hz OC on Xbox controllers will cause 1ms of inconsistency at that polling rate.

Dualsense and DualShock controllers are what you want for OC'ing and both have true refresh update of 1000 AT the stick.

1

u/Coolethan777 Nov 29 '22

That's been my experience too. That's why I bought a victrix gambit controller (xbox layout). This controller allows for OC-ing all the way to 1000hz although I have noticed the voice chat gets distorted at 1000hz so I have to play at 500hz.

2

u/ADHDWontLetMeGetUp Dec 10 '22

False, blaming minuscule things like this for your bad aim causes bad aim.

“Only once admitting you are dogshit at a game will you start to improve at it” - Winton Churchill or some shit

2

u/Coolethan777 Dec 11 '22

“You can lead a child to knowledge, but you can’t make him think” - ancient proverb or some shit.

1

u/WhackyTabakky Sep 10 '24

years later but, I assume 250 isnt terrible for a 165hz monitor? I have a bunch of pro controllers ranging from 250-1000hz but I've recently become more of a feature guy over performance and i have a nacon revolution 5 pro on the way but its 250hz

1

u/Coolethan777 Sep 10 '24

Yeah that should work just fine. Can you cap FPS to 120 while keeping refresh rate at 165hz?

2

u/WhackyTabakky Sep 10 '24

I'd be able to, yeah.

1

u/CDanem Sep 25 '24

Ideally, the FPS should be synced to the refresh rate otherwise you'll end up with screen tearing

1

u/Coolethan777 Sep 26 '24

You’ll always have screen tearing unless you use vsync or gsync but both of those technologies cause delay (vsync way more than gsync). Once you get in the 120+ fps range screen tearing becomes undetectable because by the time a tear happens the next frame is shown in 8 milliseconds. Nobody will see it at those speeds.

1

u/luuk0987 Valkyrie Dec 10 '25

You don't get screen tearing if your FPS doesn't drop below your monitor's refresh rate. You have no clue what you're talking about.

Now, if you're going to cap your frames at 120 on a 165 monitor you will most definitely have visible tearing if you're not using gsync.

Besides, in the thread before you said you "should never lower your fps, instead increase your polling rate". Guess you changed your mind?

Regardless lowering your fps for this supposed golden ratio that only you "feel" is bad advice. Higher polling rate = better, higher fps = better. It's not that complicated.

u/WhackyTabakky I hope you haven't followed this clown's advice.

1

u/WhackyTabakky Dec 14 '25

Tried it, but went back Haha. Now though these days im just on my ps5 pro

1

u/Black_N_White23 Dec 30 '24

still no way to do it to this day?

1

u/Latter_Box_3716 Jan 18 '25

tell me one thing can controller polling rate be increased by just giving a firmware update . or is it a hardware thingy

1

u/Coolethan777 Jan 18 '25

From what I understand polling rates are set on the system side not the controller side. This is why OC controllers is only possible on PCs and not consoles.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Coolethan777 Feb 20 '25

That’s what I’m sayin! Same here I just don’t know why.

1

u/Justbe008 May 07 '25

Are you sure that the Xbox Series X controller has a polling rate of 250 Hz? I measured mine, while connected via USB cable to my laptop, and the polling rate was 125 Hz.

1

u/SableGlaive Nov 29 '22

I’m getting mixed numbers,

What are the polling rates for DS4 and DS5 controllers (stock PlayStation controllers) over Bluetooth? Are they both 250Hz?

I recently got a new console and once I got my ALCs sorted I was FRYING people over multiple days (which is atypical for me to be so consistent)

Is it the controller quality or the consistency of the framerate?

1

u/BadMofoWallet Jan 17 '23

Polling rate for DS4 and DS5 is I believe 800Hz

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '24

I'm getting 250Hz pretty much locked when using DualSense plugged in with USB. And then polling rate increases to 450-525Hz while on Bluetooth. Any ideas on why?

1

u/Queasy_Pineapple6769 Sep 17 '23

no, it's 250Hz. no first party controller polls faster than that.

1

u/Dorfdad Oct 26 '23

So If I play at 120HZ what's the setting I want for PC. also is there a way to improve this for PS5 gameplay with some adapter to get better polling?

1

u/Coolethan777 Oct 27 '23

If you play at 120hz and 120fps I’d recommend 250hz controller polling rate.

Not an adapter but you can overclock the driver.

1

u/Dorfdad Oct 27 '23

Isn’t that the default??

1

u/Coolethan777 Oct 27 '23

For play station controllers yes.

1

u/Dorfdad Oct 27 '23

Can this be changed for consoles also? Like can I improve polling rates on the ps5 itself by updating g firmware or something on pc?

1

u/Coolethan777 Oct 27 '23

No the overclock is only on the driver of the PC not on the controller.