- It's not always possible to run an HDMI cable
directly from your source device to your TV.
Sometimes it might have to pass through a soundbar
or an AV Receiver or even a capture device
if you're into game streaming.
Now some of those devices
are advertised as having zero latency.
Meaning that in theory, your gaming experience
will be exactly as responsive
as if you were connected to your TV directly.
But, others like this AV Receiver make no mention
of latency whatsoever.
So our devices like this or this or this,
silently damaging your gaming experience?
In this video, sponsored by Vizio,
we'll be finding out once and for all.
(upbeat music)
Latency or input lag is the amount of time it takes
between when we physically click a button
or move the mouse to seeing the action on the screen.
And when this latency is really high
it can significantly delay your reaction to,
let's say an enemy or a sharp turn in the road.
And as we found in our investigation in 2019,
even if you can't feel the delay, your brain can
and modern technology hasn't yet reached the point
where it's fast enough that it doesn't make any difference.
Bottom line then, we want our latency
to be as low as possible for the best gaming experience.
So here's our test setup.
Vizio, who sponsored this video
provided their 65 inch M7-Series Quantum 2020 TV.
And we're gonna be testing it at 4K 60Hz
with game mode enabled and auto low-latency disabled
since not all of our devices support it.
Now Rtings, great site check it out,
found that this was the lowest input lag configuration
on this TV at less than 10 milliseconds.
Now let's meet some of the other items in our chain.
For capture cards, we've got a couple of different ones
from Elgato including this HD60 S+ that they claim
that if you pass through this with your signal
so that you can actually capture it for your game stream
or whatever else, there is no difference
between being plugged in here and being plugged in here.
Very interesting.
And we've got this receiver.
If you're not familiar, a receiver like this is great
for having many devices plugged into a single TV
or you can actually have multiple zones
on some of the high end ones.
And it has an amplifier built into it.
If you have like a dedicated passive speaker set up
for surround sound.
But what's interesting about it,
is that the manufacturer in this case
and actually most of them doesn't mention latency at all.
The final piece of the chain is the M-Series 5.1 soundbar
from Vizio and Vizio's main highlights
for this are it's low profile charcoal black design,
full support for Dolby Atmos and DTSX
and it's nine high performance speakers
with a six inch wireless subwoofer
for an outstanding surround sound experience.
Of course if we're gonna be adding these devices,
sometimes more than one of them, to our HDMI chain,
we can't rely on our Rtings data.
We need to capture our own.
And that is where this guy comes in.
We explored Nvidia's latency display analysis tool
or NLDAT in this video here.
But to save you some time what it does
is it actually intercepts the signal from a mouse click
then it measures the delay
between this device here receiving that signal
and measuring a brightness change on the monitor.
That gives us the latency of the entire gaming chain.
Any bets by the way,
which common household items are gonna have the most lag?
The AVR receiver, the analog telephone,
the LTT CPU pillow?
lttstore.com
Before we can know that, we need to establish a baseline.
So in the interest of reducing bottlenecks,
we're using a high performance gaming system
with a 3900XT processor and 2080 super graphics card.
And while I'll be trying
to feel the difference using an actual game,
in this case CS GO, all of the data that we present to you
was captured using Nvidia's NLDAT desktop application
to eliminate any variability due to game engine lag.
Is that pot's name Loser?
Wait, was that one's name Lester?
Well, Hmm, yup.
That feels like some pretty low input lag.
Good job physio, I guess.
Hey. Oh, nice he's dead look at that.
Okay, feels pretty good and good news
but data backs it up.
We found that the most consistent method to
measure it was to click manually in the NLDAT window
rather than using the automatic clicking function.
And we measured just shy
of 40 milliseconds of total click to light photon delay.
That sounds like a lot compared to our Rtings number
but it's actually right in line
with what we've measured on high-performance desktop gaming
monitors, windows, graphics, card drivers, et cetera.
Just add a lot more delay than a signal generator.
So, obviously then, our first step was to add Vizio's
own soundbar to the chain
with a baseline delay of just under 38 milliseconds.
The soundbar added 19 milliseconds of delay
which is about one frame at 60 Hertz.
When casually gaming to most people,
this wouldn't be noticeable.
But if you're really competitive
what we learned is you better use the eARC feature
of your new TV and sound bar
and plug your console directly into the TV
and have that audio pass through to your soundbar.
Okay then, Vizio didn't claim that there was zero latency
in the sound bar soundbar though.
What about something that does the elgato 4k60 pro
and HD 60S plus are both capture cards
that claim super low latency and from our results
this definitely holds true for them with this setup.
The HT 60S plus only added three to four milliseconds
of delay on average and the 4k60 pro added 19 milliseconds
which is one frame and comparable to the soundbar.
So again, it's acceptable for gaming
but it isn't zero latency either.
What about the receiver?
Well, it's comparable to the HT 60S plus
with only an additional three milliseconds of delay
which that's quite impressive when the product
page doesn't claim any kind of gaming
or latency optimization as a selling point at all.
Now it's time for the big test.
If we start chaining these devices together,
does the total delay become the sum
of the individual delays or will they multiply?
Will they work at all?
Well, it does work sometimes.
Introducing extra links
between the TV and the input device can have mixed results
not just with latency, but actually with signal reliability.
Just getting all four of our test devices between the TV
and our PC to handshake with each other was a challenge
with some configurations defaulting to unusual resolutions,
some of them flickering and some of them not working at all.
In the right order though, we were able
to get things up and running without any issues.
With just two capture cards in a row,
we don't actually see much difference
from just the 4k 60 pro on its own.
And when everything is chained together,
we see latency that is very similar again
to just the 4k 60 pro or the soundbar on its own
which kind of raises questions like what is going on here?
What it seems like, is there something of a limit
to how much additional delay can be added
by devices that are chained together?
as for why that would be honestly,
it's a little above my pay grade.
But if I were to make a guess, I would say
that it's probably something to do with digital
I put DHCP in the script instead of HDCP.
So like it tripped me up.
Yeah, yeah but it's not a networking video.
Okay. But if I were to guess,
I'd say it's probably something to do
with HDCP or copy protection.
We weren't able to prove this in any way
but we also have another theory
that it could actually vary depending on some aspect
of the handshaking process
that takes place when you connect.
The bottom line though is that,
nothing was actually zero latency
with the closest device
our AVR receiver being almost zero latency.
The good news though is that
pretty much every combo was low enough
that most people wouldn't notice the difference.
And if you're the kind
of person who is sensitive to it, well, there's no reason
that you have to hook your current game console
up to your Vizio M7 series quantum 2020 TV
through any other device.
Its got 2 HDMI 2.1 inputs, 4 total, more accurate color
out of the box, thanks to support for Dolby vision
HDR gaming, and their new onboard processor.
It boasts extremely low latency in game mode, as we've seen
as long as you're hooked up it directly.
And it's got support for auto low latency mode.
And there's even more improvements
to the gaming experience coming through firmware updates.
So guys, you can check this puppy out, along
with the soundbar at the link below, and they've got a bunch
of deals going on down there as well, so don't wait.
Thanks again to Vizio for sponsoring this video.
It's something that we've actually really wanted to explore
for a long time.
And I thought the results were fascinating
even if they raise more questions than they deliver answers.
And thanks to you guys for watching.
If you're looking for another video to dive into
I'd recommend our deeper investigation into the ldac device
which talks about how we can use it to
evaluate which displays are the absolute best for gaming.