- DotEsports journalists have tested the new latency test by Nvidia and KovaaK
- According to their results, there is a noticeable difference between 25ms and 85ms
- This might not affect casual players but will have a great impact on competitive FPS players
The tech company Nvidia has collaborated with The Meta and their aim training game KovaaK 2.0 to create a playable system latency test that measures the time between clicking a button and an action happening on-screen.
DotEsports journalists have taken the challenge, armed with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 GPU. For each trial, they did three tests – three with 25ms, three with 55ms, and three with 85ms. Here are their results:
Latency Frenzy – Noticeable Advantages of a Better System Latency
At first, the journalists tested out the Latency Frenzy game which asks the one getting tested to shoot as many red circles as possible for one minute.
In the first round, the player got a total of 292 points across all latency brackets.
- 85ms: 86 points
- 55ms: 99 points
- 25ms: 107 points
In the second round, the overall performance improved across the board, giving a total of 330 points.
- 85ms: 93 points
- 55ms: 108 points
- 25ms: 129 points
As the player got accustomed, they improved on their results, finishing the third round with 340 total points.
- 85ms: 96 points
- 55ms: 111 points
- 25ms: 133 points
The journalist remarked that the difference between 25ms and 85ms was quite noticeable which would translate into a great performance disparity in a competitive game. According to him, 25ms latency feels crisp and smooth while 85ms has a noticeable delay.
Latency Flicking – Where Bad Latency Can Really Undermine a Player’s Performance
Next up, the journalist tried Latency Flicking, another latency testing game that was more challenging than the first one. The player has to shoot a blue ball and then flick to a red ball that appears somewhere else for half a second. Since the red ball is smaller, missing it a few times was inevitable.
In the first round, the DotEsports journalist managed to score a modest 37 points.
- 85ms: 3 points
- 55ms: 16 points
- 25ms: 18 points
Then, in the second round, they started getting used to the game and subsequently scored 50 total points.
- 85ms: 6 points
- 55ms: 20 points
- 25ms: 24 points
Lastly, the player improved their scoring, even more, finishing with 60 points.
- 85ms: 9 points
- 55ms: 22 points
- 25ms: 29 points
The journalist remarked that there isn’t a great difference between 25ms and 55ms. Although 55ms does feel less sharp, it doesn’t affect performance as much. On the contrary the 85ms tests yielded vastly different results, proving that a certain amount of latency can greatly impact a player’s performance.
Nvidia’s new solution, Nvidia Reflex, aims to reduce players’ latency and improve their overall performance. This is a welcome boon to all esports players and people who like to play competitively.
Players who wish to do so can try the Nvidia-KovaaK test for themselves. It has various settings to simulate the feelings of various first-person shooter games, such as CS:GO, Overwatch and VALORANT.
