Nvidia Reflex Low Latency On Or Off

Nearly every company with its easily in PC gaming hardware is rallying to gainsay one of the most significant issues in competitive gaming: latency.

Some players may have never looked into their system latency. Others take watched countless videos to tune their settings to driblet their system latency to the everyman possible value. Tuning your settings is an effective method of lowering system latency, but Nvidia is taking information technology a step further with the continued rollout of its Reflex technology.

Reflex, Nvidia'south esports-focused depression-latency platform, aims to be at the front of the push to eliminate system latency. While information technology may non exist massively benign for every type of gamer, Nvidia'due south Reflex applied science is a convenient and developing respond to the complex issue of organisation latency in some cases.

What is system latency?

To prepare some groundwork for our experiment, we need to have a broad understanding of what causes end-to-end system latency, more commonly referred to as input lag. The "end-to-end" indicates that system latency is measured from the moment y'all click your mouse to the time that data is displayed on your monitor. System latency isn't caused past one component alone, as the diagram below illustrates. Everything from your mouse to your CPU and GPU to your game of choice affects system latency. A few prominent players in arrangement latency are the CPU, the return queue, and GPU.

The CPU, render queue, and GPU each play a pivotal role in determining your system latency considering of how they interact with each other. In specific scenarios, y'all may become GPU or CPU bound. GPU-bound scenarios occur when your graphics card is maxed out and can't keep step with your CPU. This scenario causes a backup in the render queue between the CPU and GPU. The backup in the render queue then causes the CPU to slow its processes while the GPU plays catchup, resulting in higher latency.

If you're curious to see if you might be GPU or CPU bound, pull upwardly your Task Managing director past pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click on Performance. Keep an centre on your GPU and CPU usage while in-game to make up one's mind whether you might be CPU or GPU jump. If your GPU's utilization is disproportionately higher than your CPU, then you lot're likely GPU bound. An case would be your GPU hitting in a higher place 95-percent utilization. Additional programs like HW Monitor, GeForce Feel Performance Hud, and MSI Afterburner provide more in-depth system information if yous're looking for something more precise.

Why should you lot intendance about arrangement latency?

If y'all've ever been in the center of a heated match and swore you hit the shot on an enemy or got peeked past a player who couldn't have possibly seen you coming, arrangement latency may have played a part.

Milliseconds affair in competitive gaming, and those tiny pockets of filibuster tin brand the deviation between clutching up or getting rolled. Granted, at that place are some factors that Reflex can't command, like network latency, but information technology tin aid mitigate the effect by reducing latency in other means.

What does NVIDIA Reflex practise?

Reflex is an esports-focused technology that measures organisation latency and can help reduce it in some instances. At that place are a couple of different components to the Reflex ecosystem, but we'll exist zeroing in on the role of Reflex that actively reduces latency.

Reflex is, in role, a software development kit (SDK) developers implement into their games to give players the option to reduce organization latency through the in-game card. When integrated into a game by its developers, Reflex reduces system latency in GPU-heavy situations when the setting is active.

Nvidia's Reflex technology drops latency past preventing you from becoming GPU leap. Reflex achieves this by keeping the CPU and GPU in sync with 1 another. Keeping the GPU and CPU at the aforementioned pace prevents the render queue from backing up and provides a steady stream of frames for your GPU to render and brandish. Also, enabling Reflex with Heave tin lower latency in extreme CPU-spring scenarios. An instance of this scenario is pairing a much older CPU with a new GPU or if GPU utilization drops beneath 40 per centum.

Reflex is available in seven of the top x competitive esports titles, including Fortnite, Rainbow 6 Siege, CS:Become, Overwatch, VALORANT, Telephone call of Duty: Warzone, and Telephone call of Duty: Modern Warfare, with more to come up. Users can typically toggle the Reflex setting in the display settings of compatible titles but volition need a 900 series GPU or amend to take advantage of Reflex.

Testing equipment

Our reviewer tested Reflex with three different Nvidia graphics cards across three esports titles using Nvidia'due south Latency and Display Analysis Tool (LDAT). This tool uses a luminescence sensor to monitor the latency between a mouse click and the cage flash displaying on the screen.

To test Reflex, our reviewer attached LDAT to the monitor with the brilliance sensor facing the brandish and positioned it over the Latency Flash Indicator. The sensor is connected to a compatible mouse that plugs into the PC equally information technology normally would. From at that place, our reviewer fix a sample charge per unit of 20 and enabled LDAT'south Car Fire feature. Auto Fire tricks the mouse into thinking the left mouse push button has been clicked, causing the in-game weapon to burn.

Using LDAT'southward Auto Fire characteristic, our reviewer gathered 20 samples using a 360Hz Alienware AW2521H monitor with an Nvidia GTX 1080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 in Fortnite, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six Siege. Our reviewer tested each championship and GPU with Reflex Off, On, and On with Heave enabled and graphics set to the highest preset at 1080p.

For users planning to experiment at abode with Nvidia's Reflex Latency Analyzer, note that results will vary based on your rig's hardware. Our reviewer was likewise heavily CPU-bound in some instances with the 3070 and 3080.

Fortnite results

Starting with Fortnite, we tin can see that Reflex is accomplishing what it sets out to accomplish. While results vary from GPU to GPU, the trends stay fairly consequent beyond the board. Fortnite is also the but game tested featuring an updated Boost optimization that helps more than in sure CPU-bound scenarios. Considering of this optimization, results are not indicative of how every game performs with Heave enabled.

The more commonly used 1080 sees the majority of the benefits with a ix.55-millisecond subtract in system latency with Reflex On. That figure drops an extra 3.11 milliseconds with Boost enabled for a total reduction of 12.66 milliseconds.

Meanwhile, the 3070 only saw a 1.32-millisecond subtract in latency with Reflex On and a iv.44-millisecond subtract with Boost enabled. Because the 3070 outpaces the 1080 past leaps and bounds, its base of operations latency is already much lower. Still, Reflex achieves what information technology intends to do with the 3070.

Nvidia's 3080 undercuts both the 3070 and 1080, as expected. Enabling Reflex nabbed our reviewer a meager .33-millisecond latency drib. Using Boost shaved a full of 1.89 milliseconds off the total latency, which doesn't prove at that place is a departure in terms of real-earth performance.

Overwatch results

Overwatch is where Reflex shined brightest during our reviewer's tests. That being said, enabling Heave had trivial outcome beyond the board. The lack of variation between Reflex On with Boost enabled and Reflex On alone makes sense given that Boost only kicks in one time your GPU utilization drops beneath xl percentage, which was not the case in our reviewer's experience.

Again, the 1080 benefits the nearly from Reflex, dropping latency by 13.66 milliseconds. Enabling Boost docked our reviewer .77 milliseconds, but this looks more like a run-to-run variation given the tight gap and probability that GPU usage didn't drib beneath xl percent.

Reflex dropped latency by 2.15 milliseconds using the 3070. Results hither were tight, with Boost narrowly squeezing under Reflex On by a mere .eleven milliseconds. Again, this is some other tight gap that may vary on a run-by-run footing considering the results of the 1080 and 3080.

Starting out with just 11.97 milliseconds of latency already puts the 3080 about the sub-10-millisecond sweetness spot. Reflex dropped the latency past some other 1.47 milliseconds. Using Boost reduced latency by one.12 milliseconds, which comes in slightly over Reflex without Heave enabled. These results are likely run-to-run variations that could fluctuate due to flipping back and forth betwixt being GPU and CPU jump.

Rainbow Vi Siege results

Reducing latency in a game like Rainbow Six Siege is a tall order. Because Siege is already optimized to operate at lower latency than the other titles tested, reducing latency further is a challenge. All the same, results look consistent with what we see in Overwatch, including probable shifts between being GPU and CPU bound. If this weren't the case, our reviewer wouldn't have seen any noticeable departure betwixt having Reflex On or Off.

Interpreting Siege's latency data is slightly different due to operating below 15 milliseconds. Every bit such, the differences between Reflex settings expect much larger than in reality. Only as expected, the 1080 seems to benefit the almost from Reflex and nabs a ii.04-millisecond dip in latency. The 3080 is of item interest. Rainbow Six Siege is the only title that clocked the 3080 as being slightly slower than the 3070 past 1.06 milliseconds, which is somewhat of an oddity given its raw ability.

Should yous use Nvidia Reflex?

The short reply is aye. Players can just stand to gain from using Reflex since it never dings your system latency and can simply reduce it. Even in situations when Boost ran a bit higher than Reflex On, it never harmed system latency.

Regarding existent-world differences, users with older GPUs will detect more of a change than those with newer Nvidia cards. Being GPU bound while running a 30 serial at 1080p with settings maxed out is unlikely. Unless y'all're playing with ray tracing enabled or in 4K, Reflex won't be able to help much. Even and then, most competitive players don't use the highest graphics settings strictly because of that added latency. Similar 8,000Hz polling rate gaming mice, it's also probable that few players will do good significantly from the slight performance bumps granted by Reflex. But an important differentiation is Reflex doesn't cause your CPU usage to fasten like an 8,000Hz mouse.

Having Reflex enabled tin also assistance in situations when you go GPU bound for cursory periods. This fluctuation seemed to exist the case with our reviewer's Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege results. Realistically, Reflex shouldn't have made a dent in latency while testing the 3080, but it did anyhow. This outcome reflects existence GPU bound for a few frames here and there.

Despite not being useful in every situation, Reflex presents some exciting prospects for latency reduction and competitive gaming.