[Guide] Tweaking the setting to get less input lag in games

Couple of days ago I came across a thread in OCN (click here to check it out) that talked about the things you could do to lower the input lag of your PC. Why should you care? Because less input lag translates to a smoother gaming experience. You might be getting 120FPS or more, but it still could feel choppy if you have a high input lag.

While I have a decent PC with me (right?), I have been having similar issues with Crysis 3 multiplayer (click here to go to my Crysis 3 game play videos on YouTube), which is pretty much the only game that I play regularly. It didn’t feel smooth at all. I had some hard time aiming and it drove me insane. This happened even with a reasonably high refresh rate of 96Hz. It seemed weird why I would get a lag at such a refresh rate even when the frame rate wasn't dipping below the refresh rate. Naturally, I blamed the wireless mouse at first. But it seemed that I had been having some DPC latency issues. And some of the things this guy mentioned, helped me to dramatically improve responsiveness in Crysis 3, even with massive ping times.

Few of the things that the guy suggested can be considered hardcore. Things such as uninstalling the Keyboard/Mouse software is a big no no. I need the ability to remap the keys of the mouse and the keyboard in difference apps. Further, disabling the virus guard and Anti-Spyware software is not a wise thing to do.

I performed a lot of changes in the UEFI that he suggested. The biggest change to the DPC Latency was caused by disabling HPET (High Precision Event Timer). But I kept the USB 3.0 settings in tact. Besides, I had disabled a lot of things that I didn’t use anyways.

He also suggested disabling all the power saving features of the CPU. Some people do that when they overclock the CPU but I have never turned off the power saving options with any of the CPUs. Besides,  it is impossible for the CPU to be in a low power state when you are inside a game. But the clock rate fluctuations might cause stuttering, so I just disabled it. But I wanted to see how much power the CPU will use if I disabled all the power saving features (that is the C states) and it amounted to like 25W when I checked it through AISuite. Usually when all the power saving features are ON, it could even go down to 1W. This didn't change regardless of whether I had dynamic clock scaling (turbo boost) enabled or disabled or whether I had EIST enabled or disabled. So I disabled both so that the clock speed doesn't fluctuate. I further set the power settings to "High Performance" in Windows Power Management section. However, since C states are still enabled, there is a small lag when the CPU comes from a power saving state to the fully operational state. But like I said, this should not cause any issues once you get inside a game.

[Rant] Got my new internet connection

Yesterday in the evening, I got the router from NTT. There was the actual router, an instruction leaflet, a LAN cable, the power brick for the router and the optical fibre cable inside the package.

Until I received the package, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to plug the optical cable to the router. But when I examined the new router, I figured out – without reading the leaflet – how to install the optical fibre cable. It was just like plugging in the LAN cable – it just had a different socket and a jack.

I had routed the old optical fibre cable along walls and it took me quite a bit of time when I did that the last time. So I figured, it would be great if I could just reuse the same fibre optic cable instead of the new one, such that it would cut down the installation time substantially. Plus, the power cable to the router was also laid along the walls similarly. So I wanted to see if the new router would work with the same power brick and fibre optic cable.

There was one issue though. I didn’t know how to remove the existing one from the old router. The new router is a bit different to the old one. There weren’t any screws on it. It seemed that there was a sliding door like thing, but it would not come off at first. But after trying several orientations of sliding, a door came off revealing the actual port. After that, it was a simple pull of the jack to disconnect the cable.

Then I plugged the old fibre optic cable and the power plug to the new router and it worked! My internet worked. (Since I received my username/password from OCN several days before, I had already setup the connection inside my Wi-Fi router.) Now that everything was working fine, I decided to reuse the old stuff with the new router.

But there was one issue. I was supposed to send the old router back to NTT. I should have done that a while back, but I kept delaying till I got the new connection as it would make installation easier if I had something to refer to. They actually wanted me to send back the accessories as well. So I decided to bundle the accessories I got with the new router – basically the fibre optic cable and the power brick of the router – with the old one and send back to NTT.

Today I sent it back to them. I already had the envelop that I got from them. All I had to do was to put the router and stuff in the envelop, paste the sticker which had the sender/recipient details and ask the courier – in this case Japan Post – to come and pick it up.

[Rant] Applied for a new internet connection

Finally it was time for me to renew my internet connection. I disconnected my old connection on 31st of January. The internet connection that I had been using had a contract period of 2 years. The contract would automatically renew unless you disconnect it in the month after the two year period.

So why would you want to disconnect the internet connection?

Simple answer is "discounts".

When you buy a new connection, you get various discounts. When you buy it from different places, you get different discounts. Some give you money back discounts. Some discounts your monthly bill. Some let you buy an electronic article and they would deduct a substantial amount of money from the price of it. The amount of discount is also different from place to place.

I bought the MacBook Air with the discount I got when I bought my first internet connection. That was from Yodobashi. The size of discount amounted to ¥35,000 back then. But this time I decided that I needed more than ¥35,000.

[Rant] Renewing the internet connection after 2 years

The last time I called OCN (my ISP), it was vacations for them. They were supposed to resume work today, the 5th of January, so I gave them a call to confirm that I could disconnect the internet connection without getting charged for early termination. They said everything was fine and that I should disconnect before 31st of January.

Then I told them my story. I told them that I wanted to disconnect because I wanted to get the discount when getting a new connection. It seems that if I disconnect and get the same connection under my name, it would still be fine. By fine I mean, I could get the discount.

But the ISP is just one part of the story. There is the infrastructure provider: NTT in my case. They also give a discount when you get a connection from them for the first time. But when I called them, it seemed that if renewed the connection under my name, I would not be entitled to the discount because it’s the same person. If I wanted to get it under my own name, I would have to wait a year before applying again.

But the good news is, I can apply under my wife’s name. That would give me the full discount. But people at NTT recommended me that I apply after disconnecting the existing connection, so that there won’t be any complications.

I haven’t asked them to terminate the connection. I don’t know what will happen if I tell them to terminate the connection now, or if I could possible do that. But I will call them in the next weekend and ask them to terminate the connection. Then they will tell me what will happen.

Either way, I will be applying through kakaku.com. Usually you have to add some other features like Hikari TV (kinda like SLT PeoTV) and a fixed phone line when you apply from the ISP’s website or from places like Yodobashi. But no such hassle when you apply from kakaku. Of course you can call them can unsubscribe from those addition features, but is still a hassle.

All I want is the discount and the internet connection.

[Rant] Blistering fast downloads via OCN Flets Hikari connection with EA Origin

The public beta of the most anticipated game of the year, Battlefield 4, came out yesterday. However, they let us preload the game the previous day and be ready as soon as the game went online. I also had the Battlefield 4 Beta automatically added to my games list, and even though I am not much of a Battlefield fan, I started downloading it.

This is not the first time, but the download finished in about 5 minutes. The download size is 5.5GB. That’s about 18MBps (not Mbps) average. I hit over 23MBps towards the last quarter actually.

Few times before, I have been managed to fully exhaust the connection, which is supposed to be 200Mbps (or 25MBps at max efficiency). The funny thing is that OCN sales personnel said that in reality you won’t get more than 100Mbps. Hey, 100Mbps is nothing to be sad about. It’s 200 times faster than the connection I have at home!!!

Of course I didn’t play the game fore more than a few minutes. The game wouldn’t play full screen, Hitting ALT + Enter didn’t fix it. Sabreen said it could be because of TeamViewer and I still couldn’t check it out. He could be right. I had the same issue with BF3 as well, when I checked it a few days ago. I had been using TeamViewer to monitor the PC remotely when I was stress testing it to see if the overclock was stable. I don’t really need it anymore, but I’ll keep it there in case I need to access the PC remotely. Of course, I have to have the PC turned ON in the first place.