Slight control lag on my System.

N8LBV

N8LBV

Active member
On this particular system: gen10 i9 + Intel ARC A770 GPU there is some noticeable lag on the controls.
It's slight but annoying.
I'll report more as I go.
All is clean - up to date and latest drivers.
I also tried (in Steam) "Disable Steam input" which made no difference in feel/lag.
The lag is slight but always there consistently.
This is a clean system and CPU/GPU are very lightly loaded and only by Realflight while testing.
I am also reporting again that full screen mode has a small white border on it in the DX11 version on all systems I have tested.
The "bouncyness" in the video in hovers is me dealing with the slight lag.
It also assisted me in crashing into the roof in part of this video.
I am running the DX11 version on another much older system with Intel i7 3770K and Nvidia GTX1080 and to not experience any lag/delay.
On the system experiencing the problem I am using an Interlink Elite controller and on a USB3 port.
I'll double check that I didn't leave the USB power saving options enabled on it, but quite certain that is not the problem.
 
The InterLink DX doesn't get along with some newer USB chipsets, and lag is one of the symptoms. Don't know if the Elite would have the same problem. A solution for the DX is to put a cheap, unpowered USB hub between the controller and the computer. If you have a USB 2.0 port on your computer, you could try that too.
 
Yeah- noticeably better.
I plugged a back of box jack into a USB2 header on the motherboard.
Still not quite as tight/crisp as running in DX9 but better.
Fullscreen still has a white border on it. As far as DX11 goes.
 
You can see the fullscreen border I'm talking about in the video.
Run it fullscreen at 1080P.
It's much more noticeable on my 75" and 85" displays.
Enough that it's a minor annoyance.
I should file a report on it and see if they will work on it or provide an option to turn it off and use the entire screen.
 
That does sound like a USB issue to me. It's probably different than the one affecting some InterLink DX units in combination with some PCs, but the manifestation sounds similar. The fact that it improved considerably through a different port seems to confirm that.
 
Since many years, I use the freeware USBDView to display all connected devices, on which hub they belong, as well those inactive used in the past. Also handy to perform risk free cleanup to delete unused (e.g. an old USB key) or force reconfiguration (USB entry automatically re-created by windows next time the device is plugged).

Note: when you got several USB devices attached to a same USB Hub, he adopt the speed of the slowest device attached to it, ex. if there is one USB2 and one USB3 he´s speed is reduced to USB2. Can be not ideal if per example the USB3 is an external disk as he will not exploit the full bandwith.
 
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RemyHeli said:
Note: when you got several USB devices attached to a same USB Hub, he adopt the speed of the slowest device attached to it, ex. if there is one USB2 and one USB3 he´s speed is reduced to USB2. Can be not ideal if per example the USB3 is an external disk as he will not exploit the full bandwith.
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Do you have a link to info about the hub reducing the speed to the lowest connected device? I've seen it said a usb hub "shares" bandwith but not that it "limits" the bandwidth to the lowest connected speed. (ie usb2 and usb3 device connected to the same hub)
 
I know that with multiple RAM sticks, fast RAM ones are limited to the speed of the slowest one. I don't know whether that's true of USB or not. I've never tested it. If it's true, I wasn't aware of it either.
 
Just a guess off the top of my head. Could it be a interrupt conflict on the interrupt used by the USB port? Can‘t remember much about them now, it’s been a long while since I had to mess with interrupts.
 
Or, from superuser.com:
For example, suppose I have an USB 3.0 gigabit network adapter and an USB 2.0 keyboard. If I plug the keyboard into the same USB 3.0 hub that the network adapter is plugged into, will the network adapter's maximum theoretical throughput instantly drop to 480 Mbps or slower (USB 2.0's maximum throughput)?
___________________________________________________________________________________

Short answer: No.

Long answer:

I stumbled across the answer to my question in a comment to an answer for a seemingly unrelated question. It turns out USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are physically segregated in the wiring, so plugging USB 2.0 devices into an USB 3.0 hub won't affect the performance of USB 3.0 devices in the way that I was wondering.
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Which do you believe? I don't know. I suspect that the REAL answer might be different for cheap vs expensive USB hubs. But it should probably be considered when connecting USB2 dongles/Interlinks for RF.
 
@RemyHeli @Bill Stuntz Those are both interesting pieces of information. I always understood "each" USB device negotiates it's transfer independently, that way a USB 2.0 device would transfer at 480mb and a USB 3.0 device would transfer at 5gb during their separate transfers. (with a USB 3.0 Hub) Meaning one device transfers at a time (limited by the Hub Bandwidth) and transfers at the maximum bandwidth of the USB hub. But it's hard to say from conflicting information. Thanks to both of you for your input.
 
I don't know how the hub is managing multiple connections bandwidth that the hub's single connection to the PC is capable of supplying/receiving. 2 USB connected devices can't both operate through the hub at full speed simultaneously because the connection to the PC can't do "double-speed USB3." Not can it support "USB2+USB3 speed" simultaneously. So ANY 2nd device just about has to slow down a USB3 device that could saturate the connection all by itself. So maybe BOTH of us are right.
 
Bill Stuntz said:
I don't know how the hub is managing multiple connections bandwidth that the hub's single connection to the PC is capable of supplying/receiving. 2 USB connected devices can't both operate through the hub at full speed simultaneously because the connection to the PC can't do "double-speed USB3." Not can it support "USB2+USB3 speed" simultaneously. So ANY 2nd device just about has to slow down a USB3 device that could saturate the connection all by itself. So maybe BOTH of us are right.
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I always understood that each individual usb device transmitted their data in sequence, not both at the same time (intermixed if you will). That way each device can operate at the hubs rated speed (since only one device talks at a time).
 
What you say makes perfect sense to me. But that also confirms that if there's a USB2 device in the system, the total throughput to/from the host PC cannot be pure USB3.0 because the USB3 devices can't be transmitting during that time. Which certainly fulfills the "might reduce the overall transfer speed" description but doesn't require slowing the USB3 devices to USB2 speed.
 
Bill Stuntz said:
What you say makes perfect sense to me. But that also confirms that if there's a USB2 device in the system, the total throughput to/from the host PC cannot be pure USB3.0 because the USB3 devices can't be transmitting during that time. Which certainly fulfills the "might reduce the overall transfer speed" description but doesn't require slowing the USB3 devices to USB2 speed.
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Yes, maximum throughput (per second) is affected because usb2 and usb3 speeds aren't the same. But each device can transfer at their maximum speed. Latency is also affected since multiple devices are transferring data. So each device has to wait it's turn. The more devices the worse the latency.
 
Remember that there are two USB Hub meanings; the USB Hub as physical device we attach to the computer, and the USB Hub as Windows controller (several in parallel) with their children instances to service the connected USB devices. Like branch trees and their leafs.

I use USBDView to see on which Windows USB Hub pertain each connected USB device and eventually plug it somewhere else physically to avoid mixing USB2 and USB3 under same USB controller branch.

Having the connected devices in a way that they are dispatched under all available Windows USB Hubs* is also a good idea for load balancing. But this is really not necessary until not suspecting congestion or seing conflict, the whole being managed at best by Windows, as per established USB standards.

* does correspond to the series of USB plugs located in front and rear panels. Refer to the motherboard manual for physical arrangement.
 
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RemyHeli said:
Remember that there are two USB Hub meanings; the USB Hub as physical device we attach to the computer, and the USB Hub as Windows controller (several in parallel) with their children instances to service the connected USB devices. Like branch trees and their leafs.

I use USBDView to see on which Windows USB Hub pertain each connected USB device and eventually plug it somewhere else physically to avoid mixing USB2 and USB3 under same USB controller branch.

Having the connected devices in a way that they are dispatched under all available Windows USB Hubs* is also a good idea for load balancing. But this is really not necessary until not suspecting congestion or seing conflict, the whole being managed at best by Windows, as per established USB standards.

* does correspond to the series of USB plugs located in front and rear panels. Refer to the motherboard manual for physical arrangement.
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Yes, I know what you're talking about. Before I retired I worked as both a hardware and software engineer. I have used USBView for years, it's a very helpful tool. And of course balancing is a good thing. But most often people don't use several high speed USB devices at the same time, so it's something to know about but it doesn't usually mess people up. Can it, sure. And yeah, I know about the hubs that are part of the motherboard chipset. I think the information I passed on is correct, but at 76 it's been many years since I worked on this stuff. I'm just passing on what I think is correct about how the USB transfers work. My understanding is each packet transmitted is from a different device and each device has to wait it's turn to transmit. So only one device at a time is sending data, so each device can operate at it's maximum speed. (given a hub that's fast enough) So USB2 and USB3 can send data packets at their rated speed through a USB3 hub. But of course if you have several USB devices talking at the same time things will slow down because each device has to share the path. Latency grows with more devices. Ha, I've written a book. Sorry.
 
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