Problem Details:

I have had some extreme input lag for a while ever since I used the mac client in 2012. If I turn off sound effects and hit my keyboard with the music, I have to set the universal offset to -260 to hit the 300's perfectly. I tested this in edit mode with a keyboard latency test map (just a hit circle every other beat) and got 0 ms early/late with the UO at -260. This is with the built-in keyboard on the laptop itself, so the problem is not a delay with my wired one. When clicking the mouse, I get 20 ms early. I have tried changing the wine engine and updating the wrapper, neither improving the delay.

For a while I thought it was just my computer, but I tested it on two other macs and got similar results (I haven't tested the exact delay on them, but they're about the same). The two macs that I tested on are a 13-inch, early 2011 MacBook Pro and a 13-inch, late 2012 MacBook Air.

Here are my computer specs:

On a side note, the hit sounds and music are timed with universal offset to -21.

I don't think there is delay in any other app, but there aren't many that require this kind of instantaneous input. I may just not have noticed it.

osu! version: 20150103.8 (latest)

Same problem here....

PizzaLovers007 wrote:

Problem Details:

I have had some extreme input lag for a while ever since I used the mac client in 2012. If I turn off sound effects and hit my keyboard with the music, I have to set the universal offset to -260 to hit the 300's perfectly. I tested this in edit mode with a keyboard latency test map (just a hit circle every other beat) and got 0 ms early/late with the UO at -260. This is with the built-in keyboard on the laptop itself, so the problem is not a delay with my wired one. When clicking the mouse, I get 20 ms early. I have tried changing the wine engine and updating the wrapper, neither improving the delay.

For a while I thought it was just my computer, but I tested it on two other macs and got similar results (I haven't tested the exact delay on them, but they're about the same). The two macs that I tested on are a 13-inch, early 2011 MacBook Pro and a 13-inch, late 2012 MacBook Air.

Here are my computer specs:

SPOILER

MacBook Pro
13-inch, Early 2011
Processor: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB
Software: OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) <-- Latest Mavericks

On a side note, the hit sounds and music are timed with universal offset to -21.

I don't think there is delay in any other app, but there aren't many that require this kind of instantaneous input. I may just not have noticed it.

osu! version: 20150103.8 (latest)

> I don't think there is delay in any other app

This is mostly true; there is a substantial delay for macbooks though it's probably normal for a non-gaming laptop. I've tested this with my own macbook and all my friends' macbooks and the result is the same: Macbooks inherently have quite some input lag.

Try this: Open textedit, take a camera/a phone camera and video yourself tapping a key. Then look in the video frame by frame. You should see a huge delay between the keypress and the actual letter appearing in textedit.

I tested this again just now with 30fps video.

Keyboard-->Video delay:

Methodology: I'm starting the count from after I see the key fully depressed (I tapped quite fast so we know the tapping event took place some time in the frame before) and ending the count when I see the LCD show a very very faint cursor at the second position. This is important because the macbook LCD takes around 1 frame to fully update.

First tap: 4 frames
Second tap: 2 frames
Third tap: 2 frames
Fourth tap: 2 frames

2 frames is around 67ms, but it's closer to 3 frames when you can actually see the output on the screen (plus we're starting the measurement AFTER the tapping event), so I'd hazard a guess of 100ms delay for keyboard->video.

Keyboard-->Audio delay:

Methodology: This time I'm using exclusively audio data (despite recording the whole thing with a video). I opened Garageband and recorded some tapping with delay on the instrument set to 0 (in this case it was "realistic marimba").

This is how I'm measuring the delay. It's not important to be too precise.


First tap: 105ms
Second tap: 47ms
Third tap: 44ms
Fourth tap: 43ms
Fifth tap: 40ms

Seems like there is much less native audio lag, but interesting to see how the input lag for a *native* *music editing* software can be so inconsistent.

I think the root of the problem is in mono/wine. We just need to wait for legit native OSX support with openGL and all that jizz.

EDIT: Measured audio delay in osu:

150ms
150ms
151ms
150ms

That's pretty consistent, but consistently slow.