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Am I actually better than my friend who has a 60Hz panel?

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Allen_Xie
This topic was brought up a long time ago in some random discord call I was in but just recently I started to think about it more. I personally have 144Hz panel because I'm fortunate as f%%k and my friend doesn't. I was and still am a higher rank than him and he told me it was partly because of my panel being better. I was kind of blank in the moment and didn't know what to say because it kinda did make sense. But, then again, I don't know for sure. Am I actually better than my friend who has a 60Hz panel or no?
Vuelo Eluko
refresh rate means basically nothing in standard unless you play at ar11 because that's getting close to limit of human ability to read and you get that info on circle location a tiny fraction of a second sooner, but even then the difference won't make or break; there are some ar11 players playing on 60hz.

At lower ar there is absolutely no advantage. It's a placebo.

Who is your friend? You can probably spot the real reason you are better by investigating his History, play count, play history density, etc. If he played same amount but more sporadically he'd improve slower, if he has easier maps populating his most played, he'd be playing at a lower level, etc. (or if he's constantly playing stuff way too hard)
Implojin
Lower latency gear does provide a measurable advantage in terms of how quickly it's /possible/ for you to respond to stimuli, but that difference pales in comparison to just getting better at the game. (And, to some degree, naturally being younger/faster.)

If you were <= 3 digit, would you be able to improve more easily with lower jitter/lower latency gear? Probably. (But you'd still need to get better to make use of it, it's not a magic bullet!)

If you're just a casual osu player, does any of that matter compared to the improvement in reading ability you see by your brain restructuring itself through playing more? Not really. Plenty of top players have used 60hz + mouse.


(Also, display refresh rate isn't everything. You have to consider full-stack latency + jitter: There's audio latency from your DAC+OS drivers+OS scheduler, there can be input latency from things like using a crap keyboard or old USB hub, there are differences in tablet latency that vary by mfr/model, you can see frametime variance if your cpu is hitching, display grey to grey latencies vary a lot by panel type and how old they are, and there are differences in display scaler latency even between monitors with equal refresh rates/panel tech.)
SunriseAbsence
Mostly probably your friend is right. When I say that I play on small laptop with small resolution everybody respond something like 'no doubt you can't see\read a thing, this is your main problem'.
It is not a secret that a good proper tool helps to make a work done in much faster\qualitative\pleasurable way.
Vuelo Eluko

Implojin wrote:

Lower latency gear does provide a measurable advantage in terms of how quickly it's /possible/ for you to respond to stimuli, but that difference pales in comparison to just getting better at the game. (And, to some degree, naturally being younger/faster.)

If you were <= 3 digit, would you be able to improve more easily with lower jitter/lower latency gear? Probably. (But you'd still need to get better to make use of it, it's not a magic bullet!)

If you're just a casual osu player, does any of that matter compared to the improvement in reading ability you see by your brain restructuring itself through playing more? Not really. Plenty of top players have used 60hz + mouse.


(Also, display refresh rate isn't everything. You have to consider full-stack latency + jitter: There's audio latency from your DAC+OS drivers+OS scheduler, there can be input latency from things like using a crap keyboard or old USB hub, there are differences in tablet latency that vary by mfr/model, you can see frametime variance if your cpu is hitching, display grey to grey latencies vary a lot by panel type and how old they are, and there are differences in display scaler latency even between monitors with equal refresh rates/panel tech.)
but none of this really matters in practicality if you're used to it. Cookiezi played with wacom smoothing latency, why was he so much better than every other player then? even the top ones using hawku drivers? it doesn't matter. getting the info a few milliseconds sooner at a higher refresh rate isn't going to matter even if you and another player are somehow the exact same skill in reading because at the AR's most people including the best players play at the circles are on the screen for more than long enough to read, and even at ar11 I'm not convinced it's going to make or break.

SunriseAbsence wrote:

Mostly probably your friend is right. When I say that I play on small laptop with small resolution everybody respond something like 'no doubt you can't see\read a thing, this is your main problem'.
It is not a secret that a good proper tool helps to make a work done in much faster\qualitative\pleasurable way.
Sayo, a former rank 1 player, was playing amazingly on a crappy little laptop with the built-in keyboard. I don't think your laptop is holding you back unless your game is just lagging and freezing too much because it's slow. The people telling you this are probably noobs. Big resolution doesn't have an advantage over small, in fact I think it's the other way around.
SunriseAbsence

Vuelo Eluko wrote:

..

SunriseAbsence wrote:

Mostly...
Sayo, a former rank 1...


You're making typical logical error called survivorship bias. If Sayo(top player(sic!), as you have stated) is a)rank 1 b)plays with bad tools it doesn't mean it is 'ok' way to do for casual player.
Leaders don't make statistics, only statistically average elements do.

>probably
You're wrong again.
2 of 3digits(one of them is irl friend actually, who tried to play on my setup as I tried to play on his), 2 of 4digits, 10+ of 5digits of under 50k range(5 of them are also from irl, tried my setup and vice versa).

You're making the same mistake again. You ignore factor of incomplete knowledge. There are many more factors than just simply resolution which make difference of experience using different tools: size(sic!), type of display(matrix etc), production quality, laptop has place taken by the hardware between the screen and something after this hardware->you can use tools like extra keyboard and graphical tablet->they take decent amount of space too(between laptop and you)->you're so far from the small screen\res->harder to look, much harder(impossible?) to have comfortable\healthy and effective posture->decreasing quality of performance from you. Not even speaking about subjective factors like biology\health. Your Sayo could be little man who feels more comfortable(posture etc) with little devices than bigger guys do, etc.
And finally, I'm repeating myself `more pleasurable way`, if person consider that something is not right, not perfect, it makes him feel stressed\distracted, which affects his mindset, motivation\immersion into the process. So if person says something is not perfect and right-it is not, unless person has all objective(which means, again, statistically average) requirements met-only in this case, mostly probably, the only responsible aspect for his state is him.
Vuelo Eluko
I still disagree, on average the 144hz big dick panel guys will be better because they are more serious about gaming, but if they try that hard on 60hz from day 1 they would be just as good. It does not have an impact because the circles do not move, the only thing you get from more hz is the information on circle location sooner, which is purely preference. Some might even be better off on 60 hz because getting that later somewhat simulates very tiny bit higher ar and higher ar is easier to read when it's not pushing 11.

Similarly, you could even make a case that a monitor ghosting, typically seen as a huge downside in every game with actual moving camera both third and fourth person, could possibly be beneficial while using Hidden mod as circles fade out ever so slightly slower

I don't see what your friends playing on your setup proves, it's different than theirs so it's automatically going to be worse... for them. osu! is special like that, tiny changes to my setup can have me playing wrong for days.

you are absolutely wasting money by getting a bigger/higher hz monitor for osu! there are definitely things that can impact your gameplay like a large drops in game performance or a bad mouse sensor but input lag and refresh rate will not; unless the input lag is enormous, you will adapt to it and it will feel normal, no input lag will actually be worse for you at that point.

Audio issues can also be a bitch but that falls under "drops in game performance" in my book.

Again, to say bigger resolution or whatever is better is as ludicrous as saying large tablet area is better than small or vice versa, when you look at the top players you see a LOT of variance on tablet area and resolution. I personally prefer low resolution, large resolution is hard on my eyes and long jumps are too hard to read. It's not like this is irrelevant just because they are top players, how do you think they got that way? by improving faster than the rest. How effective a playstyle is can only be determined by how fast you can improve with it, since there's no hard cap on any particular setup except something like a ball mouse or a bad sensor maybe where you can only move it so fast before it loses tracking.
Rikii
I am playing on my TV with 30Hz refresh rate.
dung eater
I switched between a 60 hz laptop and 160 hz monitor/desktop for a while. It's a huge difference for following or keeping track of cursor. It is a noticeable difference in smoothness of hitcircles on high ar.

To the guy with laptop: it is possible to have a good posture and use large mousepad or tablet with external keyboard.
My solution was to keep elbows in air when playing because the keyboard is close to me. If you play with a lazy posture it's bad.
The resolution doesn't matter. I used 1066*600 scaled to full on laptop 15'6 screen. It is enough to see/play cs7.
Laptop setup: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/95681973
If your posture is bad, do something about it. Get physi al exercise if you don't get enough from work/moving by foot/bike. Sleep and eat.

To vuelo eluko, i didn't get as good with 60hz even after months of active play. Someone else might, but not everyone can play the same regardlrss of hz. not a huge difference but less frequent and delayed cursor feedback was an annoyance.
Vuelo Eluko
you didn't get as good because you hadn't played as much as you did after you had played with the other monitor
or it could have been a placebo effect, sometimes i play better immediately after changing up my resolution, area, or skin just because I'm reading more intently and relying less on muscle memory
i also have a hard time believing you have noticeable cursor lag at 60hz, maybe your skin's cursor just isn't very good/stand-out?
dung eater

Vuelo Eluko wrote:

you didn't get as good because you hadn't played as much as you did after you had played with the other monitor
or it could have been a placebo effect, sometimes i play better immediately after changing up my resolution, area, or skin just because I'm reading more intently and relying less on muscle memory
i also have a hard time believing you have noticeable cursor lag at 60hz, maybe your skin's cursor just isn't very good/stand-out?


It is noticeable. Comparing to a crt (near 0ms display lag) and being used to pay close attention to cursor while playing might have something to do with it.

I played ~18 months+ actively on the laptop and my setup was pretty much similiar otherwise. I kept losing track of the cursor on the laptop in faster maps. The same keyboard/mouse/sens were used. About the same game size (small letterbox on desktop vs further away small laptop screen).

I did do _a lot_ of experimenting with different cursors and circles. A solid cursortrail helps keep track, but it does add clutter depending how noticeable/strong you make it. No cursortrail was more manageable with higher hz.

some bad illustration of how higher hz gives your brains more, more frequent information.

it's not noticeable in slow movement where cursor refresh overlaps with the old frame.
Vuelo Eluko
well, it's good to know your personal preference
Implojin

Vuelo Eluko wrote:

i also have a hard time believing you have noticeable cursor lag at 60hz

60hz motion is visibly extremely different from 144hz, even more so from 240hz

60hz -> 160hz is a difference of ~10.4 ms in both cursor draw latency and cursor position update frequency, that's HUGE in terms of motion clarity

There have been papers published on eye tracking and motion clarity, which is important for things like VR/AR headsets (and military applications like pilot HUDs), the physical realities of human eye motion tracking are the same for simple consumer applications like playing Osu on a poor monitor. (Well, almost the same, distance from eyes to screen is important but beyond the scope of this post.) Valve's Michael Abrash has discussed this online: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/author/mabrash/

One quote from the above (you should really read it):
the sweet spot for 1080p at 90 degrees FOV is probably somewhere between 300 and 1000 Hz, although higher frame rates would be required to hit the sweet spot at higher resolutions.
Display technology is not there yet, but it's getting closer.

Here is some additional discussion on MPRT by the dude who runs blur busters:
https://www.blurbusters.com/gtg-versus-mprt-frequently-asked-questions-about-display-pixel-response/

For a quick demonstration of how much input lag you can personally tell the difference between, you can run flood's a/b tester: https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1134 (ideally you'd want to run this on a >60hz display with a fast mouse)


Motion clarity is complicated and for Osu purposes most players should just get better at the game, but you shouldn't dismiss the difference of faster i/o. It's very real, and very visible, even to an average person.
Vuelo Eluko
I don't stare at my cursor while playing so I don't know, i feel the information being smoother would be a placebo at best for me but I'd have to try it.

The ultimate point is, OP is not better than his friend for having a higher hz panel. He played more/smarter/with a better mindset.
JinMori07_

Vuelo Eluko wrote:

At lower ar there is absolutely no advantage. It's a placebo.
I know that this is 3 years old but i cant stand people saying its a "Placebo" its a literal fact that when you have a higher refresh rate its easier to react and properly see the game. If there is no difference of 144hz and 60hz there should also not be any difference between 60 and 30 right? Well no, if you play on 30 you can definitely feel it being massively more hard to play
Julian_Kaiser
Your friend makes a valid point.
I could already notice the difference between a 60hz panel and a 75hz panel with a larger display.
It does indeed affect accuracy.
Edgar_Figaro
I had a 60hz for a long time and the swap to 144hz was noticeable. I don't play Standard much but I had almost immediate overnight improvement in Taiko. I was an HR main player that liked playing high BPM maps with HR (HR in Taiko increases scroll speed so really high BPM maps become almost impossible to read) The increase in refresh rate helped to drastically improve my reading and I was able to push from 240 BPM HR as my fastest reading speed to 270 BPM HR.

In CTB I found I was finally able to read AR10 while previously I was capped at AR9.8 (although nowadays I can read up to AR10.3 but it was the overnight increase I was wanting to highlight)

Will 144HZ make you suddenly an amazing player? No. Will a new player notice the difference? Probably Not. However once you get up to a certain level of skill the switch can make drastic differences in your skill.
AccountWontWork
3 years pagman
Fxjlk

JinMori07_ wrote:

I know that this is 3 years old but i cant stand people saying its a "Placebo" its a literal fact that when you have a higher refresh rate its easier to react and properly see the game. If there is no difference of 144hz and 60hz there should also not be any difference between 60 and 30 right? Well no, if you play on 30 you can definitely feel it being massively more hard to play
Yeah there's no excuse to necro dude, just don't do it please.
Edgar_Figaro
Oops sorry didn't notice this was a necro, just saw it was a thread with recent activity.
kujubuo

Edgar_Figaro wrote:

Oops sorry didn't notice this was a necro, just saw it was a thread with recent activity.
u are not the one necro'd dont worry
WitherMite

JinMori07_ wrote:

Vuelo Eluko wrote:

At lower ar there is absolutely no advantage. It's a placebo.
I know that this is 3 years old but i cant stand people saying its a "Placebo" its a literal fact that when you have a higher refresh rate its easier to react and properly see the game. If there is no difference of 144hz and 60hz there should also not be any difference between 60 and 30 right? Well no, if you play on 30 you can definitely feel it being massively more hard to play
try not to bump old threads.

but still the difference felt between 30 and 60 is much higher than the difference between 60 and 144, which is in turn higher than the difference felt between 144 and 240, etc.

yes there is a advantage, and it is not completely placebo, but the difference above 60hz isn't anywhere near big enough that you can blame someone being better than you on their equipment, and trying to do so is nothing but copium.
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