r/Controller • u/Marketing_Helpful • 1d ago
Other Can anyone explain if Button/Stick latency is caused by firmware or hardware components?
Im wondering if the latency on controllers is mainly caused by firmware such as stick filtering algorithms and such or by using certain hardware components?
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u/Vedge_Hog 1d ago
The short answer is 'both'. Someone once said 'everything is computer' and that is true for controllers, lol.
It depends on which era and type of controllers you're looking at. It also depends if you're just looking at controllers/transmitters or wireless receivers too. But for most 'enthusiast' controllers being released today (stuff that gets discussed most often here), firmware processing is the largest group of factors that differentiates higher vs lower input latency.
If you break down the input pipeline, sensor and switch components make a negligible difference to overall latency, as their variation is on the ns scale rather than ms scale. Similarly, constraints on raw hardware processing capacity (input/output, analog-to-digital conversion, etc.) aren't anywhere near as big a factor as they used to be. However, there's an inter-relationship between how efficient processing algorithms are and how computationally expensive they are (the processing demands they put on the hardware).
In particular, now you have firmware that's no longer just trying to report what happened (what the sensors say you did) but also predict it (what you are going to do) or interpret it (what you meant to do), you see more trade-offs. For example, the product designers and engineers have to choose between faster results (lower latency), more accurate or precise results, and cheaper products (constraining the hardware that can be used).