- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
If you're turning on vsync, and you get mouse lag, don't expect a way to get rid of it.
In most cases with other games, vsync is the main culprit of mouse lag. It has nothing to do with unoptimized games or an oopsie by Microsoft. It's just the nature of how vsync works.
Without vsync, the graphics card should be drawing directly to the monitor, pixel-by-pixel, line-by-line. With vsync, you're buffering whole frames at a time before sending them out to the monitor whenever it's starting a new refresh of the screen. The graphics card will draw a whole frame, and then start on drawing the next frame while it's sending the first frame to the monitor.
This means that you will have a slight lag between drawing the frame and sending it out to the monitor. Instead of drawing the frame directly to the monitor, pixel-by-pixel, it has to wait for the whole frame to be drawn before sending it to the monitor.
How does this introduce mouse lag? Well, everything you see is slightly delayed by buffering the frames. So if you move your mouse, you won't see the movement until a whole frame later.
If you don't believe me, go back and play halo 1 pc. Compare mouse movements with vsync off, then turn vsync on. There should be the slightest delay in your mouse movements with vsync on. You don't even have to be in a server, I can tell the difference just by comparing the cursor in the main menu.
And triple-buffering should make the lag even worse, since you're going to have a 2-frame delay, rather than 1. It will improve your framerate if it drops below the refresh rate, but the mouse lag will be slightly greater.
[Edited on 08.20.2008 9:54 PM PDT]