To Lag or Not to Lag: Understanding and Compensating Latency in Video Games

Abstract

Latency, the temporal delay between in- and output, is inherently part of the communication between humans and computers. In video games, high latency reduces player performance and experience. These adverse effects are particularly pronounced in fast-paced video games, such as first-person shooters. Previous work shines light on how latency affects video games and how to counteract latency in video games. However, there are still unknown aspects to latency and its compensation. Thus, in the first step, we investigate novel approaches to understand latency in video games, for example, the effects of long-term switching latency. In the second step, we propose new approaches to compensate for latency in video games. We present a novel avenue to latency compensation utilizing deep learning models predicting either internal game states or external user actions.