February 21, 2026
Who killed your clicks? Everyone’s a suspect
Inputlag.science – Repository of knowledge about input lag in gaming
Gamers argue: Is your lag the controller, the game, or the TV? The blame game is on
TLDR: A new website maps why games feel slow, breaking down the path from button press to screen. Commenters are split between blaming game code, screens, operating system window tools, and missing coverage of streaming—plus a side feud over grammar—because smoother play means figuring out which piece actually adds delay.
A new site, Inputlag.science, just dropped like a detective board for slow-feeling games, and the comments turned into a full-on whodunnit. One fan shouted, “you can feel it before you can explain it,” cheering the site for mapping the whole journey from button press to pixels — not just blaming the TV. Another big mood: the myth-busting of “60 frames per second” ≠ instant response. As one put it, a pretty framerate doesn’t guarantee snappy controls, and that revelation had folks shook.
Then the plot twists. Streamers demanded a chapter on remote play apps like Steam Link and Moonlight — the “home-network whodunnit” where no one knows if it’s the router, the TV, or the app stealing milliseconds. Linux users surged in with drama: one commenter reports 150ms keyboard lag with a particular window manager (the software that arranges your windows), while other setups feel fine. Cue the zinger: a user tried to rename the whole phenomenon — “call it ‘output lag’” — blaming screens and graphics more than controllers. And because it’s the internet, someone nitpicked grammar and suggested running the site through an AI. Yes, an AI edit for a latency bible. The irony? Instant. The lag? Still on trial.
Key Points
- •Inputlag.science is a repository focused on input lag in gaming.
- •Input lag is defined as the latency between user input and the on-screen response.
- •Industry latency has increased over time, making early-2000s-level responsiveness hard to achieve without image quality trade-offs.
- •System complexity and gaps in developer understanding are cited as main causes of increased latency.
- •The site centers on three major components of the lag chain and provides methods for precise latency measurement, emphasizing the first two components.