How to reduce Latency ?

[mymacy]

hey guys..

just got my beta invite and its super f*n amazing! :D
i didnt expect it to work that well.. i am already planning to run a headless desktop rig in my closet and playing on my laptop in my bed 99% of the time..

host is a i5 4550k / gtx 770 / 8 Gb Ram
client right now is a thinkpad e130 i3 3227U / internal graphic / 4 Gb Ram
max resolution is only 1366x768 because of the thinkpad

connection is an old 20 euro router with two old ethernet cables...
everything runs smooth so far (everything on ultra but only 1366x768 resolution of course). CS:GO, WoW, BF4, TF2, Hero Academy, Steam Bandits are all 100% playable.. i was especially impressed by the seemingly non existant mouse lag! cpu usage was very low too! (on the client)
SWTOR seems to block mouse input.. but i guess it has to do with anti-bot mechanics from SWTOR itself..
i played bf4, swtor and wow by alt tabbing the host..

only problem ive found so far, is that my alt button does not work.. (cant use alt modifier in wow)


i am totally sold on this already and willing to pay some money for maximum performance..
my bandwith isnt used up at all.. ive got more then enough room there but is there any way to further reduce latency? would an expensive router or ethernet cable make a difference?

and another very important question for me.. as it stand right now, i can easily access my desktop on the headless host... in fact im writing this on my host but with my laptop :D
if steam is planning to keep it like this.. i would pay alot for this.. eg for router/cables/laptop/steam machine etc.... however.. this is only interesting for me if i can run my desktop rig headless.. has there been any statement / comment / etc. on what they think about this? i dont know why they would prohibit something like this but i dont want to waste my money..

[HeikkiH]

Harrison. Do you mean by frame time something which Riva statistics is reporting or what you can find from the hosts steam/log/streaming_log.txt file? You can check there if there is some part of the streaming which takes more than 16 ms (capture, encode, network, decode, display).

[ThisIsHarryDamnit]

I'm checking what Riva statistics says. I believe, but I can't check right now, that steam gives rendering time, but not necessarily how long the frame is on the screen of the host computer. Not sure how to check FPS of computer from steam logs, but I know that the server is getting 60FPS, but steam is only capturing 30FPS. Correct me if I'm wrong this is what I've seen and been told, but I'm not an expert

[Alex Atkin UK]

I believe SteamVideoTrace.txt explains exactly where the latency is.

eg:
k_EStreamFrameEventCaptureBegin at 53754.91ms, delta: 0.00ms
k_EStreamFrameEventCaptureEnd at 53764.27ms, delta: 9.35ms
k_EStreamFrameEventConvertBegin at 53765.11ms, delta: 0.84ms
k_EStreamFrameEventConvertEnd at 53765.86ms, delta: 0.75ms
k_EStreamFrameEventEncodeBegin at 53765.86ms, delta: 0.00ms
k_EStreamFrameEventEncodeEnd at 53776.30ms, delta: 10.45ms
k_EStreamFrameEventSend at 53773.70ms, delta: -2.61ms
k_EStreamFrameEventRecv at 53774.34ms, delta: 0.64ms
k_EStreamFrameEventDecodeBegin at 53774.64ms, delta: 0.31ms
k_EStreamFrameEventDecodeEnd at 53786.30ms, delta: 11.66ms
k_EStreamFrameEventComplete at 53812.39ms, delta: 26.09ms
total frame time: 57.48ms, result = k_EStreamFrameResultDroppedLate

According to Steam staff posting in other thread, the best bet to lower latency is reducing the game resolution on the host machine. That said, if the game is already hitting 60fps on the host machine I can't see it helping much as I believe the Convert section above is the downscaling routine (game is in 1080p, stream is 768p) and at only 1.59ms hit I would rather have the benefit of the downscaling as its effectively extra antialiasing.

Then again I don't think there is much hope of getting above 30fps for me as I don't think QuickSync on the low-end HD Graphics can handle 60fps.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Speaking about the headless setup...I've tested this with the latest IHS beta by unplugging my monitor from my PC then restarting the PC. I had to first connect via TeamViewer to get Steam to launch, since I don't have autologin with Steam. It works fine for all the games I've tested so far: Skyrim, Arma 2, Bioshock Inf, L4D2, Serena, Deus Ex (non-Steam), Sonic Adventures (non-Steam), SuperTuxKart (non-Steam), Windows Notepad :D (non-Steam). My host is running Windows 7 with an AMD Radeon HD 5850.

As far as streaming latency and performance goes, people need to experiment. Rather than using the Unlimited bandwidth setting, first try setting it to 3 MBit/s and lowering the in game resolutions and graphics settings. If 60 FPS can be reached with that then slowly adjust the settings upward until a sweet spot is found.