When you look at the technical specifications of a gaming peripheral , and more specifically of keyboards and mice, the polling frequency is one of the most common parameters, and in recent times it has become more important because peripherals are beginning to arrive with frequencies that are They depart from the general norm. In this article we are going to tell you what the polling frequency is and how it influences the performance of these PC peripherals.
All self-respecting gaming peripherals, until now always offered a polling rate, also called Polling Rate in English, of 1000 Hz. However, in recent times peripherals that offer frequencies of 4000 and even 8000 Hz are beginning to appear but, What does that work for? Will you notice an improvement in the performance of the peripheral when using it to play? Let’s see it.
What is the polling frequency
This parameter defines the frequency with which the device reports to the PC, or in other words, it can also be said that it is the speed with which it communicates with the computer. We are talking about a parameter that is a frequency and therefore is measured in hertz (Hz).
Let’s take an example: if a mouse has a polling frequency of 125 Hz, it means that it reports the cursor position to the PC 125 times every second, or what is the same, once every 8 milliseconds. If the frequency is 500 Hz it means that it is reported 500 times per second, or once every 2 milliseconds. For this reason, the most common polling rate for gaming peripherals is 1000 Hz, which is equivalent to 1 ms of response time.
A high frequency can reduce the lag that occurs between moving the mouse or pressing a keyboard key and this is reflected on the screen, but the trade-off is that the more times a peripheral is reported to the PC, the higher the consumption will be. CPU capacity of it as the processor will be asking the device for its position or actions much more often.
This is precisely the reason why most gaming mice and keyboards that have a high polling frequency allow it to be configured in their control panel, so that the user can choose a faster communication but with a higher CPU consumption or a a little slower communication but with a lower consumption of processor resources.
Is a high frequency always better?
As we have mentioned before, until recently a frequency of 1000 Hz was the most normal in high-end devices, but in recent times keyboards and mice with much higher frequencies have begun to appear, reaching up to 8000 Hz (0 , 25 ms), which has sparked a new debate as current response times already provide great performance so is it worth raising this frequency so much and putting such a load on the processor?
A higher polling rate might be useful, but there really isn’t a substantial user experience difference between using 1000Hz or 500Hz, so the same is true when we jump from 1000Hz to 4000Hz for example. The resolution to which the sensor is configured also intervenes here (at least in mice), since with a high resolution it is possible to notice a great difference between the “jumps” that the cursor hits when moving it position. In any case, a keyboard with a 1000 Hz polling rate already registers keystrokes on the screen almost instantly, since 1 ms is an imperceptible time for the human senses.
Now, between using a frequency of 125 Hz (8 ms) and 1000 Hz (1 ms) you can notice a lot of difference, especially in the competitive environment where every millisecond can mean the difference between winning or losing a game. We already move in magnitudes where human perception does notice the difference, but really a response time of less than 1 ms is difficult to notice and only gamers with trained reflexes could notice a difference.
In the following test you can see the performance of a Razer Lancehead mouse at 1000 Hz:
And here the same mouse but to which we have configured the polling frequency to 125 Hz, that is, with a latency of 8 ms (even if I put 1000 Hz in the model it is because we did not change it, but look at Speed where it says that effectively is running at 125 Hz).
We can see a substantial difference in two of its parameters, despite the fact that this test classifies them as excellent: first in the precision, because in the test at 1000 Hz this has been perfect, 100%, while at 125 Hz it has us given an accuracy of 98.1%. This means that there have been some movements that have been lost (literally 1.9% of them), and obviously a gamer does not want any movement to go unnoticed and not be reported to the PC, right?
On the other hand, the smoothness parameter has given us a better result according to the 125 Hz test, but the reality is that if we look at the graph the peaks and valleys at 1000 Hz are much less pronounced because the mouse is reporting with the PC much more often (remember that in this empirical test we have compared 1 ms with 8 ms), which means that 1000 Hz is really giving us a greater smoothness of movements in the mouse.
To conclude, in the end the user must find a balance between what he needs and what he has. In other words, the higher the polling frequency you will have a smoother and more precise movement, but you could be overloading the processor with it and if it is not very powerful it could even affect the FPS in games, so you should look for a value that suits you and that does not affect your game. In short, as we said, the average user will have more than enough with 500 Hz (2 ms) or 1000 Hz (1ms) if you are a seasoned gamer, and only professionals with trained reflexes will really notice any difference with higher polling frequencies than this.
