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Only buy a magnetic keyboard for gaming

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90 points amichail | 3 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.441s | source
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Night_Thastus ◴[21 Nov 24 18:34 UTC] No.42207215[source]▶
We'll see. As of the latest testing, mechanicals still show the best single-key latency performance.

I got an ROG Azoth awhile back for that reason.

Would be nice to see how far they can push the technology though!

Given that the time to physically press the key down is a part of the latency, Hall Effect could easily beat out Mechanical in the long run. After all, you can make it almost arbitrarily sensitive.

EDIT: Looks like wired mechanicals at the top end are tied (0.8ms) with the best Halls (0.8ms) and a bit better than the best wireless 2.4Ghz (1.7ms). Mea culpa. We still need more test data on Halls in general though. Removed my comment about Wireless being better - though generally wireless 2.4 GHz beats out all but the top-end wired keyboards.

replies(2): >>42207291 #>>42207380 #
1. core_dumped ◴[21 Nov 24 18:42 UTC] No.42207291[source]▶
Could you expand on the complicated reasons? Or have a resource handy? Is it Bluetooth wireless or 2.4GHz radio adapter wireless that’s faster?
replies(2): >>42207318 #>>42207355 #
2. ericbarrett ◴[21 Nov 24 18:46 UTC] No.42207318[source]▶
Among other things, the USB host polls the keyboard at a fixed rate. Fantastic breakdown if you have 30 minutes: https://youtu.be/wdgULBpRoXk
3. Night_Thastus ◴[21 Nov 24 18:50 UTC] No.42207355[source]▶
2.4GHz radio is faster than most wired connections - though the top-end ones with custom high-hertz implementations are slightly better than wireless.

Radio is also generally significantly more consistent - even when the polling rates are identical. You can see this if you look at the testing done by RTings for mice and keyboards. The latency when using 2.4GHz wireless is extremely consistent, while for standard wired connections, the latency varies drastically from input to input.

Bluetooth is crap and should never be used for gaming inputs. It's both high latency and inconsistent.