Questions about Framemeister input lag for HDMI consoles
I fairly new to Framemeister as I've only had on for about a month and am loving it. I have no issues or questions concerning connecting my Scart or component consoles but I'm asking for some clarification on connecting HDMI consoles and the Framemeister's effect on input lag. I would hugely appreciate some insight.
I store my consoles when not in use to protect them from dust so like the idea of plugging my HDMI consoles into the Framemeister as it's easier than reaching around to the back of the TV. My television is a 4K LG 60UH6035..not overtly expensive so I assume it doesn't have major upscaling power.
1) Are the HDMI ports set to direct passthrough by default or do I need to set them to that?
1.5) Does the Framemeister even have an HDMI input setting other than direct passthrough? If so the following 2 questions may apply.
2) When using 1080p consoles does using these ports cause any input lag versus plugging directly into the TV? Im thinking no as the Framemeister is not having to upscale anything but wanting confirmation that this is a correct assessment.
3) When plugging in 720p consoles does the Framemeister upscale to 1080p and if so (as a generalization because I do not know what type of upscaling power my TV has) would you guys think it would save me some input lag or cause me some?
4) For 720p consoles wouldn't I just be better off buying an old tv that only displays up to 720p, saving me from having to upscale?
5) How does the general gamer handle their HDMI consoles when they have a Framemeister handy?
As stated before I would hugely appreciate any insight the NA community has to offer on this. There is a lot of information on the webs about Framemeister but not so much concerning HDMI inputs and I do not know anyone else who owns one to ask. Thanks much
I store my consoles when not in use to protect them from dust so like the idea of plugging my HDMI consoles into the Framemeister as it's easier than reaching around to the back of the TV. My television is a 4K LG 60UH6035..not overtly expensive so I assume it doesn't have major upscaling power.
1) Are the HDMI ports set to direct passthrough by default or do I need to set them to that?
1.5) Does the Framemeister even have an HDMI input setting other than direct passthrough? If so the following 2 questions may apply.
2) When using 1080p consoles does using these ports cause any input lag versus plugging directly into the TV? Im thinking no as the Framemeister is not having to upscale anything but wanting confirmation that this is a correct assessment.
3) When plugging in 720p consoles does the Framemeister upscale to 1080p and if so (as a generalization because I do not know what type of upscaling power my TV has) would you guys think it would save me some input lag or cause me some?
4) For 720p consoles wouldn't I just be better off buying an old tv that only displays up to 720p, saving me from having to upscale?
5) How does the general gamer handle their HDMI consoles when they have a Framemeister handy?
As stated before I would hugely appreciate any insight the NA community has to offer on this. There is a lot of information on the webs about Framemeister but not so much concerning HDMI inputs and I do not know anyone else who owns one to ask. Thanks much
Comments
3) When plugging in 720p consoles does the Framemeister upscale to 1080p and if so (as a generalization because I do not know what type of upscaling power my TV has) would you guys think it would save me some input lag or cause me some?
4) For 720p consoles wouldn't I just be better off buying an old tv that only displays up to 720p, saving me from having to upscale?
I don't have a Framemeister, but my assumption is that a 1080p source signal would simply be passed-through (or perhaps any HDMI source, regardless of resolution mode).
If the Framemeister actually will upscale a 720p HDMI source, I expect it would be lower latency than having your TV process it. That said, your TV's image processor might try to do more cleanup and still add latency even when the signal it's receiving matches the resolution of its built-in panel. I would scour all menus in the TV to disable things like noise reduction (DNR) or smooth motion interpolation. Find out the proper way to disable simulated overscan. Most TV's make this difficult/unintuitive. Overscan crops the screen slightly, even when the input signal matches the native rez of the TV's panel. Scanlines usually have bad results if your TV simulates overscan and you end up with variable thickness for your scanlines. Even audio volume normalization. Definitely enable game mode for the selected input if your TV has it. I think most older "720p" TVs still had a 768p native panel, so there would always be some image resizing / processing unless you connect a PC running the native rez.
3) When plugging in 720p consoles does the Framemeister upscale to 1080p and if so (as a generalization because I do not know what type of upscaling power my TV has) would you guys think it would save me some input lag or cause me some?
4) For 720p consoles wouldn't I just be better off buying an old tv that only displays up to 720p, saving me from having to upscale?
I don't have a Framemeister, but my assumption is that a 1080p source signal would simply be passed-through (or perhaps any HDMI source, regardless of resolution mode).
If the Framemeister actually will upscale a 720p HDMI source, I expect it would be lower latency than having your TV process it. That said, your TV's image processor might try to do more cleanup and still add latency even when the signal it's receiving matches the resolution of its built-in panel. I would scour all menus in the TV to disable things like noise reduction (DNR) or smooth motion interpolation. Find out the proper way to disable simulated overscan. Most TV's make this difficult/unintuitive. Overscan crops the screen slightly, even when the input signal matches the native rez of the TV's panel. Scanlines usually have bad results if your TV simulates overscan and you end up with variable thickness for your scanlines. Even audio volume normalization. Definitely enable game mode for the selected input if your TV has it. I think most older "720p" TVs still had a 768p native panel, so there would always be some image resizing / processing unless you connect a PC running the native rez.
I leave the television on game mode 24/7 as I can definitely tell a difference in lag when it is off and never use scanlines (even on the classic consoles). Thanks much
1.5. Yes
2. I've never measured the input lag difference of toggling this setting, but that would fun to test if possible. It could do nothing for all I know. IIRC, zoom still works when you have passthorugh set, so it doesn't bypass 100% of processing.
3. The Framemeister will output whatever resolution you have configured. I imagine this means it will downscale a 1080p HDMI input to 720p if that's what you have set. I've always just used passthrough so I've never messed with HDMI sources though.
4. In terms of input lag, no, at least based on my TVs. Your best purchase would be any TV that has overall low input lag rather than worrying about the scaling to your TV's native res. On my 720p TVs, I can't measure any difference between sending it a 480p and 720p source @240fps, so whatever difference there is, if any, is less than 4ms. The deinterlacing lag when I send it 480i or 240p is measurable and definitely a bigger problem than the scaling. I've read anecdotally on places like system11 that integer scaling to your display's native resolution only takes "a couple of milliseconds" so it's nice to see that true in practice. There's lots of sketchy info about input lag out there and lots of people measuring based on "how it feels".
5. I plug my thingy into the HDMI port and pass it through
The Framemeister adds ~20-22ms latency regardless of settings, at least for analog inputs. Assuming passthrough is nearly lagless, that would be superior to using the FM to scale an HDMI input to your TV's native res, at least if the same ~20-22ms holds true for digital inputs.
1. You have to set the HDMI ports to passthrough individually. I forget where in the menus it is, but it's something pretty obviously named.
1.5. Yes
2. I've never measured the input lag difference of toggling this setting, but that would fun to test if possible. It could do nothing for all I know. IIRC, zoom still works when you have passthorugh set, so it doesn't bypass 100% of processing.
3. The Framemeister will output whatever resolution you have configured. I imagine this means it will downscale a 1080p HDMI input to 720p if that's what you have set. I've always just used passthrough so I've never messed with HDMI sources though.
4. In terms of input lag, no, at least based on my TVs. Your best purchase would be any TV that has overall low input lag rather than worrying about the scaling to your TV's native res. On my 720p TVs, I can't measure any difference between sending it a 480p and 720p source @240fps, so whatever difference there is, if any, is less than 4ms. The deinterlacing lag when I send it 480i or 240p is measurable and definitely a bigger problem than the scaling. I've read anecdotally on places like system11 that integer scaling to your display's native resolution only takes "a couple of milliseconds" so it's nice to see that true in practice. There's lots of sketchy info about input lag out there and lots of people measuring based on "how it feels".
5. I plug my thingy into the HDMI port and pass it through
The Framemeister adds ~20-22ms latency regardless of settings, at least for analog inputs. Assuming passthrough is nearly lagless, that would be superior to using the FM to scale an HDMI input to your TV's native res, at least if the same ~20-22ms holds true for digital inputs.
Thanks for the awesomeness, now to find the pesky passthrough setting. You are appreciated...
#muchinfo #hasalltheanswers #superhelpful #a+advice #thanksagain
Of course, your controllers will also add a delay even if the generated video is displaying at a low latency. There's a lot to this. Getting no latency from controller to eyeball is a pipe dream so the important part is to reduce it at each step possible for your setup and see if the results are acceptable. Game Mode definitely helps, but it still scales and you may still have wireless controllers in the mix among other things.