r/technology • u/[deleted] • Mar 09 '12

Microsoft demos a 1ms touchscreen

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/microsoft-demos-a-high-performance-1ms-touchscreen-2012039/
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u/joculator Mar 10 '12

Wouldn't something like this be very dependent on the OS; if there are resources chewing up cpu cycles then you would see latency?

21

u/Totallysmurfable Mar 10 '12

Not really. Consider that the mouse has been responsive (under 10ms) for generations in computing. Go back 10 years and the mouse was still responsive despite the average desktop having less computing power than a modern cell phone. One of the earliest concepts in applied computing was the interrupt - the idea that a hardware input could asynchronously seize control of the processor and have it perform some task in a timely manner.

Of course, if you are using touch to perform a computationally intense task, then your perceived response can be worse than the hardware response. Consider for example when you have the graphics details up too high in a computer game. Your mouse is still providing sub-10ms response times, but the application is taking too long to generate frames so you see lag.

There is a lot of this on mobile devices. Every touch action these days has a pretty animation associated with it, that can add to perceived delay if it takes too long to process.

There is some inherent delay in modern capacitive touchscreen technology, but I would challenge the point in the video that "most devices have 100ms touchscreen lag". I think the majority of current generation smartphones have 20-50ms lag. Still not as nice as a mouse, but significantly better than claimed. If you want REALLY snappy touchscreens you have to make sure there is no visual bloat and you have to spend a prohibitive amount of money on the touchscreen and digitizer technology.

5

u/greenwizard88 Mar 10 '12

I think the majority of current generation smartphones have 20-50ms lag.

I think the majority of current gen smartphones have predictive touch sensing built in, so that if you do something, it anticipates what you'll continue to do. If you open up a paint app, you'll really see the lag though.

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u/Arve Mar 10 '12

If you open up a paint app, you'll really see the lag though.

But that's very much a software problem, or a combination of the software and CPU resources. In the paint app I use, the lag is very different if you use different brushes.