We’ve all heard about the importance of latency in gaming. It’s all that most competitive gamers and aspiring e-sport athletes talk about …but does it really matter? In this post we’ll talk about what exactly latency is, why it matters for gaming, does it really matter, and what you can do about it.
Since we’re all about gaming earbuds, we’ll only be focusing on audio latency, but we will talk about the other kinds of latency as they come along. But if you want a deeper dive into latency, we talk about it more in this post.
What Is Latency in Gaming?
In general, latency is the time gap between action and output.
When gamers talk about latency, it’s usually in the context of network latency where conveniently, there’s not a lot you could have done when someone else shoots you first and you had to admit that it was a skill issue. Unless, of course, it was an actual technical issue that prevented you from doing so.
Next, there’s input latency. This is the latency that comes from your own action as the user, and the reaction or output within the server. This includes your gaming system (PC/Console/Mobile/etc), your peripherals (Controller/KBM/Flight Stick/etc), and everything in-between. In practice, this is what gamers really fall back to when they’d like to blame something when it’s actually a skill issue on their part.
Under input latency, there are those that come from your peripherals such as your TV or monitor, and your sound system, which is where audio latency comes in. Audio latency is the short delay between when an audio signal enters a system, and the resulting output gets sent out through, either your speakers, or earbuds or headphones. Or if you’re fancy like that, a home theater system.
Historically, this was never a problem since all people had to work with were wired devices. However, when wireless Bluetooth headphones came out in the 2000’s, audio latency began to be a problem mostly in gaming. Because although it doesn’t matter as much when you’re listening to music (your only inputs are usually pause/play or previous/next song) or even having a call with someone, gaming requires a lot more inputs and a lot less delay from those inputs. So even 50–100 milliseconds can feel “off” to most people.
Why Low-Latency Matters for Competitive Gaming
When we say “competitive gaming” we don’t just mean the top-of-the-line E-Sports Tournaments of champions. It can be any kind of gaming where one player’s trying to *really* beat the other one and gain points over them because that’s when you need as many advantages over on your side.
Timing is everything. In shooters, MOBAs, and especially fighting games, audio cues aren’t simply there as background noise. I suppose you could play fighting games on mute, but hearing a footstep, a reload, or a cast or combo charging up a fraction of a second late can make the difference between you killing, or getting killed.
This is why pro and competitive players push for the lowest latency POSSIBLE in all their devices. Most Bluetooth earbuds average at about 100ms (milliseconds) to 300ms, which would be very noticeable in gaming—however, this is mostly dependent on the audio codec that’s running the connection and some protocols can actually reduce it to around 34ms, which is really good for gaming (but more on that in the next section).
Timing is also why wired headsets have always been the standard when it comes to high stakes competitions. When championship medals and tens of thousands of Dollars in prize money are at stake, would you be willing to take any chances?
But what if there’s not really anything at stake?
Well…
Some Latency Okay in Casual and Single Player Gaming (actually)
A little bit of latency is okay, and it will mostly boil down to how much you can tolerate that kind of an annoyance. But if you find that it severely ruins your reaction times and it becomes too unenjoyable to play, then it’s a problem.
For slower-paced games like an RPG (especially turn-based ones), strategy games, or story-driven atmospheric adventure games, latency isn’t really that critical. However when you’re playing games such as Witcher 3 where missing a dodge can ruin your Death March run, or Modern Platformers like the recently released Indie hit, Hollow Knight – Silksong, latency will matter a lot more.
But if we were to simplify things for you, what really matters more here is a consistently good audio quality that gives you the atmosphere, immersion, and comfortable experience that you’re looking for. A small delay won’t necessarily break immersion here the way it can ruin your streak in a faster-paced PVP match.
So if you wanted to go wireless, what are your options?
Low-Latency Wireless Audio
Despite what we said earlier about latency, Bluetooth has come a really long way from when it was first introduced for audio consumption.
Early Bluetooth headsets were mostly for calls, not for music, games, or movie consumption so these things absolutely STRUGGLED when it came to latency. But anything that’s at least Bluetooth 5.0 and with newer protocols have cut latency down significantly. SBC (Standard), which comes in most “normal” earbuds, has a typical latency of around 150-250ms, which is good for general use; aptX offers improved latency at around 50-150ms; while aptX Low Latency is designed for minimal delay, and can get to around 34ms,
We believe these levels of latency are good enough for video consumption, and we’ll go even further and argue that it’s more than enough for some chill gaming. But if you’re wondering if there’s something faster than these protocols because you’re just not cool with any kind of latency like that, the answer is yes.
For “regular earbuds” you generally only get just the one Bluetooth option. However, for those branded as gaming earbuds, these often come with extra features such as low-latency modes that are able to decrease the wireless latency even further. However, this can be a double-edged sword.
These dedicated lower-latency or “gaming modes” are able to lower whatever latency these wireless earbuds have by either:
- Decreasing the audio quality, which reduces the size of the data packets needed to be transmitted, which in turn would reduce the latency; or by
- “Overclocking” certain components (and throttling others), which allow for more data transfers and overhead to absorb and kind of latency.
For fighting games or MOBAs where all you really need is a binary (i.e., present, or not-present) audio cue, these will actually work pretty well. However, for FPS or Action RPGs where precise directional, or spatial audio, is what you need more, what’s best for you is to preserve as much audio fidelity as you can.
This means that for you, you should get either something with aptX Low Latency already (trust us, it’s worth the investment), or whatever that’s just under that protocol that you’re gonna be comfortable with.
That said, earbuds with dedicated 2.4GHz wireless connections exist as well.
We discuss the three main wireless connections in this post in greater detail, but to keep things simple, if the lowest latency protocols in Bluetooth are able to bring down latency down to 30ms, 2.4GHz wireless can bring that down even further to 20ms, or even 10ms. This is basically the same latency as wired headphones, or at least 99.999999% of people won’t be able to tell the difference.
How can we make such a bold claim?
Fact Check: Can You Actually Tell Milliseconds Apart?
Unless you’re Superman or Spider-Man, most people actually struggle to consistently perceive delays of anything under 100ms. And just so we’re on the same page, that’s 100 milliseconds, or 1/10th of a second.
Having low-latency only really becomes a problem in games where:
- Fast reaction times are key and crucial for you to win (and the other guy to lose), and
- A repetitive input and output loop helps you perceive the latency better in relative terms.
I don’t think we need to explain the importance of fast reaction times that much because if “you see enemy, you shoot first before it shoots you and that’s how you win”. If we go to other genres like turn-based RPGs, latency doesn’t really matter at all since you’re playing these games very slowly and methodically much like chess.
But if we go to genres like precision platformers that we mentioned earlier, you’ll really only notice or perceive these delays because you’re repeatedly making the input over and over again, while seeing that output very frequently next to your inputs. Thus, relatively speaking, you’re able to get a sense of whether you’re actually experiencing latency because your mind is that focused and zoomed-in. And honestly, input latency is a lot more critical in genres like precision platformers or Action RPGs.
So to summarize, most people won’t be able to tell the difference between 10ms, 20ms, 30ms, 40ms, and even 50ms. However, it’s still better to err on the side of the least latency you have access to, because 20ms is objectively a lot more low-latency than something that’s closer to 100ms like 80ms. Plus, it’s always better to have a bit more overhead so that if you encounter the occasional interference and things have to slow down, you should still be within the 100ms range.
So, Does Low Latency Really Matter?
For hardcore or competitive players, yes. For everyone else, it depends.
Latency is a crucial factor that affects your performance and ability to win medals, accolades, and that sweet cash prize you and your team have been training hard for. But for casual or story-driven gamers, it’s far less of a dealbreaker especially with the newer Bluetooth protocols available.
Then we add in things like 2.4GHz wireless connections that can make wireless latency functionally the same as wired, and you’ve got some really good earbud options out there.
The days of PAINFULLY obvious audio lag are mostly behind us. And that’s the keyword here, PAINFULLY.
At the end of the day, the absolute most zero low latency is a must-have for some people. But for most players? It’s more of a nice-to-have. And good Bluetooth earbuds with a solid low-latency codec is one that’s really nice to have.If you want to check out our top picks for gaming earbuds, check out our top picks here (ranked!).
