Click-to-photon — the time from switch actuation to pixels changing — is the only latency number that matters, because it's the one your brain plays against. Here's the stage-by-stage accounting, and which stages you can actually control.
Stage 1: the input device (0.1–8ms)
A 125Hz mouse adds up to 8ms of polling delay alone; 8000Hz cuts that to 0.125ms. Debounce, switch type and wireless implementation stack on top. This stage is pure hardware + configuration — the cheapest milliseconds you'll ever buy back.
Stage 2: OS input path (0.5–5ms)
Windows pointer processing, USB power saving and how the scheduler treats your game all sit between the device and the game. Turning off pointer acceleration and USB power saving, using raw input in-game, and tuning the multimedia scheduler for games cleans up this stage — the Windows-side parts are what Zero Delay handles.
Stage 3: render queue (1–20ms)
The biggest and most misunderstood stage. A GPU at 99% load with a deep pre-render queue is rendering your past, not your present. The fix trio: FPS cap below refresh, Reflex/Anti-Lag on, pre-render queue tuned per game. This stage alone explains why capped setups out-feel uncapped ones.
- GPU at 99% = latency, cap it
- Reflex/Anti-Lag → on wherever it exists
- Queue depth → 1 for esports titles
Stage 4: display (1–30ms)
Panel response, processing modes and refresh rate close the loop. 240Hz halves frame-delivery jitter versus 144Hz; proper overdrive settings prevent smear without inverse ghosting; and any TV-style processing must die.
What you can actually control
Your total will always include your device and display physics. The stages you can tune are the OS input path and the render queue, and on a loaded stock system the render queue is usually where the biggest controllable delay sits. Measure before and after so you know what changed.
- ✓Click-to-photon is the only latency that matters
- ✓The render queue hides the biggest milliseconds
- ✓8000Hz polling costs less than a monitor upgrade
- ✓Measure before and after every change
Skip the manual work
The Bravo apps apply tweaks like these for you, with a change history so supported changes can be rolled back.
See the tweak packs →