Lag does not equal low framerates

[charold]

Maybe someone else can correct me, but lag is generally used as a noun and is a measured in time (most often ms). Lag in videogames can be attributed to input lag (how long it takes for your input devices like a mouse to move your character onscreen), network lag (transport times of the packets to and from a server), and output lag (how far your monitor lags behind your movements - closely tied together with input lag).

When you describe your low frame rates as lag, that is erroneous. There is a recent post about wanting to run (3) monitors for BF3 lag free. They meant keep a solid frame rate maxed out.

Does this irritate anyone else? I am saying this for informative purposes, not just to be an ass.

 

[Avalanche]

lag
1.
to fail to maintain a desired pace or to keep up; fall or stay behind

It is used correctly, as the hardware is not able to keep up with the current demand being placed on it.

 

[charold]

I stand corrected. I still feel (here comes my stubbornness) that it's an incorrect usage

 

[NoOther]

Lag is a bit of an esoteric concept at times. Lag is meant to refer to a slowness in response. Typically in usage it refers to either input lag or network lag. Low FPS is not generally a 'lag' issue. It is an oversaturation issue. That is the bandwidth and processing power available to the GPU is not able to handle the amount of data being sent to it. In this case you could claim the lag is in processing the graphics.

However, I agree that I do not believe it is quite the right usage, but I am not sure there really is a properly defined usage for lag.

 

[teletran8]

Yes I think there are various lag issues that can arise as you mentioned a few.

IMO there should be a list of these. Lets see how many we can come up with.

1. Mouse Lag - When your playing a game that is multithreaded for 4 cores, but your gaming on a dual core you will get alot of mouse lag.

2. Network Lag - Like mentioned when packets get lost and have to be resent. Nice choppy gameplay for a few seconds.

3. Hard Drive lag/Slow ass Memory/Bad game optimization loading lag - Oblivion is a good example, texture popping (Or that game from ID Rage) and stuttering walking into new areas. (Hopefully Skyrim is smoother)

4. Running out of Vram Lag on your graphics card -Oh yeah good amounts of hitching going for you if you are lucky enough to pull this one off

I dunno if those are legit that's been some of my experience though with PC's and what we call lag, I think the first real lag/latency term was known as the network one and it appeared in many early deathmatch games from the 90's.