Note II Touch Input Lag

[pakotlar]

Hey guys,

I have just purchased my first Android device, and even after extensive tweaking, cannot get rid of this ridiculous input lag.

There are a few threads about this (xda, hard), and I am hoping by bringing the issue up here, we can get some more exposure to the problem.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egsC87LnFZ0

Threads:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1730089
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=38178332

Tweaks I've tried:
CleanRom 4.5 + Perseus 1800 CPU OC / 733Mhz GPU, stweak settings that give the below benchmark figures
Various build.prop tweaks including:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2003062 (no effect)
Tweaks to heap size, fling speed.

This is not an fps/low performance issues. I have exceptional benchmark performance:
~17300 CPU in Quadrant (~2400 / ~980-1000 3d/2d GPU, ~7700 overall)
20FPS Egypt HD On Screen (19FPS off)
~2050 Vellamo 2.0 (680 Metal)
~2330 Geekbench (~2000 Int, ~3400 Float, ~1680 Memory, ~790 stream)

No issues with button lag, app opening time, everything is incredibly smooth, around par with my wife's iPhone 5, but the input latency is incredibly annoying. You can see this by turning on "Show Touch" in Developer settings, and dragging your finger around the screen.

Please leave the iOS vs Android, denial comments, OMG you're too sensitive comments at the door.

 

[lopri]

Carrier skinned?

 

[Red Storm]

Have you tried completely stock?

 

[pakotlar]

Completely stock was worse; on top of the input lag I had general ui performance issues, small skips, pauses, lag on certain actions like opening an application. With CleanRom & Perseus these are essentially gone. Incredibly smooth, great performance, besides the input latency issue, which is terrible.

Not sure what you mean by "carrier skinned" because that could mean carrier icons, or something more, like carrier apps, phone manufacturer apps, phone manufacturer launcher...

I'm running CleanRom 4.5 with the AOSP launcher, no TW launcher running in background, although CleanRom uses the TW 4.1.2 ROM as a base. Some icons are the same (phone, messaging). Almost no apps running in background. Greenify hibernates the usual suspects, Gmaps was uninstalled & reinstalled as a user app, hibernates as well. Completely debloated, no carrier apps, no samsung apps, beside Media Player, S Note.

UI performance is much better than stock TW. I can't say if touch latency is better, my guess is its unchanged.

 

[QueBert]

The crazy thing about the input lag, it's almost the same on the Note 2 as it was on the Note 1. It's not just mild either, imho it's unacceptable for a quad core device with all that memory to have such lag. I felt it was bad on my 1, I remember one day I accidently turned on the show touch option. After that I wasn't able to use the phone without thinking about how bad it was.

 

[Red Storm]

Well I'm running completely stock, with all the Verizon bloat and I've got no input lag that I can see.

 

[pakotlar]

Well I'm running completely stock, with all the Verizon bloat and I've got no input lag that I can see.

Try turning on "Show Touches" via Settings->Developer options->Show Touches . Notice that the white circle does not keep up with your finger; it's at least 2-3 frames behind if you move it faster than a certain velocity. Very noticeable when pulling down the notification bar; doing it fast enough can result in a distance of ~2cm between the bar and your finger.

 

[pakotlar]

The crazy thing about the input lag, it's almost the same on the Note 2 as it was on the Note 1. It's not just mild either, imho it's unacceptable for a quad core device with all that memory to have such lag. I felt it was bad on my 1, I remember one day I accidently turned on the show touch option. After that I wasn't able to use the phone without thinking about how bad it was.

Agreed, completely unacceptable on a 2012 $650 device.

 

[snikt]

Even using multi-window with Messaging and Dolphin, a game loaded in the background, running Apex with a theme, and a couple of days of uptime I'm not experiencing any input lag. I go to my app drawer and scroll normally. Unrooted and pretty much stock Galaxy Note II.

Enabled "Show Touches", scrolled through app drawer, pulled down Notification Bar, still flying...

 

[pakotlar]

Even using multi-window with Messaging and Dolphin, a game loaded in the background, running Apex with a theme, and a couple of days of uptime I'm not experiencing any input lag. I go to my app drawer and scroll normally. Unrooted and pretty much stock Galaxy Note II.

Enabled "Show Touches", scrolled through app drawer, pulled down Notification Bar, still flying...

Hmm. When you say flying, do you mean that it animates smoothly, and responds to the initial touch quickly, or do you mean that when you pull the notification bar down quickly that it does not lag behind your finger. I find the latter hard to believe, but it would be interesting if there was variation between Note 2 batches.

 

[snikt]

Hmm. When you say flying, do you mean that it animates smoothly, and responds to the initial touch quickly, or do you mean that when you pull the notification bar down quickly that it does not lag behind your finger. I find the latter hard to believe, but it would be interesting if there was variation between Note 2 batches.

Yes, it animates smoothly and responds to the initial touch. I see the white dot move smoothly as I'm doing it as well.

AT&T Galaxy Note II, if that makes a difference.

 

[WelshBloke]

Its hard to tell whats going on in the video in the OP. Its slowed down and viewed from the top so I cant see when your finger is actually making contact.

Is some of your problem the way Android interprets touch? Android has an "elastic" approach to input. This is supposed to smooth out swipes and scrolls and let you "flick" down lists quickly. Thats there by design and isnt going to change, if you really hate it you're going to have to go with a different phone OS I'm afraid.

If its more of a "hitching" or that the phone isnt registering your swipe then thats a problem and shouldn't be happening.

 

[pakotlar]

Its hard to tell whats going on in the video in the OP. Its slowed down and viewed from the top so I cant see when your finger is actually making contact.

Is some of your problem the way Android interprets touch? Android has an "elastic" approach to input. This is supposed to smooth out swipes and scrolls and let you "flick" down lists quickly. Thats there by design and isnt going to change, if you really hate it you're going to have to go with a different phone OS I'm afraid.

If its more of a "hitching" or that the phone isnt registering your swipe then thats a problem and shouldn't be happening.

Where is it described that this is an intended action? This is very similar to input lag, for example the kind experienced by gamers who user TV's with heavy image processing algorithms.

If this is an intentional effect I would be perplexed, because it does not reach its intended goal. It does not let me swipe anything quickly; in fact it adds several frames of latency between my intended action and the result.

I've read that this may be related to the use of tripple buffering, but that should add only one extra frame, and this is clearly more than that.

It definitely is not a hitching. As mentioned in the op performance is generally excellent.

 

[WelshBloke]

Where is it described that this is an intended action? This is very similar to input lag, for example the kind experienced by gamers who user TV's with heavy image processing algorithms.

If this is an intentional effect I would be perplexed, because it does not reach its intended goal. It does not let me swipe anything quickly; in fact it adds several frames of latency between my intended action and the result.

I've read that this may be related to the use of tripple buffering, but that should add only one extra frame, and this is clearly more than that.

It definitely is not a hitching. As mentioned in the op performance is generally excellent.

Like I said I'm having difficulty seeing exactly whats going on in your video.

What should happen is that the device should respond to your touch straight away, as you drag your finger the screen doesn't necessarily react as if its "glued" to your finger there should be more of an "elastic" connection to your touch.

 

[pakotlar]

Yes, like you said, the input coordinates do not maintain pace with your finger. I do not know why you assume its an intended effect, do you have sources on this? If it is, then I guess its like the feeling of high-latency input devices.

Regarding the initial point of contact, I believe the same latency exists, but even 100-200ms is relatively difficult to perceive for a single evaluation point. During a dragging action it is easier to perceive since you can visualize the difference between two points.

Here are some more threads regarding touch latency on other android devices:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=24592442
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1593961

There are more if you search around.

 

[shortylickens]

Mine works just fine. Dont know what your issue is.

 

[pakotlar]

More: http://gigaom.com/2012/01/19/video-android-touch-lag-and-a-possible-solution/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1589381

Apparently this issue does not impact the Samsung Galaxy Blaze as much as some other devices, especially Samsung Galaxy S3, Note I & II, Galaxy Nexus.

Edit:
Here's another take on it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=24592442

Again, this isn't a performance issue; my cpu usage stays ~ 4% while this is occurring.

 

[Jinny]

i doubt its a software issue, just the touchscreen technology hasn't caught up yet. i remember microsoft demoing a 1ms or was it a 10ms lag input.

 

[WelshBloke]

Yes, like you said, the input coordinates do not maintain pace with your finger. I do not know why you assume its an intended effect, do you have sources on this? If it is, then I guess its like the feeling of high-latency input devices.

Regarding the initial point of contact, I believe the same latency exists, but even 100-200ms is relatively difficult to perceive for a single evaluation point. During a dragging action it is easier to perceive since you can visualize the difference between two points.

Here are some more threads regarding touch latency on other android devices:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=24592442
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1593961

There are more if you search around.

Yeah but what your describing isnt lag. Lag would be the device not responding immediately. What you're describing (I think) is the device not responding as you would like it to.

 

[Raduque]

You're assuming this is incorrect behavior. This is as-designed to add a fluidity to Android. If all touch and movement events were to "snap-to" your finger, it would be choppy.

 

[pakotlar]

You're assuming this is incorrect behavior. This is as-designed to add a fluidity to Android. If all touch and movement events were to "snap-to" your finger, it would be choppy.

I'm not assuming anything, I'm suggesting that it exists, and asking why. And I'm expression a feeling that this detracts from my experience of a very high performing, expensive device.

Not true. What is this assertion based on? Apple, Microsoft have significantly lower touch lag without any impact to the perception of smoothness. Try an iPhone 5, its quite a difference, and easily as fluid as the Note 2.

 

[pakotlar]

Yeah but what your describing isnt lag. Lag would be the device not responding immediately. What you're describing (I think) is the device not responding as you would like it to.

Well it isn't responding immediately; but no device does. All devices have an input polling rate that is not infinitely small, but this supranormal latency displayed on some (apparently most) Android devices, is in excess of what other leaders in the field exhibit, namely Apple & Microsoft OS's. So every device lags; my Note 2 just happens to have an uncomfortably high input latency.

Also, one can change the polling rate of the Note 2 without affecting this high latency behavior.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm not assuming anything, I'm suggesting that it exists, and asking why. And I'm expression a feeling that this detracts from my experience of a very high performing, expensive device.

Not true. What is this assertion based on? Apple, Microsoft have significantly lower touch lag without any impact to the perception of smoothness. Try an iPhone 5, its quite a difference, and easily as fluid as the Note 2.

Just for comparison I dont own any Apple mobile devices and very, very rarly use them. When I do the scroll does feel "off" to me. Thats not because theres anything wrong with the way Apple does it its just that I'm used to the way Android responds so I know how "hard" to fling pages or lists to get them to scroll to where I want. Its all down to what you are used to.

And again I'd say that what you are experiencing is not lag (unless I'm really misinterpreting what you are describing).

 

[WelshBloke]

Well it isn't responding immediately; but no device does. All devices have an input polling rate that is not infinitely small, but this supranormal latency displayed on some (apparently most) Android devices, is in excess of what other leaders in the field exhibit, namely Apple & Microsoft OS's. So every device lags; my Note 2 just happens to have an uncomfortably high input latency.

Also, one can change the polling rate of the Note 2 without affecting this high latency behavior.

Thats because it isnt latency.

 

[pakotlar]

Thats because it isnt latency.

Just because polling rate isn't the culprit doesn't mean it isn't latency.