Blizzard Benchmarks NVIDIA's Reflex Technology in Overwatch

[AleksandarK]

Blizzard, a popular game developer, has today implemented NVIDIA's latest technology for latency reduction into its first-person shooter—Overwatch. Called NVIDIA Reflex, the technology aims to reduce system latency by combining the NVIDIA GPUs with G-SYNC monitors, and specially certified peripherals, all of which can be found on the company website. NVIDIA Reflex dynamically reduces system latency by combining both GPU and game optimizations, which game developers implement, and the gamer is left with a much more responsive system that can edge out a competitive advantage. Today, we get to see just how much the new technology helps in the latest Overwatch update that brings NVIDIA's Reflex with it.

Blizzard has tested three NVIDIA GPUs: GeForce RTX 3080, RTX 2060 SUPER, and GTX 1660 SUPER. All three GPUs cover three different segments, so they are a good sign of what you can expect from your system. Starting from the GeForce GTX 1660 Super, the system latency, which was measured in milliseconds, was cut by over 50%. The middle-end RTX 2060 SUPER GPU experienced a similar gain, while the RTX 3080 was seen with the smallest gain, however, it did achieve the lowest latency out of all GPUs tested. You can check out the results for yourself below.


View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[TheLostSwede]

I'm curious as to how the latency can vary that much if everything else is exactly the same.

 

[nguyen]

dang, maybe this technology can help me fight against cheaters with aimbot and wallhack

 

[chrcoluk]

I think we are for sure at the point of pseudo advantage, no way the human brain can respond to 10ms of time. But as long as gamers think it actually means something, then the vendors will capitalise on it.

 

[Space Lynx]

dang, maybe this technology can help me fight against cheaters with aimbot and wallhack

i stopped playing multiplayer games in playstation 2 days. i realized hacks/aimbots would never end, and indeed they haven't. more subtle hacks exist now so you can't really even tell when someone is hacking. best to stick with single player games or bots imo. i have way more fun that way personally.

 

[nguyen]

i stopped playing multiplayer games in playstation 2 days. i realized hacks/aimbots would never end, and indeed they haven't. more subtle hacks exist now so you can't really even tell when someone is hacking. best to stick with single player games or bots imo. i have way more fun that way personally.

I was pretty into DOTA 2 a long time ago and it's useless to hack there, map hack and scripting may help a little but cannot win over skills and teamwork differences, that's why DOTA 2 is still one of the best competitive online game to date. The worst thing about playing DOTA 2 (and LOL) is that you become filled with salt, a ton of salt .
Overwatch is also one of the games where cheating does not guarantee winning, but it gets boring and grindy real quick for me.

 

[ZoneDymo]

but so this is something that actually has to be implemented on a per game bases? not something you can turn on in your gpu control panel?
and when it says Gsync, it means Gsync compatible as well right?

and lastly...what does it actually do? what latency is reduced?
"NVIDIA Reflex dynamically reduces system latency by combining both GPU and game optimizations, which game developers implement,"

system latency....idk what that means...with this on if I press W I would move forward more immediately? orrr are we more talking about performance, latency in communication between parts?...im confused.

 

[nguyen]

but so this is something that actually has to be implemented on a per game bases? not something you can turn on in your gpu control panel?
and when it says Gsync, it means Gsync compatible as well right?

and lastly...what does it actually do? what latency is reduced?
"NVIDIA Reflex dynamically reduces system latency by combining both GPU and game optimizations, which game developers implement,"

system latency....idk what that means...with this on if I press W I would move forward more immediately? orrr are we more talking about performance, latency in communication between parts?...im confused.

It makes the game engine more responsive to your keyboard and mouse input. Before you can only decrease input latency with higher framerate (Using the lowest settings in-game), with Reflex you can achieve the same input latency at lower framerate (make inputs at 60fps as responsive as 120fps).
This way you can play competitive games with lower end GPU and not being disadvantaged as much, I'm sure 12 year old with lightning fast reflex and 1650 can easily own 40 year-old gamers with 3090 with Nvidia Reflex

 

[Xaled]

dang, maybe this technology can help me fight against cheaters with aimbot and wallhack

or maybe it could make aimbot and wallhackers just worse!

 

[nguyen]

or maybe it could make aimbot and wallhackers just worse!

Yeah now we old timers have to worry about 12 year olds with lightning fast reflex to worry about too and not just cheaters .

 

[TheLostSwede]

and when it says Gsync, it means Gsync compatible as well right?

It only means the monitors listed here

NVIDIA Reflex: Supported Devices

Find displays, mice, games, and more.

www.nvidia.com

 

[Xaled]

Yeah now we old timers have to worry about 12 year olds with lightning fast reflex to worry about too and not just cheaters .

Yeah I remember in Cod2 & Cod4 days a newbie tiny young guy shook the whole community
Luckily this guy was on my team, or I could have had accused him of cheating as well

 

[nguyen]

It only means the monitors listed here

NVIDIA Reflex: Supported Devices

Find displays, mice, games, and more.

www.nvidia.com

Aren't those monitor listed because they have the built in Reflex Latency Analyzer (requires dedicated G-Sync module)?
Any other monitor should works just fine with in-game Reflex option

 

[TheLostSwede]

Aren't those monitor listed because they have the built in Reflex Latency Analyzer (requires dedicated G-Sync module)?
Any other monitor should works just fine with in-game Reflex option

That's what I understood initially, but not so sure now.
My monitor has a module, not supported... I guess firmware support for old hardware is not a thing.

 

[Xaled]

NVIDIA Reflex dynamically reduces system latency by combining both GPU and game optimizations

Let's hope these optimizations aren't just turning on DLSS

 

[TriCyclops]

Nvidia PR on radioactive steroids and coke?

 

[milewski1015]

and lastly...what does it actually do? what latency is reduced?
"NVIDIA Reflex dynamically reduces system latency by combining both GPU and game optimizations, which game developers implement,"

system latency....idk what that means...with this on if I press W I would move forward more immediately? orrr are we more talking about performance, latency in communication between parts?...im confused.

This marketing page has a bunch of expandable info sections towards the bottom: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/reflex-low-latency-platform

My monitor has a module, not supported... I guess firmware support for old hardware is not a thing.

Also from the link above:
"NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer: A revolutionary system latency measurement tool integrated into new 360Hz G-SYNC Esports displays from ACER, Alienware, ASUS, and MSI, and supported by top esports peripherals from ASUS, Logitech, Razer, and SteelSeries."

Sounds like it's separate from the G-Sync module to me

 

[basco]

some more in depth here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleNonSense/videos

 

[Tartaros]

ULMB seems a better choice than Gsync for this, maybe it's incompatible?

 

[Vayra86]

I was pretty into DOTA 2 a long time ago and it's useless to hack there, map hack and scripting may help a little but cannot win over skills and teamwork differences, that's why DOTA 2 is still one of the best competitive online game to date. The worst thing about playing DOTA 2 (and LOL) is that you become filled with salt, a ton of salt .
Overwatch is also one of the games where cheating does not guarantee winning, but it gets boring and grindy real quick for me.

This.

Good/great multiplayer games have been designed in such a way that hacks don't really help or are simply not possible.

Blizzard has a good track record of anti-cheat altogether. Other, less talented studios (yes, Blizzard has/had incredible talent in-house... what's left today, no idea) such as Ubisoft have stacked one fuckup over another and made it work afterwards. The Division 1 was a cheatEngine fest from beta until they completely overhauled the game with season passes. And no the game wasn't built against it. Clientside checks? Wow. Even the alpha/beta community spoke up against that design decision but were adequately silenced... until they turned out to be right. I'm quite sure a good bunch even went on to show Ubisoft how easy it really was.

And its not like they managed to close the gap. The eternal solution was just to shower everyone with gear and hide the bad guys under a few banwaves, the DZ had by then already self-imploded.

DOTA2 is a great example of good design. The Anti cheat is also in good order and the matchmaking ruleset works to combat afkers and just general asswipes. The game has no P2W either so there is zero attraction in getting your daily crap together or anything and go faster than others.

ONTOPIC

Anyway yeah Reflex. Can't say I feel like I'm missing things, but the quest for latency is a great one tbh. Systems are NOT getting more responsive and that's a bad thing.

 

[medi01]

News about AMD tech: "AMD.... to compete with NV tech"...
News about NV catch up tech: "NV...." oh wait, no need to mention of AMD who pioneered this..

Why is that, guys?

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-software-anti-lag

 

[evernessince]

I'm curious as to how the latency can vary that much if everything else is exactly the same.

1440p max settings is why. A majority of the difference is coming from the FPS difference.

The Reflex gains are definitely exaggerated as well. Reflex has been tested and only provides a difference in GPU bound scenarios.

This.

Good/great multiplayer games have been designed in such a way that hacks don't really help or are simply not possible.

Blizzard has a good track record of anti-cheat altogether. Other, less talented studios (yes, Blizzard has/had incredible talent in-house... what's left today, no idea) such as Ubisoft have stacked one fuckup over another and made it work afterwards. The Division 1 was a cheatEngine fest from beta until they completely overhauled the game with season passes. And no the game wasn't built against it. Clientside checks? Wow. Even the alpha/beta community spoke up against that design decision but were adequately silenced... until they turned out to be right. I'm quite sure a good bunch even went on to show Ubisoft how easy it really was.

And its not like they managed to close the gap. The eternal solution was just to shower everyone with gear and hide the bad guys under a few banwaves, the DZ had by then already self-imploded.

DOTA2 is a great example of good design. The Anti cheat is also in good order and the matchmaking ruleset works to combat afkers and just general asswipes. The game has no P2W either so there is zero attraction in getting your daily crap together or anything and go faster than others.

ONTOPIC

Anyway yeah Reflex. Can't say I feel like I'm missing things, but the quest for latency is a great one tbh. Systems are NOT getting more responsive and that's a bad thing.

Overwatch is currently rife with cheaters. Any anti-cheat system they had has been completely defeated. I don't know when the last time you've played overwatch either but it's essentially COD at this point. Teamwork is long gone, TTK is way down, and shields don't last nearly as long. It's the perfect game for a hacker right now IMO.

 

[PapaTaipei]

This is 100% bs. Note how totally obscure is their "testing".

No way you can go from 70ms to 30ms with the same framerate.

 

[Vayra86]

Overwatch is currently rife with cheaters. Any anti-cheat system they had has been completely defeated. I don't know when the last time you've played overwatch either but it's essentially COD at this point. Teamwork is long gone, TTK is way down, and shields don't last nearly as long. It's the perfect game for a hacker right now IMO.

Maybe its related to the overall shitshow that Blizzard has become since 1-2 years. Back when I played it, cheating wasn't much of a thing, and I also remember Battle.net in general being pretty good in that regard. They were active in policing it.

 

[evernessince]

Maybe its related to the overall shitshow that Blizzard has become since 1-2 years. Back when I played it, cheating wasn't much of a thing, and I also remember Battle.net in general being pretty good in that regard. They were active in policing it.

Yep, the game was very good for awhile. It makes the current state of the game look all the sadder in comparison.