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Latency determines not only how players experience gameplay but also how online games must be designed to mitigate the effects of latency and meet player expectations. Unchecked, latencies can degrade both player performance (e.g., reduced game score) and quality of experience (e.g., the game is less fun).
We seek to understand the effects of latency on games, and game players, of all types.
While the primary focus is on network latencies, the total latency - from when a player starts an action (e.g., clicking the mouse) until the game renders the result (e.g., firing a projectile) - matters. This total latency also includes the local delays from client-side processing (OS, network stack, graphics, display, game engine, and g), as well as remote delays from server processing (network stack, game engine, and game).
Measuring the impact of latency includes objective measures of performance, such as overall game score but also the success rate of individual actions, as well as subjective measures of player opinions, such as perception of latency and overall Quality of Experience (QoE).
Our methodologies include studying games "in the wild" as they are played over the Internet, but also in laboratory environments where latency can be carefully measured and controlled. Commercial games are definitely of interest and are studied, but since they are often "black boxes" in terms of their latency compensation methods, we also develop smaller, open source games to allow for an accurate understanding of when and how latency affects the game and players.
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Shengmei Liu and Mark Claypool. "The Impact of Latency on Target Selection in First-Person Shooter Games", In Proceedings of the ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys), Vancouver, Canada, June 7-10, 2023. Online at: https://web.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/3d-selection-23/
Shengmei Liu, Xiaokun Xu and Mark Claypool. "A Survey and Taxonomy of Latency Compensation Techniques for Network Computer Games", ACM Computing Surveys, Article 243, Volume 54, Issue 11s, https://doi.org/10.1145/3519023, September 9, 2022. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/lag-taxonomy/
Xiaokun Xu, Shengmei Liu, and Mark Claypool. "The Effects of Network Latency on Counter-strike: Global Offensive Players", In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), Lippstadt, Germany September 5-7, 2022. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/csgo-net-22/
Xiaokun Xu, Michael Bosik, Adam Desveaux, Alejandra Garza, Alex Hunt, Cameron Person, James Plante, Joseph Swetz, Nina Taurich, Brian Clark, Doris Hung, Philip Lamoureux, and Mark Claypool. "Compensating for Latency in Cloud-based Game Streaming using Attribute Scaling", In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), Lippstadt, Germany, September 5-7, 2022. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/game-scale-qomex-22/
Shengmei Liu and Mark Claypool. "The Impact of Latency on Navigation in a First-Person Perspective Game", In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), New Orleans, LA, USA, April 30 - May 5, 2022. Online at: https://web.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/nav-chi-22/
Wouter Durnez, Aleksandra Zheleva, Mark Claypool, Klaas Bombeke, Mathias Maes, Jan Van Looy and Lieven De Marez. "Spaz! The Effects of Local Latency on Player Actions in an Desktop-based Exergame", IEEE Transactions on Games, DOI: 10.1109/TG.2021.3128714, 2022. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/spaz-22/
Shengmei Liu, Atsuo Kuwahara, James Scovell, Jamie Sherman, and Mark Claypool. "L33t or N00b? How Player Skill Alters the Effects of Network Latency on First Person Shooter Game Players", In Proceedings of the Game Systems Workshop (GameSys), Istanbul, Turkey, September 28 - October 1, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/csgo-skill-21/
Edward Carlson, Tian Fan, Zijian Guan, Xiaokun Xu and Mark Claypool. "Towards Usable Attribute Scaling for Latency Compensation in Cloud-based Games", In Proceedings of the Game Systems Workshop (GameSys), Istanbul, Turkey, September 28 - October 1, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/scale-gamesys-21/
Shengmei Liu and Mark Claypool. "Game Input with Delay - A Model of the Time Distribution for Selecting a Moving Target with a Mouse", In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on MultiMedia Modeling (MMM), Prague, Czech Republic, June 22-24, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/selection-model/
Shengmei Liu, Atsuo Kuwahara, James Scovell, Jamie Sherman, and Mark Claypool. "The Effects of Network Latency on Competitive First-Person Shooter Game Players", In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), Virtual Conference, June 14-17, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/csgo-net-21/
Shengmei Liu, Atsuo Kuwahara, James Scovell, Jamie Sherman, and Mark Claypool. "Lower is Better? The Effects of Local Latencies on Competitive First-Person Shooter Game Players", In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Yokohama, Japan, May 8-13, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/csgo-lag-21/
Shengmei Liu, Atsuo Kuwahara, James Scovell, Jamie Sherman, and Mark Claypool. "Comparing the Effects of Network Latency versus Local Latency on Competitive First Person Shooter Game Players", In Proceedings of the ACM Esports and High Performance HCI Workshop (EHPHCI), Virtual Conference, May 8, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/net-local-21/
Robert Salay and Mark Claypool. "A Comparison of Automatic versus Manual World Alteration for Network Game Latency Compensation", In Proceedings of the ACM Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY), (Work In Progress), Online (virtual conference), November 2-4, 2020. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/world-alter/
Mark Claypool, Andy Cockburn and Carl Gutwin. "The Impact of Motion and Delay on Selecting Game Targets with a Mouse", ACM Transactions on Multimedia, Computing, Communication and Applications (TOMM), Volume 16, Number 2s, Article 73, May 2020. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-motion-tomm/
Jiawei Sun and Mark Claypool. "Evaluating Streaming and Latency Compensation in a Cloud-based Game", In Proceedings of the 15th IARIA Advanced International Conference on Telecommunications (AICT), Nice, France, July 28 - August 2, 2019. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/drizzle/
Mark Claypool, Andy Cockburn and Carl Gutwin. "Game Input with Delay - Moving Target Selection Parameters", In Proceedings of the 10th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys), Amherst, MA, USA, June 18-21, 2019. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-motion/
Ragnhild Eg, Kjetil Raaen and Mark Claypool. "Playing with Delay: With Poor Timing Comes Poor Performance, and Experience Follows Suit", In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), Sardinia, Italy, June 2018. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-action-qoe/
Mark Claypool. "Game Input with Delay - Moving Target Selection with a Game Controller Thumbstick", ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM), Special Issue on Delay-Sensitive Video Computing in the Cloud, Volume 14, Number 3, Article 57, June 2018. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-action-thumbstick/
Mark Claypool, Ragnhild Eg and Kjetil Raaen. "Modeling User Performance for Moving Target Selection with a Delayed Mouse", In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on MultiMedia Modeling (MMM), Reykjavik, Iceland, January 4-6, 2017. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-action-mmm/
Mark Claypool. "On Models for Game Input with Delay - Moving Target Selection with a Mouse", In Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM), (Invited Paper), San Jose, California, USA, December 11-13, 2016. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-action-ism/
Mark Claypool, Ragnhild Eg, and Kjetil Raaen. "The Effects of Delay on Game Actions: Moving Target Selection with a Mouse", In Proceedings of the ACM Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY) (Extended Abstract), Austin, Texas, USA, October 16-19, 2016. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/delay-action-wpi/
Mark Claypool, Tianhe Wang, and McIntyre Watts. "A Taxonomy for Player Actions with Latency in Network Games", In Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV), Portland, Oregon, USA, March 2015. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/expected-impact/
Mark Claypool and David Finkel. "The Effects of Latency on Player Performance in Cloud-based Games", In Proceedings of the 13th ACM Network and System Support for Games (NetGames), Nagoya, Japan, December 4-5, 2014. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/cloud-games/
Mark Claypool and Kajal Claypool. "Latency Can Kill: Precision and Deadline in Online Games", In Proceedings of the First ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys), (Invited paper), Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, February 2010. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/precision-deadline-mmsys/
Mark Claypool and Kajal Claypool. "Latency and Player Actions in Online Games", Communications of the ACM, Volume 49, Issue 11, November 2006. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/precision-deadline/
Mark Claypool. "The Effect of Latency on User Performance in Real-Time Strategy Games", Elsevier Computer Networks, special issue on Networking Issues in Entertainment Computing, Volume 49, Issue 1, Pages 52-70, September 2005. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/rts/
Tom Beigbeder, Rory Coughlan, Corey Lusher, John Plunkett, Emmanuel Agu, and Mark Claypool. "The Effects of Loss and Latency on User Performance in Unreal Tournament 2003", In Proceedings of ACM Network and System Support for Games Workshop (NetGames), Portland, Oregon, USA, September 2004. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/ut2003/
James Nichols and Mark Claypool. "The Effects of Latency on Online Madden NFL Football", In Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV), Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, June 16-18, 2004. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/madden/
Nathan Sheldon, Eric Girard, Seth Borg, Mark Claypool, and Emmanuel Agu. "The Effect of Latency on User Performance in Warcraft III", In Proceedings of ACM Network and System Support for Games Workshop (NetGames), Redwood City, California, USA, May 2003. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/war3/
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Some datasets, network traces and tools from our research that may be of interest:
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Mark Claypool [homepage]
Emmanuel Agu [homepage]
Kajal Claypool
Andy Cockburn [homepage]
Wouter Durnez [homepage]
Ragnhild Eg [homepage]
David Finkel
Carl Gutwin [homepage]
Atsuo Kuwahara
Kjetil Raaen
James Scovell
Jamie Sherman
Tom Beigbeder
Seth Borg
Rory Coughlan
Eric Girard
Alexander Grant
Jared Hays
Alex Kuang
Thomas Lextrait
Shengmei Liu
Corey Lusher
James Nichols
John Plunkett
Robert Salay
Nathan Sheldon
Michael Solano
Jiawei Sun
Tianhe Wang
McIntyre Watts
Xiaokun Xu
Home | Publications | Download | People | Gallery
Home | Publications | Download | People | Gallery