The votes have been tallied, and it is time to start a new thread for 2021 
This thread behaves like the "Development" threads in the Special K group used to.
Post whatever is on your mind, unless itās a bug report 
Just woke upā¦ Too tired to to think of something to postā¦
Not too much for now, nice to have a new thread though.
Everything here continues to be being frozen over so taking the dog out for a walk is more like a survival challenge. 
Not much new software wise either and hardwareā¦remains mostly unavailable and ridiculously expensive.
Donāt think thereās too much for a new hotfix or driver from NVIDIA 461.40 appears pretty good and AMD well guessing February and the 20.2.1 drivers are next up there with whatever can be done.
Bunch of Yakuza games came out and the backlog continues to grow.
Might be more eventually, temporarily out of weird and strange Youtube videos.
EDIT: And toggled off tracking before I forget about that for this topic especially otherwise the email account is going to be filled with reminders.
Wonder what happens at 8000Hz.
https://www.guru3d.com/news_story/razer_viper_8khz_gaming_mouse_has_hyperpolling_technology.html
Input lag and CPU stuttering and all that stuff again, going 8x the normal max rate of 1000 which is already somewhat problematic canāt have any major benefits I would think but I could be wrong.
Hyper Polling with Hyper Input Lag and Hyper Micro Stuttering.
Or perhaps not, donāt see how they could avoid that though but eh high numbers sell more. 
(Thatās how this worked again wasnāt it, ha!)
EDIT: Marketing speech is a fun bit too various tech terms and how it apparently reduces input lag and all the speed and data and then a bunch of citations like being able to tell a difference between 1000ms and 8000ms first oneās already 1000ās in a second or however it goes again isnāt it.
Not the first time Iāve heard of it. Custom drivers have been able to do the same for a while:
https://www.overclock.net/threads/usb-mouse-hard-overclocking-2000-hz.1589644/
That said, thereās no real use of >1000 Hz polling rate beyond useless marketing shenanigans.
| Polling rate | Input latency | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 125 Hz | 8ms | Default polling rate |
| 250 Hz | 4ms | |
| 500 Hz | 2ms | |
| 1000 Hz | 1ms | Highest on current gaming mice |
| 2000 Hz | 0.5ms | 500 Ī¼s (microsecond) |
| 4000 Hz | 0.25ms | 250 Ī¼s (microsecond) |
| 8000 Hz | 0.125ms | 125 Ī¼s (microsecond) |
I run my mice at 250 Hz (4ms) myself as thatās the level where I have never noticed a negative impact of the higher polling rate. At 500 Hz (2ms) and higher the input starts having negative impact in various scenarios ā one of the most obvious being that moving some windows around causes the window movement itself to fall behind the mouse input as a result of the mouse input generating so many updates every second.
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Interesting.
A Guru3D forum reply also pointed to a Blur Buster topic about this mouse and some additional info I had no idea about like separating the USB devices or controllers and the PCI Express lanes.
https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=7569&start=100
Those lanesā¦I wonder if thatās part of the ongoing issues AMDās trying to mitigate with USB and PCI Express 4.0 interference.
Then thereās polling rates for keyboards and mouse and interference as well which I was also unaware of could be a problem.
Settled for the 500Hz myself but it probably has some effects only that I havenāt paid any attention to it yet.
Hmm also if this would work better in the future with faster hardware and better hardware.
Ultra-high refresh displays and what not, 600 up to 1000Hz or higher.
Think 300 to 480 is around the highest at the moment so this wonāt be a thing for a while yet though.
EDIT: Which is right there in that reply on Blur Busters actually.
Fascinating!
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465.42 is out for NVIDIA on the Windows Insider channels.
WDDM 3.0 supported guess weāre jumping a bit more next time so 2.7 to 3.0 ha ha.
āNot too much for now hardware or softwareā¦ā
Yeah ha ha.
High-polling rate devices and now NVIDIA insider drivers and another jump in the Windows Driver Display Model.
EDIT: Nothing about the OS build itself and WDDM but then itās the dev/rapid channel with ongoing latest compiled changes for a branched version of Windows 10 or how it works now.
Beta or the former slow ring for the actual release builds and stuff like that and the preview ring as a testing ground for quicker OS cumulative updates or app updates occasionally some device driver.
Different USB ports was an interesting thing to seeā¦ I donāt necessarily think thatās related to the issue I was experiencing, but it was interesting none the less.
Yeah Iām not sure what the benefits are and the best recommendations here but I learned a few things that I was previously unaware about.
The simplest is easy enough keep to 250 - 500 get a slightly faster polling rate without the additional input lag or CPU resource usage and possible micro stuttering.
(250 might be the ideal if thereās mostly just benefits for no noticeable drawbacks.)
OS and the rate with the window movement I was linking to the refresh rate but maybe thatās inaccurate although it sounds like high-refresh displays higher than the current standard of 120 - 144Hz consumer devices will be useful as well though to me this involves the reduction of motion blur lessened eye strain and overall just smoother updating of moving images or frames I suppose.
Suppose if you can sync it up nicely with the OS and DirectX and the application or game if it supports it you also get the benefit of reduced frame time variations and lessened input lag all that which you can utilize SpecialK to improve but even further as newer hardware and support for this improves.
The actual USB hardware and the chipset or PCI-E lane separation that gets trickier for me I can see the charts well enough and I presume this is similar to something like audio setups like a external DAC and reducing SNR or signal to noise ratio reduction or elimination of electrical interference but maybe thereās a bit more too.
I like the discussion around a mouse tester too including making a HTML5 variant for it discussion is from a little ways back so maybe thatās already implemented.
Of course for my own experiences long as the input registers correctly and nothing acts up or disconnects Iām fairly satisfied though I do enjoy these more in-depth delves into how it works and how you can get the most out of the hardware and minimize possible issues alongside with while it sounds like very high-end and enthusiast level gains there are still uses for these extremely fast update rates and responsiveness even beyond the current usual maximum however the issues surrounding this and the drawbacks also need to be considered to dealt with as good as can be which until newer or at least better built hardware is available might not be entirely possible.
Bit of a write-up there, most of itās fairly tech heavy and above my level of understanding and what I usually read up on but I do enjoy these insights though I might not be fiddling with USB port optimum settings and measuring to the same degree some of these tests have been performed around.
ROTFLMAO
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The anti-virus man?
At least Musk makes some entertaining toys couldnāt quite figure out what this guy was doing something about uninstalling and bath-salts I think.
EDIT:
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ā¦
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Again?!
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Soo can anyone explain wtf happened with Gamestop stock? o.O
I donāt know much about how these things work, my best guess is the stock price was low enough for someone with lots of shares to just decide to sell all their stock, then re-buy stock at a lower price, which got the ball rolling. Aka sell high, then buy low mentality?
Watch this video:
This happened:
And then a lot of 
Love how Morgan Stanley tries to sweep this all under the rug, lol.
Market Analysis for Jan 27th
734e4745-60e2-4129-8049-86150ef942ed.pdf (1017.4 KB)
Can specialK block NVAPI HDR, and substitute it with windows own version, Itās really starting to bother me, the HDR re-handshakes everytime i load from a death screen, thus causing a temporary black out.
It does that by default if you turn on SKās HDR feature.
01/30/2021 05:33:18.130: [ Nv API ] <Set> HDR Mode: Off
01/30/2021 05:33:18.131: [ Nv API ] HDR: Max Master Luma: 100.0, Min Master Luma: 0.00000
01/30/2021 05:33:18.131: [ Nv API ] HDR: Max Avg. Luma: 20.0, Max Luma: 100.0
01/30/2021 05:33:18.131: [ Nv API ] HDR: Color ( Bit-Depth: Default bpc, Sampling: RGB 4:4:4 ), Dynamic Range: Full Range
01/30/2021 05:33:18.131: [ Nv API ] HDR: << Ignoring NvAPI HDR because user is forcing DXGI HDR (which is better!)
Hmm turning on specialK HDR seems to affect colors in the game the medium though, none of the 3 tonemapping option gives the same colors as stock HDR.
Wonder if you could use both but I suppose that would lead to some of the game implemented HDR issues and using SpecialK instead might not have some of the UE4 modes for HDR.
Might also need to unlock the UE4 command console.
https://framedsc.github.io/GeneralGuides/universal_ue4_consoleunlocker.htm#changelog
And use the HDR cvars.
Comparably I think SpecialK does Rec.709 up to scRGB HDR and one of the ACES modes is available as well?
Could be why itās mismatched if the game utilizes one of these other combinations.
EDIT: Also took a peak at it but best I can find for whatever reason Unreal Engine 4 HDR even the newer 4.26 forgoes Microsoft and HDR10 entirely so itās NVAPI HDR for NVIDIA and AGS HDR for AMD.
Curious as to why they insist on using these two plugins for this, seems using the standard Microsoft HDR10 mode would avoid potential vendor problems or limits and avoid having to test against both AMD and NVIDIA for HDR compatibility you can just go with the standard instead.
(I donāt think either of these offer any particular advantages either far as I am aware at least.)
Must everything be on a Discord server these days?
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