Input lag is the time between clicking your mouse and seeing the result on screen. In competitive shooters, every millisecond matters — the difference between 20ms and 60ms of total system latency is the difference between hitting a flick shot and whiffing it entirely. This guide covers every optimization available in 2026, from hardware technologies to Windows tweaks that actually work.
For game-specific settings, check our Valorant settings guide and CS2 competitive settings guide.
Understanding the Latency Pipeline
Total input lag is the sum of every step in the chain from your hand to your eyes:
- Peripheral latency — How fast your mouse or keyboard sends the input signal (1-8ms depending on polling rate)
- OS/Driver processing — Windows processes the input and sends it to the game (1-5ms)
- Game engine processing — The game processes your input and updates the game state (varies wildly, 5-30ms)
- Render queue — The GPU renders the frame (this is where most lag hides, 10-50ms)
- Display latency — Your monitor receives and displays the frame (3-15ms depending on monitor)
You need to optimize every link in this chain. Fixing just one bottleneck won’t help if the others are still slow.
NVIDIA Reflex — The Biggest Single Improvement
NVIDIA Reflex is the most impactful latency reduction technology available. It works by synchronizing the CPU and GPU render pipeline to minimize the render queue — the stage where most latency accumulates.
How to enable it: Look for “NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency” in a game’s settings menu. Set it to On. Over 150 games now support Reflex natively, including Valorant, CS2, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, and Call of Duty.
On vs On + Boost:
- On — Reduces render queue latency. Use this when your GPU is fully utilized (GPU-bound scenarios).
- On + Boost — Additionally keeps the GPU clock speeds high even when the workload drops. Use this when your framerate fluctuates or in CPU-bound scenarios. The slight increase in power draw is negligible.
Reflex 2 with Frame Warp (RTX 50-series only): The next evolution of Reflex, available on RTX 5070 and above. Frame Warp updates the most recently rendered frame with your latest mouse input just before it is sent to the display, achieving up to 75% total latency reduction. This is a generational leap — if you have an RTX 50-series card, enable it in every supported game.
AMD Anti-Lag 2
AMD’s competing technology is Anti-Lag 2, which works at the game engine level to reduce input-to-display latency. Unlike the original Anti-Lag (which was a driver-level feature and got users banned in some games), Anti-Lag 2 is integrated directly into supported game engines.
Current limitation: As of early 2026, Anti-Lag 2 is only supported in three games: Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Ghost of Tsushima. AMD is working with developers to expand support, but for now, NVIDIA Reflex has a massive compatibility advantage.
If a game supports both, testing with a latency tool like FrameView shows Reflex and Anti-Lag 2 perform comparably — both reduce end-to-end latency by 30-50% in supported titles.
Monitor Settings That Actually Matter
Your monitor can add or remove significant latency depending on its settings:
- Refresh rate: Set your monitor to its highest supported refresh rate in Windows Display Settings. A 240Hz monitor displaying at 60Hz because you forgot to change the setting is a common mistake. Every doubling of refresh rate halves the display portion of latency.
- Overdrive/Response time: Set to Medium or Normal. The “Extreme” or “Fastest” settings on most monitors cause inverse ghosting (overshoot artifacts) and can actually increase perceived lag. Medium provides the best balance of pixel response and clarity.
- Disable motion smoothing: Also called “motion interpolation” or “frame smoothing” on some monitors. This adds an entire frame of latency (4-16ms depending on refresh rate). Turn it off.
- Game mode: Enable it if your monitor has one. This typically disables all post-processing and minimizes input lag.
V-Sync, Frame Limiters, and Adaptive Sync
This is where most players get confused. Here is the definitive setup:
For the absolute lowest input lag:
- V-Sync OFF everywhere (both in-game and in NVIDIA Control Panel / AMD Software)
- Accept screen tearing as the tradeoff
- No frame cap — let the GPU render as fast as possible
For low lag without tearing (recommended for most players):
- Enable G-Sync or FreeSync on your monitor
- Set V-Sync to OFF in-game
- Set a frame limiter to 2-3 fps below your monitor’s refresh rate (e.g., 237 fps on a 240Hz monitor). This keeps you inside the adaptive sync range, eliminating tearing while avoiding the full-frame latency penalty of V-Sync.
- Use RTSS (RivaTuner Statistics Server) for the frame limiter — it is the gold standard for frame capping with minimal latency. In-game frame limiters and the NVIDIA Control Panel limiter add slightly more lag.
Never use V-Sync ON for competitive gaming. V-Sync adds one full frame of input lag at minimum, and double or triple buffering makes it worse. If you see tearing, use adaptive sync plus a frame limiter instead.
Windows Optimizations
These Windows settings have measurable impact on input latency:
- Game Mode: ON. Despite old advice to disable it, Windows 10/11 Game Mode now correctly prioritizes game threads and prevents Windows Update from interrupting gameplay.
- Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS): ON. Found in Settings > Display > Graphics. This reduces render queue overhead and is recommended by both NVIDIA and AMD for modern drivers.
- Power plan: Set to High Performance in Control Panel > Power Options. The “Balanced” plan allows the CPU to downclock, adding latency during low-load moments.
- Fullscreen vs Borderless Windowed: The gap has narrowed significantly in Windows 11 thanks to Fullscreen Optimizations (FSO), which runs borderless windowed games through a low-latency compositor. However, exclusive fullscreen mode still provides marginally lower latency (1-3ms difference in testing). For competitive play, use exclusive fullscreen. For convenience and alt-tabbing, borderless windowed is acceptable.
Mouse and Peripheral Optimization
Your input devices matter more than most players realize:
- Polling rate: 1000Hz is the baseline for any competitive gaming mouse in 2026. At 1000Hz, your mouse reports its position every 1ms. Higher polling rates of 4000Hz (0.25ms intervals) provide a measurable advantage on 240Hz+ monitors, where the additional position updates result in smoother tracking and reduced click-to-pixel latency. On a 144Hz monitor, 4000Hz polling provides diminishing returns.
- Wireless vs wired: Modern wireless gaming mice from Logitech, Razer, and Pulsar have latency comparable to wired. The “wireless is slower” advice is outdated for quality gaming mice.
- Disable mouse acceleration: In Windows Settings > Mouse > Additional Mouse Settings, untick “Enhance pointer precision.” This ensures 1:1 tracking between hand movement and cursor movement.
Game-Specific Settings
Beyond Reflex and Anti-Lag, in-game settings have a large impact on latency:
- Lower your render resolution or graphics settings until your GPU can consistently hit your target framerate. Higher fps means lower frame time, which means lower latency. A frame rendered in 4ms (250 fps) reaches your screen much sooner than one rendered in 16ms (60 fps).
- Disable in-game V-Sync and motion blur. Both add latency for visual effects that actively hurt competitive play.
- Pre-rendered frames / Render queue: Set to 1 if the game offers this option. This minimizes the number of frames queued ahead of display.
Quick Tips / TL;DR
- Enable NVIDIA Reflex (On + Boost) in every supported game — it is the single biggest improvement
- Use RTSS to cap fps at 2-3 below your refresh rate with G-Sync/FreeSync enabled
- V-Sync OFF for competitive gaming, always
- Set monitor overdrive to Medium/Normal, enable Game Mode, use highest refresh rate
- Windows: Game Mode ON, HAGS ON, High Performance power plan
- 1000Hz mouse polling rate minimum; 4000Hz for 240Hz+ monitors
- Reflex 2 with Frame Warp (RTX 50-series) offers up to 75% latency reduction
- Exclusive fullscreen is still marginally better than borderless in Windows 11
