Display lag on a Wii U Gamepad

[Sixfortyfive]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=799037

Has anyone ever done some precise testing on how much the Gamepad actually lags behind a CRT? I noticed that performance seems to be a bit worse on Virtual Console games than native Wii U games with Off-TV Play and would like to see if anyone has done more thorough testing on it.

[Pasky]

Must be quite a bit considering the video data is sent wirelessly.

[BazookaBen]

I can speak to this because I played through Mario 3D World on my CRT computer monitor, using a component to RGB converter. Whenever I played on the gamepad, I noticed very slight lag compared to my CRT. The Neogaf post you linked pretty much nailed how small the delay is. Barely a frame.

Given the technology though, it's stil really impressive if you think about it. The gamepad has less lag than some LCD TV's, and it's sending data two ways!

[Pasky]

It's far more than 'barely a frame'. I use mine, albeit with a LCD tv and the lag is quite noticable.

[MrMonkeyMan]

It's weird with virtual console. If you pause the game with the home button it will actually pause the game on different frames between the TV and the pad, so there seems to be an extra frame of lag in the emulator.

[japtor]

Some game site did a test around when the system came out, I forget the name but iirc it was the one that does all the anal graphic comparisons between multi console games. I think they measured it at 1 or 2 frames at 60fps.

If the VC stuff is lagging beyond that that's pretty interesting though. I wonder how the Wii mode fares.

[Sixfortyfive]

It's weird. It's as if native Wii U games can draw to both screens (TV and Gamepad) at the same time (resulting in the only delay being that which is inherent to the Gamepad's streaming capabilities), but Virtual Console games can't (meaning that the Gamepad lag is the sum of the streaming lag plus this weird emulator frame-buffer lag), at least judging by all of the examples posted in the linked thread in the OP. I wonder if that's consistent across all games.

[japtor]

One other variable might be how it's drawing to both screens. Like I'd guess there's a raw mirror method but of course the screens can be treated independently, so maybe something is happening there (like if the emulator is drawing the screens separately for some purpose?).

Like someone mentioned in that thread, I'd like to see how the GBA stuff (those were done by M2 instead of in house) and VC games in Wii mode compare.