Click latency starts at the mouse

[Fairman]

Click latency starts at the mouse

Between the finger pressing a button and the platform receiving the click, a few milliseconds are spent in hardware. A cheap office mouse may poll at 125 times per second, which adds up to 8 milliseconds of waiting. A gaming mouse polling at 1000 Hz cuts that to one.

Wireless adds its own delay, usually small but variable, and batteries running low can make it worse. A wired mouse has the most consistent timing.

The display also contributes. A screen refreshing at 60 Hz updates every 16.7 milliseconds. A price that changes between refreshes isn't visible until the next one. A 144 Hz monitor shows it in under 7.

None of this changes the broker's execution time, but for a manual scalper reacting to fast moves, total reaction time includes the equipment. Shaving 20 milliseconds off the chain is cheap compared with a faster VPS, and it removes a layer of avoidable lag.

Hotkeys skip the mouse entirely and cut travel time.

Reaction speed: which small hardware upgrade made the biggest difference?