Better Frame Rates or Better Visuals? An Early Report of Player Practice in Esports

Esports athletes often reduce visual quality to improve latency and frame rate, and increase their in-game performance. While limited research has examined the effects of this visuo-spatial tradeoff on performance, we could find no work studying how widespread this practice is, and how it is done. This paper describes an initial examination of these questions focused on Dota 2, one of the leading esports games. First, we study how athletes manage the visuo-temporal tradeoff in practice by gathering the game configuration data of Dota 2 players in a small survey. We learn that players do limit visual detail, particularly by turning off VSYNC, which removes rendering/display synchronization delay but permits visual “tearing”. Second, we study the intent of those same players with a few subjective questions, finding that though there were exceptions,player intent and practice aligned well. While our sampling of Dota 2 players was likely not representative, our survey did reveal suggestive trends that lay the groundwork for future, more rigorous and larger surveys.