I’ve been wondering this recently. I grew up on atari/nes/snes and so of course almost all of those games (pretty sure all) are written in assembly and are rock solid smooth and responsive for the most part. I wonder if this has affected how I cannot stand to play badly optimized games eith even a hint of a laggy feel to it. I’ve always been drawn to quake and cs for that reason: damn smooth. And no, it doesn’t just need to be FPS games either. I cant play beat saber with a modicum of lag or i suck massively, but others can play just fine and not even notice the lag.
Its odd. I feel like a complainer but maybe I just notice it more easily than others?
I was playing punch out on the switch the other day and 100% this. That game was all about proper timing and reaction speed. All the little latencies add up to it being nearly impossible. I never beat the game as a kid, but I could get to the last fighter, Tyson in my version, Mr Dream? In the non Tyson version? Anyway, can’t even beat the Russian dude that laugh taunts me on the switch. I know what to hit, and when to hit it, but HDMI lag, upscaling lag, blue tooth controller lag, all add up to it being nearly impossible to react.