📖Guides to the Numbers Behind the Tests

A test that answers “yes, your microphone works” is not much of an answer. Every tool on this site reports a number instead, and a number invites the obvious follow-up: is that good? These six guides are the follow-up, written for the questions people actually ask after a test finishes rather than the ones a product page would like them to ask.

Why is my microphone so quiet is the one most people arrive with. It puts the level in dBFS — below −20 is quiet, −12 to −6 is the target — and works through the four causes that account for nearly all of them, including exclusive mode, which takes a device away from every other application without saying so. Monitor stuck at 60 Hz covers the second most common complaint, in the order that finds it fastest, and explains why the browser and the control panel can report different refresh rates while both are telling the truth.

Dead pixel or stuck pixel is a procedure rather than an opinion: black on white against coloured on black, what a clean cloth rules out first, and which of the two is occasionally recoverable. Mouse double clicking on one press gives the threshold that separates a worn switch from a fast hand — two presses inside 50 ms, when even a 14-clicks-a-second burst leaves 71 ms of daylight. How bad is my stick drift explains the 0 to 100 score and anchors it to something outside our opinion: the deadzone games are told to apply, which is about a quarter of full stick travel.

The input lag chart is the reference page the others link back to. It is generated at build time rather than written, and it works out frame time, mouse reports per frame and worst-case press-to-pixel delay for nine refresh rates against the three common polling rates — so you can see that a 1000 Hz mouse saves 7.0 ms while moving from 60 Hz to 144 Hz saves 9.7 ms.

If you would rather have the measurement than the reasoning, start with the mic test, the refresh rate test or the gamepad tester and come back when the number surprises you.