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So I tested at this sight... and it looks like my reaction time is ~180 to 210 milliseconds (ignoring latency). I think of myself as average but possibly years of playing twitch games have had a beneficial effect. I used to play with a guy who had insane reaction speeds both in games and in sports.

http://www.humanbenchmark.com/...

Also... .25s is a typically quoted average reaction time. (and I have average reaction speed)

However some people react as fast as 0.1 to 0.15 seconds and this site's getting an average of .215 seconds.

http://www.humanbenchmark.com/...

"This is a simple tool to measure your reaction time.

The average (median) reaction time is 215 milliseconds, according to the data collected so far.

In addition to measuring your reaction time, this test is affected by the latency of your computer and monitor. Using a fast computer, wired mouse, and low latency / high framerate monitor will improve your score somewhat."

Perhaps a combination of years of driving and years of playing team fortress and doom saved my life.

"... it is just biological and chemical processes that get your body into fight or flight mode." Since that "biological" component seems vague to you, allow me - it's chemo/electrical. Fast stuff. Three hundred feet (100 meters) per second fast. Or, for a six foot tall individual, 1/50th second from the toes (not the eyes where it's more like 1/200th).

Of course, there's some processing and then sending the results back down. Fortunately, there's a lot of simple testing that is going on so we know it's pretty quick. From that site, 264 milliseconds (1/4 second) is average for simply clicking at a screen. No high level impetus there.

That's what triggers the fight or flight. The second or more it takes to either start fighting or fleeing is where the hormones come in, generating the feelings of rage or fear and upping performance. And yes, the system can be flooded in little over a second. The whole thing is not "split second". Only the nervous system part.

~20ms? You're a bit off, almost by a factor 10: http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php
Or on wikipedia if you must: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time

Since the fastest runners in the world have reaction times in the 170-190ms range, and unofficially at least the fastest "clicks" are all above 100ms (I averaged 232ms myself, just below average), I'd doubt you could notice, let alone be affected by, a 10-50ms disparity.

And I'm not sure how you can say 2ms response time leads to a 50ms disparity anyway, that doesn't make sense. Hell, there was a 70ms difference between my slowest and fastest clicks, and I couldn't notice the difference. The tech to get the response times so low does tend to jack colors and produce some odd artifacts, but none of those relate to how quickly it displays the data on the screen, not as far as I've ever heard anyway. Since the color/artifacting issues are relevant, and since 15ms vs 2ms is not noticeable, it's better to pick a 15ms LCD anyway.

Plus, a frame will generally be displayed at least 10 times, if it is displaying at 15ms, before you can actually react to it. Again, the response time argument for not going LCD is tired and nearly worthless.

The problem is probably just that you've been reading weird crap about LCDs, and haven't used them much yourself. Most likely to keep from justifying an upgrade.

Actually, if you really want to prove me wrong (and find out for yourself if the LCD response time is really the issue), go to Humanbenchmark.com and compare your OWN clicks on a CRT with your OWN clicks on an LCD. I'm assuming you have access to one, of course, but it shouldn't be hard to get access to one anyway.

I'm betting there is less than a 5ms difference in your 10 click averages.

Since the fastest runners in the world have reaction times in the 170-190ms range, and unofficially at least the fastest "clicks" are all above 100ms (I averaged 232ms myself, just below average), I'd doubt you could notice, let alone be affected by, a 10-50ms disparity.

And I'm not sure how you can say 2ms response time leads to a 50ms disparity anyway, that doesn't make sense. Hell, there was a 70ms difference between my slowest and fastest clicks, and I couldn't notice the difference. The tech to get the response times so low does tend to jack colors and produce some odd artifacts, but none of those relate to how quickly it displays the data on the screen, not as far as I've ever heard anyway. Since the color/artifacting issues are relevant, and since 15ms vs 2ms is not noticeable, it's better to pick a 15ms LCD anyway.

Plus, a frame will generally be displayed at least 10 times, if it is displaying at 15ms, before you can actually react to it. Again, the response time argument for not going LCD is tired and nearly worthless.

The problem is probably just that you've been reading weird crap about LCDs, and haven't used them much yourself. Most likely to keep from justifying an upgrade.

Actually, if you really want to prove me wrong (and find out for yourself if the LCD response time is really the issue), go to Humanbenchmark.com and compare your OWN clicks on a CRT with your OWN clicks on an LCD. I'm assuming you have access to one, of course, but it shouldn't be hard to get access to one anyway.

I'm betting there is less than a 5ms difference in your 10 click averages.

There's lag in real life, it's called "reaction time". Most regular people have at least 150 milliseconds of this lag and probably a good deal more. Yet, REALITY somehow works.

The only way to get network latency that bad nowadays is to use a dial up connection or a heavily congested link to a location on the opposite side of the world. The non-zero latency is of course something that has to be accounted for, but it's not a guarantee of failure.