On the Audiosurf forums, someone brought up keyboard latency as something they'd like to see as an improvement to the game.

Of course, much of keyboard latency is a hardware issue, which makes me wonder why it's rarely brought up. Gamers are usually very discerning with hardware, but this issue gets ignored.

Back during the DOS gaming days, I know that my friends and I would have to hunt down keyboards that worked well with games. Not all keyboards are made equal and aside from tactile choices (squishy keys or clicky keys?), there were issues with keyboards never designed to hold down more than two keys at a time (makes strafing difficult) and of course, latency.

The only current manufacturer that lists keyboard latency in the specs that I know of is Razer, who claim a near-perfect 1ms and say that most keyboards have an abysmal 120ms response time. Logitech claims fast response times for their gaming keyboards but doesn't actually say how fast, I have noticed however that my G15 seems more responsive than previous keyboards.

I haven't had much luck searching for a benchmark tool that could accurately measure and compare keyboard latency, but if I could find one I wouldn't mind starting a project to test and track various keyboards. I know there is bound to be a difference as well in the latency added by the OS and API (DirectX's DirectInput), so some cross-platform testing could be eye-opening as well.

I don't know if such a tool is even possible, but if anyone knows of one, feel free to let me know.

We've had the gaming mouse revolution, maybe it's time for the same with keyboards. Of course I bring this up AFTER I get a G15. =)