Mouse Latency Test

The moment you click, your browser creates an event carrying the timestamp of when the click was generated. This page requests to be called back right before the next repaint, and measures the gap between that original timestamp and the moment the repaint callback actually runs. That gap is the click-to-frame figure: how long it took for your click to result in a chance to update what is on screen.

That gap is bounded by your display's refresh rate, because a repaint can only happen once per refresh cycle. On a 60Hz screen a click can land anywhere in that cycle, so the honest result spreads across roughly zero to sixteen milliseconds depending on timing alone, with faster refresh rates compressing that range. This is why the tool reports a spread across many clicks rather than treating any single one as the answer — the average and the gap between best and worst tell you far more than one number.

What this test cannot see is everything that happens before your browser gets the click: the mechanical switch inside the mouse settling, any debounce delay the firmware applies, and the time it takes the connection — wired or wireless — to deliver the report. That portion requires hardware built specifically to measure it, typically a photodiode or high-speed camera comparing a physical press against a screen response. What you get here is the software half of the pipeline, which is still the part most within your control through your browser, drivers, and background load.

Nothing about your clicks is stored or transmitted; the timing happens entirely inside your browser tab.