Polling rate
Polling rate is how often a mouse, keyboard or controller reports its state to the computer, in hertz; the interval is 1000 divided by the rate in ms.
Also known as report rate, USB polling rate, controller polling rate, mouse polling rate
Checked by a SystemCheck tool
The controller polling test checks this in your browser, on your own device. The paragraphs below say what it reads and what a browser cannot see.
A 125 Hz device reports every 8 ms, a 1000 Hz device every 1 ms. A press waits on average half an interval for the next report, so going from 125 Hz to 1000 Hz shortens the average wait by a few milliseconds. The interval's steadiness matters too: over Bluetooth the spread between reports can be as telling as the median. Polling rate is separate from DPI, which is how far each count is.
A browser shows polling only up to its own delivery. In Chromium, the Gamepad API cannot report more often than the browser polls gamepads, every 4 ms or about 250 Hz, as gamepad_provider.cc sets it. The controller polling test reads the Gamepad API in a tight loop and says when its median sits at that cap; WebHID, in Chrome and Edge with your permission, delivers each report the controller sends, so the interval between them is the controller's own. The mouse test reads a mouse's report rate from the pointer events the browser delivers.
Compare a device with itself on the same link and in the same browser: the same controller can report at different rates over a cable, a wireless adapter and Bluetooth. Polling rate is not input lag. The time from a press to the screen changing includes the display and the game and needs a camera or a photodiode to measure.
Covered in full
This page defines the term. The pages below explain it, diagnose it and measure it.
Sources
- device/gamepad/gamepad_provider.cc, The Chromium Projects, read 2026-10-29
Related terms