One of the most important aspects of fighting games is input latency. This is because input latency can make the difference between whether your input is lost during precise moments due to a delay brought by the monitor you're playing video games in or the system you're playing your favorite fighting games on. The fighting game community has had a long and arduous fight against input delay, and now, we may have a solution that might change this for the better: an optimization package called FGCOS.

　　FGCOS stands for Fighting Game Community Operating System; it's an optimization package created by FGC member Arturo "NYCFurby" Sanchez. This optimization package allows users to improve their fighting game experience by lowering input delay across the board. Additionally, this optimization package works across every game you could be playing on PC, so you will be experiencing reduced latency for all kinds of titles, including those played through emulators.

　　PC is touted as one of the best gaming experiences, especially when owning top-of-the-end hardware. So, having a toolset that allows users to massively optimize their experience across all their games and other software is fantastic. The objective overall for FGCOS is to allow users to play at a Tournament Standard level without the hassle of worrying about specific configurations, bringing the plug & play simplicity of console gaming to the PC hardware.

　　The benefits can be seen right away as you can use FGCOS to bypass internet lag and experience the smoothest gameplay, also allowing you to react and defend better while letting your inputs become cleaner and more consistent while reducing stutters from hardware instability. The tool is touted to bring the input latency of a CRT TV, meaning that most of the inputs will work according to your reaction time instead of being arbitrarily increased by the monitor and system.

　　The FGC has slowly adopted PC as its primary platform for fighting game tournaments. Because of this, it's important that they have a standardized method of ensuring that users have a smooth experience without having to worry about something arbitrary brought about by unstable hardware. You may have noticed that in my reviews, I tend to bring up performance factors such as optimization and delay primarily for this reason. So, having a tool that essentially helps the process become straightforward is just a bonus.

　　This tool was already used with positive results during SFV CasaBunch. You can watch the stream below.

　　SFV @CasaBunch Weekly #31 - Using #fgcOS Alpha Build - Watch LIVE: https://t.co/y1h1Dd3d3F https://t.co/amAZfHQafl

　　— 480hz Reactions Sabin (@nycfurby) March 15, 2023

　　FGCOS is currently in an Alpha state, so while there isn't a direct way to test it for yourself at the moment, its results are beginning to show a stark difference that might be the deciding factor behind where the future fighting game tournaments will be played in. So, hopefully, Arturo will bring a brighter future where latency is a concern of the past in the PC platform.