A question regarding finesse.

[TrampolineGm]

Hey all.

I read in a post about finesse a long time ago that if a piece is destined for one column away from the wall of the matrix, it is preferable to double tap instead of DAS + tapback.
Can anybody tell me why this is considered better?

I'm not an expert, but my first thought is that it should surely be faster to press one key followed by another key than to press one key, lift the key up, and finally press the key back down again.
Perhaps it's for slower-DAS games in which double tapping is faster than the time taken for the DAS to register?
Or maybe even in faster games such as NullpoMino the DAS takes slightly longer to register than two key taps?

Thanks for any responses.

[Donorgyll]

My assumption is that it depends how fast you can tap. If you can tap twice faster than the time it takes for DAS to kick in, double tapping is better.

[ultranooby]

1-finger is repeated tapping with 1 finger, 2-finger is alternating tapping between 2 fingers. DAS tapback is 1 held tap and 1 2-finger tap. Double tap involves 2 1-finger taps.

DATA:
Tested over 200 keystrokes
1-finger tap - 400 KPM = 150 ms/stroke
2-finger tap - 730 KPM = 82 ms/stroke

I am most familiar with Nullpomino, so here are DAS rates
1 - 17 ms
2 - 33 ms
3 - 50 ms
4 - 67 ms
5 - 83 ms
6 - 100 ms
7 - 117 ms
8 - 133 ms
9 - 150 ms
10 - 167 ms
I play on 4/0: 67 ms + 82 ms = 149 ms using DAS tapback, + 15 ms for human error = 164 ms
150 ms x 2 = 300 ms for double tap, but keep in mind 300ms includes tap 1 + waiting, tap 2 + waiting. Assuming the down and up motions are the same speeds, this means double tapping takes 225 ms.

Conclusion:
Because I do not know how ARR rates are calculated (DAS delay in Nullpomino), I will not add that information. However, playing with ARR = 0, a DAS > 7 will be beneficial to double tap, DAS = 7 are about equal, and a DAS < 7 will hinder.

[MicroBlizz]

More efficient and less key strokes which saves you time

[caffeine]

Here's a simple test I used to figure out which method was faster for me: start a game of 40 lines and immediately start the DAS left + tap back and hard drop (no rotation) with every piece until you top out. Record the time it took to top out and the piece count. Do the same thing but with different DASes. Then, do it with the "tap left, tap left" method. Then, compare your results.

My average with DAS tapback for 5 DAS is 0.52 seconds per piece. With 4 DAS: 0.48 seconds per piece. With 3 DAS: 0.47 seconds per piece.

My average with "tap left, tap left" is 0.43 seconds per piece. So it would seem that for me, in this particular scenario, it saves time to forego the DAS method. I'm sure it varies for different players, and it's certainly close enough that it probably doesn't make that much of difference.

[XaeL]

My average with DAS tapback for 5 DAS is 0.52 seconds per piece. With 4 DAS: 0.48 seconds per piece. With 3 DAS: 0.47 seconds per piece.

Seems like you have a major bottleneck if you can only drop 2 pieces per second with one away from wall.

[caffeine]

I think it's a combination of not playing 40 lines in forever, using the same 3 fingers for everything during the exercise, and just being an overall slow player in general.