The Capcom Cup returns with a change to the hardware, which pros welcome.
The Capcom Cup returns for the first time since 2019 and the world’s professional Street Fighter 5 players will be meeting to duel it out. Practice and prep will be on the cards because the pros will be fighting for a $300,000 prize pool. It’s a major competition and so the decision to change the hardware players will be using is a significant one.
The official account for Capcom fighters and pro tour tweeted that the Capcom Cup will be played on PC with displays set to 144 Hz (via The Verge). While no more detail is given for the specs of these PCs, we can assume they’ll be powerful enough to handle the game while the 144 Hz should help to reduce input lag (the time it takes for a button press to show on screen) .
Low input lag is important to professional players and in the fighting game scene it can mean a millisecond difference between a block or counter which they wouldn’t want to see delayed by the hardware. While Street Fighter 5 might be a 60 fps game, a commentator for the Street Fighter esports scene and fighting game enthusiast James Chen pointed out that it has been demonstrated that Street Fighter 5 benefits from higher Hz even being a 60 fps title.
The Verge quoted Street Figher for Arman Hanjani – Phenom in tourneys – who said that the community has been playing mostly on PC for the last few years, saying that it is where the game is “most responsive”. It’s a marked change since the PlayStation 4 was often the hardware of choice for tournaments before the Covid-19 pandemic. While the quicker responsiveness of PCs is where pros feel it’s at, it can be tough for event organizers to ensure every PC for competitors is consistent, with the same drivers and updates installed, and input lag is even across the board. With consoles the playing field can be equal and is that much easier to maintain and procure.
The upcoming Street Fighter 6 is said to be faster than ever with its Input Delay Reduction feature on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. But pros will be sharpening their reflexes for one of the last major tournaments for Street Fighter 5. The Capcom Cup begins on February 12