Audio latency is still too high for real-time gameplay (ASIO support would greatly improve this)

[ItsPasi]

Currently it's very hard to consistently rely on sound alone due to the high audio latency in the game. I've tested my systems latency with a tool called "RTL Utility" which measures the round trip latency of the audio stream.
These are my results taking the lowest measured value for each audio system:

Switching from WASAPI to ASIO on my internal soundcard resulted in a significant latency reduction of approximately 30-35ms. This is most definitely in the region of noticeable latency reduction and could greatly enhance gameplay. Of course this tool doesn't perfectly relate to the osu!/osu!lazer audio implementation, but in my tests the results in-game are very similar and playing the game with external ASIO hitsounds leads me to use an offset of -30ms in the game. While I couldn't do this in osu!lazer, the general latency seems very similar between the 2 versions of the game.

Similar improvements were observed by YouTubers like Battle(non)sense who has measured audio latency on his system. In his video "Audio Delay In Games - How (Not) To Reduce It" he goes over his latency testing config and talks about how in-game ASIO support would help reduce latency immensely as well as configurable buffer sizes, even if the latter could potentially introduce audio glitches.

I would love to see the inclusion of ASIO support (and perhaps configurable buffer sizes with a lower and upper limit) as an experimental feature in osu!lazer. I have read previous posts on this and while I understand to not add game breaking features to the game, there are already such options in osu!lazer and the implementation of these features would undoubtedly improve the gameplay experience for a significant portion of the player base.

System specs for reference:
Operating System: Windows 11
Mainboard: Asus B760i
Processor: 13700KF
Graphics card: RTX 4080
RAM: 48 GB

[peppy]

This is being tacked in multiple issue and discussions and still on my high priority list. Please look forward to improvements in the future.