I did the preemptive frames thing with Retroarch with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 a couple years ago, and I certainly convinced myself that I could tell a huge difference...and then I kept taking hits and dying just as much as I was without doing anything.

It's entirely possible that someone who is better at video games can tell a huge difference (e.g. speedrunners and the like), but I'm afraid that I'm not good enough at most games to be able to realistically tell much of a difference.

I might still fiddle with it a bit; someone told me that it helps a lot with Mike Tyson's Punch Out, which is a game I have never beaten with an emulator.

Interesting. I bought sonic origins as a palate cleanser the other day and I really feel like I can feel the latency. Sonic 1 was the only game me and my brother had for our mega drive so we know/knew everything there is to know!!

Our speed runs were crazy.

I don’t know if feeling the latency is just my age though, although I’m a semi pro SIM racer still and competitive in my late forties it’s a different kind of twitch reaction.