Playing Top 50 on a TV and an Xbox Pad. No Excuses.
Everyone tells me I’m handicapping myself. Maybe they’re right. But here’s why I don’t care about those comments and how I make it work anyway.
Lets start with a look at my stats: Supersonic Legend • Peak Rank #31 • Top 50 Worldwide
Now my my setup on Xbox Series X
DISPLAY 60” OLED Sont TV
INPUT LAG ~1.5ms (Game Mode)
CONTROLLER Microsof Xbox Elite series 2
CONNECTION Wired USB-C
PEAK RANK SSL · #31
Yeah, I Play on a TV. And I’m Fine.
Let me set the scene. I’m sitting about six feet from a 60-inch OLED, Xbox controller in hand, wired in via USB-C, and I just got out of a Top 50 game. Someone in the lobby chat called my setup “scrub tier.” He was ranked #890.
Look — I get it. The meta is a 24” 240Hz monitor, PS5 controller, 0.05 deadzone, and a mechanical keyboard. I’ve tried all of it. I kept coming back to my TV. Not out of laziness. Out of intentionality. The screen I’m most comfortable on is the screen I play best on. Full stop.
But comfort isn’t enough at the Top 50 level. You have to be technical about your compromises. So here’s everything I’ve figured out about squeezing every millisecond out of this “handicapped” setup.
“The screen I’m most comfortable on is the screen I play best on. Competitive Rocket League is 60% mechanics and 40% mental. My TV reduces the mental load.”
— Faze Yash23, Peak Rank #31
THE TV QUESTION
Input Lag Is Real, But It’s Solvable.
Here’s the truth most people miss: not all TVs are created equal. A 2019 budget TV in regular mode might have 80ms+ input lag. That will wreck you. My LG OLED C2 in Game Mode? 1.5ms. That’s faster than a lot of budget monitors.
The OLED panel means blacks are true black , the ball is always crisp against a dark aerial backdrop. The size means I can read the entire field without twisting my head. On a 24” monitor, I’m constantly relying on the minimap. On the big screen, I see rotations forming before they happen.
The tradeoff is real though. Fast camera cuts during boost dashes can create slight motion smear on non-OLED TVs. If you’re not on OLED or a flagship QLED, a monitor is safer. But if you’re willing to invest in a good panel, it’s absolutely viable at the top level.
BY THE NUMBERS
1.5ms
INPUT LAG (GAME MODE)
60 FPS
LOCKED IN-GAME
0.20
CONTROLLER DEADZONE
6 ft
SITTING DISTANCE
THE CONTROLLER QUESTION
Why I use Xbox Pad Over PS5?
The PlayStation DualSense is dominant in Rocket League communities. The trigger feel and the thumbstick tension are genuinely excellent. But I never used one, except trying with friends here and there; I have been on Xbox even before I started gaming. My parent got Xbox Kinect when it was first launched in Nov 2010, when I was only 8 months old. I grew up around it and continue to use the Xbox setup to date.
What I like about Xbox: Having tried PS5 occasionally, I think the Xbox Series controller has a slightly larger and more convex right thumbstick. For me, that means my thumb sits in a more stable resting position during high-speed aerials. The offset stick layout also means less bleed between steering and camera control.
I run it wired via USB-C directly into the console. No Bluetooth polling delay. No battery anxiety at 1 am on a weekend in a ranked game. Just consistent, boring input delivery, exactly what you want at this level.
My Exact Settings and Setup Details:
Deadzone: 0.20: Low enough for precision, high enough that stick drift doesn’t send me spiraling in overtime.
Dodge Deadzone: 0.80: Prevents accidental flips when feathering the throttle during a dribble.
Boost on B: Non-negotiable. The thumb never leaves the right stick during boosts.
Powerslide + Air Roll on Rb: Shared binding works fine unless you’re a freestyler. I’m not. I win games.
TV in Game Mode, always: every single session. If someone changes it for Netflix and I forget to switch back, I feel it within 20 seconds.
Lock the frame rate to 120 FPS in-game: Don’t chase 240. At 120 the physics simulation is tight, and the TV renders it cleanly.
Camera shake: OFF: Not a preference. Not optional. Just off.
THE MENTAL SIDE
Your Setup Doesn’t Beat You. Your Head Does.
Here’s what I’ve watched happen to players who obsess over gear: they upgrade everything, then when they lose, they have nothing to blame but themselves. So they upgrade more. There’s always something: a new controller, a new monitor, or a mousewheel jump binding. The rabbit hole never ends.
Playing on “suboptimal” gear actually forced me to overinvest in fundamentals. Boost pathing, rotation discipline, and positioning off the wall. These things don’t care what you’re playing on. At the Top 50 level, the gap between players is almost entirely decision-making speed and positional IQ. I’ve beaten multiple top-10 players on this TV with this Xbox pad. The controller wasn’t the variable either way.
So if you’re sitting on a decent TV and a perfectly good controller, ask yourself honestly: Is your positioning good? Are your rotations clean? Do you double-commit? Fix those first. The monitor won’t fix those. It can’t.
If You Must Use a TV: The Non-Negotiables You Should Pay Attention to:
Verify your TV’s Game Mode input lag; anything above 10 ms is a problem. Look up your exact model on rtings.com.
Set your TV to 120Hz output in your console’s display settings. Do not leave it at 60 Hz.
Sit at the right distance. Find the sweet spot where the full field is comfortable in one glance.
Wire your controller in. Bluetooth is fine for casual play. At ranked Top 50, one dropped input costs you the game.
Disable all post-processing on the TV: motion smoothing, noise reduction, all of it. These add latency and blur fast movement.
Play in a room without glare on the screen. Glare kills aerial reads.
Your setup is not your rank… your rank is your rank. I’m a ranked player with an Xbox controller because I spent 5 years getting the fundamentals deep enough that the hardware stopped being the bottleneck.
Stop only relying on gear. Start playing better.
