Tekken 8
The game determines what bars to show depending on the ping at some point in a match, such as match start, round start, round end and other crucial events in the match. This means that at the start of the match you can have some ping and later in the round it can jump higher or lower, but the bars won't change immediately.
The dependency between the ping(RTT) and bars is as following:
| Ping | Bars |
|---|---|
| 0-100 |  |
| 101-150 |  |
| 151-200 |  |
| 201-250 |  |
| 251+ |  |
Unlike in Tekken 7, In Tekken 8 there's multiple input lag settings in the in-game options: Game Option Settings - Rollback Setting:
This option actually controls how much of additional input lag the game will add to your inputs when you play online on different ping values. There are options that you can choose: Prefer Fluidity, Default and Prefer Responsiveness.
Here are the input lag values that you'll get while playing with different ping values:
Default
| Ping | Network Lag |
|---|---|
| 0-66 | 0 |
| 67-100 | 1 |
| 101-133 | 2 |
| 134-200 | 3 |
| 201-233 | 4 |
| 234+ | 5 |
Prefer Fluidity
| Ping | Network Lag |
|---|---|
| 0-100 | 1 |
| 101-133 | 2 |
| 134-200 | 3 |
| 201-233 | 4 |
| 234+ | 5 |
Prefer Responsiveness
| Ping | Network Lag |
|---|---|
| 0-100 | 0 |
| 101-133 | 1 |
| 134-233 | 2 |
| 234+ | 3 |
Examples
Let's say that your ping is 69 at the start of the match.
The game will first look up its' table for connection bar and will show 5 bars for you in the match.
Then it will look up what option you've chosen for input lag and then the respective table for the network lag to apply. So, if you chose Default, it'll take your ping of 69 and compare it to the table. In the table we see that 69 falls in the 67-100 range and the respective network lag is 1 for this range. So your input lag will be 1.
On the other hand, if you chose Prefer Responsiveness option, it will take ping 69, compare it to the Prefer Responsiveness table, see that it falls in the 0-100 range and apply 0 network lag.
Also, if you choose Prefer Fluidity option, even if you play against someone right next to you and your PCs connected directly with an ethernet cord, and so your ping is under 1ms, the game will look up the Prefer Fluidity table and will still apply 1 frame of additional input lag, even considering you're basically playing offline.
Additional info
If you compare Tekken 8 to Tekken 7, you can see that Tekken 7 has at least 1 less frame of input lag on all connections, including offline, because Tekken 7 applies 1 frame of additional network lag unnecessarily, even when you play offline games(yes).
The only real difference between the netcodes between Tekken 7 and Tekken 8 are these input lag tables: Tekken 7 adds input lag much more aggressively than Tekken 8. Other than that, the netcode is basically the same, just a few variables are tweaked.
Tekken 7
Tekken 7 on the other hand doesn't have an option to control input lag and only has 1 table that ties all 3 together: pings, bars and network lag that it applies on any given ping. Here it is:
| Ping | Network Lag | Bars |
|---|---|---|
| 0-82 | 1 | |
| 83-116 | 2 | |
| 117-149 | 3 | |
| 150-182 | 4 | |
| 183-216 | 5 | |
| 217-232 | 6 | |
| 233-249 | 7 | |
| 250-266 | 8 | |
| 267-282 | 11 | |
| 283-∞ | 13 | |
Ping column
Shows the ping(round trip to your opponent and back to you) range in milliseconds at which the corresponding network lag will be applied, and what the game will show in a match as bars.
Network Lag column
Shows additional network input lag(in frames) the game will apply to your inputs at the respective ping range.
Bars
What the game will show to you as bars at the respective ping range.
Examples
When you have ping between 0 and 82(inclusive) milliseconds, you'll have 0 frames of additional network input lag compared to offline games. Yes, games below 82ms ping are exactly the same as offline in terms of input lag for your inputs.
When you have ping between 83 and 116, you'll have 1 frame of additional network lag compared to offline games, and it will show up as 4 bars in the game.
And when you have ping between 117 and 149 milliseconds, you'll get 2 frames of additional network lag compared to offline games, and it will still show as 4 bars in the game.
These numbers are definitive and prescriptive: we can change them in the game and manipulate bars, input lag, and even ping values themselves.