The bad news is the defaults on modern platforms are often very bad for latency. The good news is that it is possible to achieve good latency on most modern systems with a lot of attention to detail. With good hardware and good software it is even possible to e.g. run console emulators with lower latency than they would have on original hardware connected to a CRT. I just wrote a three part series detailing a lot of ways to improve latency:

Intro: https://james.darpinian.com/blog/latency

Techniques to improve latency in your applications: https://james.darpinian.com/blog/latency-techniques

Platform-specific considerations: https://james.darpinian.com/blog/latency-platform-considerat...