Live face swap latency, measured
How long a frame takes to go from your camera to our GPU, get a new face, and come back to your screen. Measured on October 4, 2026 from Texas, USA, through the same live face swap you can use on Facecam today. In Chrome 154.0 on a computer, a swapped frame took a median of 217 ms from camera to screen, at 17–18 frames a second, and 24 ms of that was GPU time.
217ms
Camera to screen, median, in Chrome 154.0 on a computer
17–18fps
Swapped frames shown per second in Chrome (the camera runs at 30)
24ms
GPU time per frame, median, from arrival to reply
On the day, every browser run used a GPU in EU West. A session uses whichever GPU is free, and with a closer one the network part is shorter: see GPU time vs network time below.
Camera to screen, by browser
Each bar is one frame's trip, split into its four steps (the median of each step). The camera frame waits for the page to grab it, gets compressed to a JPEG, goes to the GPU and back, then is decoded and drawn on the page.
- Waiting to be grabbed
- Grab and compress
- Network and GPU
- Decode and draw
37 + 12 + 154 + 2 ms
36 + 10 + 156 + 1 ms
13 + 9 + 164 + 3 ms
23 + 4 + 162 + 2 ms
| Browser | Frame sent | Runs | Frames shown / s | Median | 95th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome, computer | 896×504 | 2 | 17–18 | 217 ms | 318 ms |
| Chrome, phone-size frames (touch emulation) | 640×360 | 2 | 19–22 | 202 ms | 233 ms |
| WebKit (Safari's engine), computer | 896×504 | 2 | 13–21 | 191 ms | 339 ms |
| Firefox, computer | 896×504 | 2 | 22 | 192 ms | 229 ms |
GPU time vs network time
The GPU server reports how long it held each frame. The rest of the round trip is the network, both ways. A session starts on whichever GPU is free, so we ran 3 sessions and each one landed somewhere else: Canada, US Central and EU West.
The GPU part stays about the same: 24 ms for a computer-size frame. The network part depends on how far you are from the GPU.
- GPU server
- Network, both ways
24 + 57 ms
149 + 56 ms
24 + 133 ms
One slow stretch, kept in the numbers: in session 2, computer-size frames took 149 ms on the GPU server (median) and only 11 came back each second. Later in the same session, the same frame size took 23 ms.
| Session | GPU region | Network echo | Ready after |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Canada | 56 ms | 19.3 s |
| #2 | US Central | 32 ms | 21.9 s |
| #3 | EU West | 130 ms | 23.3 s |
By frame size
The site sends smaller frames from phones and on slow connections. Smaller frames upload faster and need a little less GPU time, but the distance to the GPU still sets most of the round trip.
| Frame size | Sent | JPEG | Frames back / s | GPU | Round trip (Canada / US Central / EU West) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer | 896×504 | 67 KB | 11–30 of 30 | 24 ms | 80 / 231 / 157 ms |
| Phone | 640×360 | 32 KB | 24 of 24 | 21 ms | 74 / 57 / 153 ms |
| Data saver | 480×270 | 16 KB | 15 of 15 | 19 ms | 72 / 54 / 152 ms |
Inside the GPU server
Each computer-size frame goes through six steps on a server with one NVIDIA L4 GPU, about 23 ms in all. These are the median of each session's median.
If you're further from the GPU
At most 4 frames are on their way at once. So when a round trip takes longer than about 133 ms, fewer than 30 frames a second can come back. The delay goes up, and the frame rate goes down.
To show this, our test client held every frame and every reply a little longer, adding the extra time below to each round trip. These rows are simulated on top of the real sessions.
| Added round trip | GPU in Canada | GPU in US Central | GPU in EU West |
|---|---|---|---|
| None (as measured) | 30 fps · 80 ms | 11 fps · 231 ms | 24 fps · 157 ms |
| +50 ms | 24 fps · 133 ms | 30 fps · 110 ms | 17 fps · 209 ms |
| +100 ms | 20 fps · 183 ms | 24 fps · 159 ms | 15 fps · 259 ms |
| +200 ms | 13 fps · 282 ms | 15 fps · 260 ms | 11 fps · 358 ms |
How we measured
- The real service. Every number comes from live sessions on the production live face swap, the same GPUs and servers our users get, opened by a test account. Nothing was run on a special server.
- The camera. A looping 1280×720 webcam clip of an AI-generated person at 30 frames a second, swapped to one of our built-in faces. Chrome read the clip as its camera. WebKit and Firefox can't, so the page got the same frames from a video stream drawn on a canvas.
- In the browser. We opened the Live Face Swap tool and timed every frame from inside the page: when the camera captured it, when the page grabbed and sent it, when the swapped frame came back, and when it was drawn on screen. The app itself was not changed.
- GPU vs network. A scripted client sent the same clip at each frame size and read the server's own time for every frame. Network time is the round trip minus that.
- The machine. Apple M4, macOS 26.5.1, on a home connection in Texas, USA. One session at a time.
- The numbers. Medians and 95th percentiles over every frame. 8 browser runs and 3 scripted sessions, all on October 4, 2026.
What this doesn't measure
- The camera's own delay before a frame reaches the browser, and the screen's delay before it lights up. A real webcam and monitor add their own time on both ends.
- Real phones. The phone row is Chrome on a computer pretending to be a phone, so it sends phone-size frames. A phone's processor and mobile data will differ.
- Other places and networks. Everything ran from one home connection in Texas, USA. Further from our GPUs, expect the network part to grow.
- A slower network in the browser. Chrome's network throttling doesn't slow an open WebSocket (we checked), so the longer paths above were simulated in the scripted client instead.
- Video calls. Passing the swapped camera into Meet or Zoom adds the call's own delay.
- Other face swap apps. We only publish numbers we measured ourselves.
Use these numbers
You're welcome to quote and chart them. Please link this page and give the date:
Facecam, "Live face swap latency, measured", October 4, 2026. https://www.facecam.ai/live-face-swap/benchmark
The raw data has every frame. Questions about the method, or want a run from your setup? Email support@facecam.ai. Logos and screenshots are in the press kit.
See the delay for yourself
Start your camera, pick a face and become anyone you want, live.