Ping latency is a crucial thing to maintain especially when it comes to gaming that requires fast responsiveness from your end. For any online gaming, you need a lower ping to better experience everything. High ping can negatively alter the gaming experience, hence resulting in lag. But, why does your ping increase?
Ping is referred to the network latency between your gaming devices and your gaming server. Basically, it's about the amount of time your computer takes for sending and receiving signals from the server. A low ping means your frame per second is measured around 20ms while a high ping is measured when the frame per second rate increases to 150ms. Ideally, this ping should remain between 75 to 100ms in rate. However, a lot of reasons can increase the network latency, resulting in higher ping. For example, the quality of your internet, speed of your connection, inadequate bandwidth, number of devices connected to the router, and the list goes on.
Keep on reading this article to know more about the reasons why the ping increases and how it can negatively impact your gaming experience.
The ping levels are known by the terms “high ping” and “low ping”. Users don't always need a low ping to have a smooth browsing experience. In fact, a low ping is undoubtedly unnecessary if we talk about everyday internet usage. Yet, this is pretty essential for competitive gaming. The higher ping will result in lag while playing certain games especially in which position and timing are important.
For instance, FPS games, racing games, real-time strategy games, and multiplayer games will require faster speeds for transferring data and receiving it back from the gaming server to the system. So, high ping in this case will cause lagging. In fact, in the worst case, your game server will disconnect you automatically if the ping is extremely high. Check out the reasons why ping increases,
The quality of internet service providers plays a crucial role when it comes to your gaming requirements. There are a lot of internet service providers out there but in most cases, people don't conduct their research well and end up suffering a poor internet speed. Even with a poor-quality ISP, you can't even figure out the reason behind your increased ping. Because when you will conduct the speed test, it will show a different result than the actual scenario.
A poor quality internet service provider won't provide you with the optimal speed that they promised. In fact, their services and features like speed, latency, availability, reliability, data, and other things will be completely different than they promised. Therefore, you should find a reliable ISP with an ideal plan.
Well, in general, the ISP has a default setting of providing you with higher download speed than upload speeds. It's because users mostly need download speeds to conduct everyday activities on the internet. So, download speeds are undoubtedly important, but when you're playing competitive gaming, your upload speed is more important than download speeds. It will only help you keep your ping low and decrease the lagging.
However, ISP will basically show their download speeds more than they talk about their upload speeds. So, people choose the internet plan considering the download speeds only. But, if your upload speed is lower than 1Mbps, then lagging will be pretty common in online tournaments and live-streaming games. A plan that offers you over 3Mbps of upload speed can be considered ideal. Therefore, a wrong plan can result in an increased ping.
Bandwidth shortage can be the common reason behind a higher ping. With that being said, bandwidth requirements aren't as important as any other features while gaming. But, you must ensure that there's enough bandwidth remaining to fulfill your requirements. For example, when you stream online games, you need to ensure that there's enough bandwidth for uploading.
Inadequate bandwidth will increase the latency and result in higher ping as well. Most internet service providers provide the details of their bandwidth when you choose a plan. Make sure you have 2x of the bandwidth that it's required to avoid lagging while conducting high-end internet activities.
Along with the other factors we've mentioned above, your internet speed is equally responsible for increasing the ping. A higher speed helps you send and receive data packets faster which automatically lower your ping. Alternatively, a slower speed takes a lot of time for sending out and receiving signals which increase the ping and negatively impact the overall gaming experience.
Therefore, it's important to choose an ideal internet connection that facilitates you with an ideal speed. If you're using a satellite and dial-up connection, then you can't expect the fastest internet speed due to some obvious reasons. While cable and fiber connection can provide you with an optimal speed and helps you lower your ping as well.
This reason may seem unrelatable but a high ping can be caused due to your firewall configurations. Generally, your firewall checks all the data packets sent and received by your computer. Sometimes, this process can take so long that it leads to high latency. In addition, in some cases, the firewall treats the game as intruders and it hinders the smooth process while playing. Therefore, it's better to disable all your antivirus software or windows firewall protection to reduce the ping optimally.
The more you're closer to the server from which your devices are sending out and receiving signals, the better you will enjoy the gaming. If your server is geographically located far away from where you're playing the games, then it will result in high latency. For example, you're playing games in the USA but your server is located in the UK.
In this case, your system will take longer than usual time to send data packets over to the server. Also, data packets will have a long route to travel back to your system from the server which will usually take a long time too. So, depending on your server location, your ping can increase or decrease. It's recommended to choose a server that's geographically closer to your location to avoid any lag.
Along with these reasons, you can experience a higher ping in case there are too many background application running on your devices, or if your router is outdated so it can't provide you with the optimal internet speed, and many more. A higher ping can be disturbing. If you're constantly getting bogged down by a higher ping, then it's time to look at these issues carefully and take proper actions to improve your overall gaming experience. However, there are a lot of available tools which you can use to test your ping rate to help you determine whether you have a high ping or low ping.
A good internet connection is required not only for conducting everyday tasks but also for having a good time. After a tiring day, you may want to enjoy gaming on your PC but end up being frustrated dealing with these lags due to higher ping. Regardless of these reasons, there are a few ways you can try to improve the speed. For instance, you can use a wired connection, choose a premium ISP and plan, and have the latest and greatest internet technology to enjoy an uninterrupted competitive gaming world.
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