What Does Ping Mean?
Ping is a metric for latency, which refers to how quickly a signal leaves and returns to your internet receiving device. Your Internet connection typically causes a lag in any online gaming session, but other things might also impact the speed and quality of your internet connection. While you can’t just suddenly grant yourself ultra-fast broadband speeds, there are steps you can do to make it better or lower your ping.
Why Your Ping May Be high?
- Your Internet service provider (ISP) may not be providing the promised internet connection speed. It’s also expected that your ping will not remain low if you choose one of your internet service provider’s less expensive plans.
- The position of your router, if you’re using Wi-Fi to connect to the internet, might be significantly affected by how near you are to your router. If your network is downstairs and you’re gaming upstairs, it will dramatically affect your ping, especially if your house is big.
- Another factor that may increase ping out of your control is the distance between you and a game’s server hub. Gamers close to the server hub are likelier to have the most satisfactory gaming experience, with much lesser ping and higher network availability.
- One of the other reasons, mainly ignored by users while playing an online game, is a lot of apps running in the background, where these apps can be downloading massive updates, which would raise your ping.
- Your ping can also increase if your network is servicing an excessive number of devices simultaneously. An ordinary router cannot handle a large amount of traffic simultaneously. Your bandwidth is consumed jointly by all of the devices connected to the same router.
How to Lower Ping
How can my ping be decreased? Your internet connection speed has to be optimized because this is what has the most impact on any server’s ping. Even though it could be tempting, you should probably wait to change your gaming configurations or settings until you’ve improved your home’s network connection. This will enable you to determine whether the cause of your high ping is indeed your network connection or whether it is a problem with your game’s setup. If that still doesn’t fix your high ping problems, then we present the basic steps to lower your ping.
1. Use an Ethernet cable
Although Wi-Fi is an excellent wireless and convenient option, Wired Ethernet or LAN cable is still more dependable, as it eliminates the lag, packet loss, and latency difficulties that wireless connections can bring. It’s not the best circumstance for any multiplayer gaming setup to have multiple devices linked to your wireless network since their signals might interfere with one another. To guarantee a dependable connection and minimum ping, you should connect your computer or gaming console directly to an Ethernet cable.
2. Close All Background Tasks, Using The Network Bandwidth
Unchecked background applications can use your internet bandwidth, slowing down higher priority activities like gaming or live streaming. Using Task Manager, you can quickly find such applications. Background programs you’re not using will not only affect how smoothly a game plays and your ping, but they can also download updates or suck up RAM on your computer or gaming console. To eliminate such background apps, you can follow the below steps.
- Press Ctrl+ Alt + Delete, and choose Task Manager.
- The Network tab in Task Manager should be selected. You will find that in the top right corner. All applications with the highest bandwidth will be listed in descending order.
- Select all the unwanted background tasks you may feel are hogging the background activity or consuming the internet bandwidth.
3. Enable Game Mode in Windows 10/11
You can also turn on Game Mode in Windows 10/11 to prioritize your gaming experience in favour of other tasks. It stops Windows updates from installing and driver installation in the background when turned on. It also aids in achieving a more constant frame rate to lower latency and ping. To enable Game Mode, please follow these steps:
- Press Win + I simultaneously to open Settings.
- Search for Game Mode in the Windows Settings search bar on the left pane of the Settings menu.
- This will open Game Mode settings. After that, turn on Game Mode from the first option.
4. Verify Your Router’s Configurations
Multiple devices can be managed simultaneously by modern routers. However, if several devices are connected to your router, your connection may lag, and your ping may increase. Removing unused or idle devices from your home network to lessen gaming latency. To prevent the router from updating itself in the middle of a game, download and install any outstanding firmware upgrades as well. If possible, you can update your router with a new one if you are still troubled by these issues. You can minimize latency to some amount and use all of the available bandwidth with a router update. However, keep in mind that the speed of your internet connection depends on your data plan.
5. Stop Downloads Happening In The Background On Your PC
It should go without saying that if you are downloading any big file onto your computer, it will use up the majority, if not all, of your internet bandwidth. Thus simultaneously, if you are gaming online, the game ping speed in this scenario would be high. As a result, when playing an online game, you should keep an eye on downloads and turn them off while gaming. Also, if you use downloading software or torrent clients, watch them on your computer. In the Torrent client, examine to see whether there are any current downloads and whether or not anything is being uploaded due to torrent seeding. Stop the upload if that’s the situation.
6. Chose a Different Server For Your Online Multiplayer Game
Although it’s not always possible, many online multiplayer games let you choose which server you wish to connect to. For example, if your favourite game is connected to a European server, you can try to change your server to an Asian or American region. The server the game automatically chose for you might not be the best in terms of low ping. Consider connecting to a different server if your game allows it to. Also, you can select the server nearest to your physical location if you want the best results.
Does internet speed affect ping?
In addition to the other elements that determine how low or high your ping is, the speed of your internet connection heavily impacts your ping (or latency). Your ping will be lower if you can transmit and receive data more quickly with a faster internet connection.
What is a reasonable ping frequency?
Anything above 150 milliseconds (ms) can be considered high ping and may not be suitable for your online multiplayer gaming needs. But on the other hand, if the ping on your gaming device is below 50 ms, it should be considered excellent for any online gaming session.
Does switching to a higher Mbp/s connection solve your ping issues?
Both download and upload speeds have negligible effects on the frequency of ping or latency. A 1 Mb/sec connection may have a 10 ms ping, and a 100 Mb/sec connection could have a 100 ms ping. Ping thus is only affected with other factors mentioned above, other than the MB/s speed of your internet connection.
Why is the ping on my server so unstable?
The leading causes of lag or ping spikes are frequently brought on by obstructions or congestion on your internet server. If there is massive congestion from your computer to the server and vice versa, this can cause an unstable ping. Hence if these issues are prominent on your server, you should contact your service provider.
Final Words
The high ping problem in online multiplayer games is hugely frustrating for many online gamers. While the majority of gamers or live streamers experience this problem as a result of their internet connection, there are several things as well that you can do on your PC or gaming console to lower the ping speed when playing online games. You can solve a high ping speed using the solutions above. However, if you are still unhappy with the ping speed you are getting, you can then complain to your Internet Service Provider’s customer support team.
