How to Lower Your Ping and Improve Your Gaming Speeds

Ping: it’s not only that thing you blame when you miss your shots. If you’re reading this, you probably have some idea of what ping is, and why it matters. When the number is high, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Well, I’m here to make your day a little better. I’ve been gaming and writing about tech for a long, looong time, so I’m going to break down exactly what you can do to lower your ping and enjoy your gaming sessions more. Let’s get into it.

What Is Ping and How Does It Affect Gaming?

Experienced gamers might as well move along, but beginners should stay and read this section real quick. 

Ping is the time it takes for a signal to go from your computer, phone, or console to the game server and back. The higher the ping rate, the slower the server gets input from your controller or mouse and keyboard. You’ll also see things happening in the game after people with lower ping rates.

Having a high ping typically puts you at a disadvantage, and it generally just doesn’t feel good. Have you ever moved forward in a game only to be put back where you started? That’s called rubber banding, and high ping is one of the things that can cause it.

What Causes a High Ping in Video Games?

Any number of things can cause high ping. Congested networks, and sheer distance between you and the game servers are the two main causes. Additional factors include, but are not limited to: your hardware, your ISP, your internet plan, and random effects of the only universal constant, chaos.

Here’s how you can get around some of those, but I can’t help you with the chaos. We’re stuck with that.

10 Ways to Lower Your Ping

1. Make sure your connection is clear

If you’re downloading big files, that’ll affect your game connection. If you don’t have a lot of bandwidth, and two other people in your house are watching Netflix? Oh yeah, that’ll kill your ping. You’ll need to wait ‘til they’re asleep, maybe, and limit your download speeds to make room for traffic between your device and the game server.

This is especially true if you’re a streamer. Streaming to one or more platforms can eat up your upload bandwidth, and that will definitely affect your ping, if you don’t have a good internet plan.

2. Use a wired connection

If you’re playing any kind of action-heavy, competitive game, use a cable! Wi-Fi technology has gotten very good, it’s true, but it’s still no substitute for a hard-wired connection to your router. It’s usually faster, it’s always more reliable, and… you get to practice your cable management! (That last one is more annoying than a benefit!)

This applies to your ISP as well. Cable or fiber-optic internet will always perform better than anything satellite-powered. It’s the air, and everything in it, you see? It gets in the way.

3. Double-check your game server location

Maybe you selected a game server that’s far away by accident, or maybe your game did that for you. It happens. Just make sure that you’re connected to a game server that’s as physically close to you as possible. Digital worlds may be limitless, but the devices we use to access them are still subject to the laws of physics.

4. Use a gaming VPN

In an ideal world, where they never canceled Firefly, a signal sent from your home to a game server would get there as fast as possible. Well, guess what? They canceled Firefly, and networks don’t always work like they should.

Even if your local connection is clear, the networks between you and the game servers might not be. Misconfigured ISP servers can also cause problems. This is where a gaming VPN can really come in clutch.

VPNs work by rerouting all of your traffic through a VPN server location of your choice. If your nearest game server is far away, you can choose a VPN server in the same city to potentially create a more direct, and more stable connection. This can reduce your ping, under the right circumstances, but you may need to experiment a bit.

5. Make sure your drivers and software are up to date

If you’re gaming on PC, always make sure you have the latest version of your drivers installed. Pay special attention to things like your motherboard and networking interface. Updated drivers can sometimes fix bugs that are slowing your hardware down, or optimize the performance of their respective devices. 

Make sure your operating system is updated, too. Windows and Linux updates can sometimes fix a lot of problems. On consoles, you likely won’t be responsible for updating individual drivers, but don’t put off the general console and game updates if you can help it.

6. Restart your computer, console, or router

This is a temporary solution to what are hopefully temporary problems. If your connection is starting to slow after your devices have been on for a long time, a simple reboot can often clear out the junk and fix myriad issues. And yes, routers and modems need restarting, too.

If you don’t feel like restarting everything, there is one small thing you can try: disconnect your ethernet cable, then plug it back in. Sometimes, that really is enough.

7. Upgrade your router/modem

This isn’t always easy, or possible, to do, but upgrading your router or modem can sometimes be the answer. Outdated or substandard networking hardware can definitely slow down your connection, so if the usual techniques aren’t working, try this. You may have to ask your ISP if they can sell you a better one.

8. Upgrade your internet plan

This one is a long shot. Your internet plan shouldn’t, in most circumstances, be affecting your ping, only your bandwidth. But it can be the case that lower-tier plans aren’t given priority in the ISPs network, so upgrading your plan can potentially lower your ping.

9. Change ISPs

This is more of a last resort option, and one not available to everyone. However, if you have more than one ISP in your area, do some research. See if another company might provide better internet speeds overall, both in terms of bandwidth and ping.

10. Upgrade your computer

Let’s be clear: this is probably not the issue in most cases. But, when Murphy’s Law and computers collide, your internal hardware can cause ping issues. This is the least likely scenario, if you have a computer that was built in the last decade. And even then, it’s still probably not the issue.

If you think this is the issue, don’t go straight to buying another computer, at least not on a desktop. Instead, see if you can buy a cheap Network Interface Card (NIC) and plug your ethernet cable into that instead of your motherboard.

What Is a Good Ping Rate for Gaming?

This depends entirely on the game. In turn-based games, you can get away with very high ping rates, going over 150 ms and far beyond. What’s half a second to a game of chess, or Civilization, anyway? But for action-based games where you need to be on top of things? Oh, that’s a whole different story.

Lower than 50 ms is the ideal, but is often not achievable. Thanks to the ways that modern games handle latency, you can get away with 60-80 ms. If you go over 100 ms, your game will have a noticeable delay, and you will be at a disadvantage.

How to Do a Ping Test

Start by seeing if there’s an in-game ping monitor. Many multiplayer games will have one available somewhere in the settings menu, and that will help you keep an eye on the health of your connection to the servers.

If you’re gaming on PC (and Windows in particular), use your start menu to open up a Command Prompt. In the Command Prompt window, type the following: ping [server IP or domain]. Here’s an example using one of the Epic Games servers.

Caption: That’s a very good ping rate.

You may have to go hunting for the server addresses, and honestly? It’s better to use the ping counter in-game, if there is one.

Conclusion

There are quite a few ways to lower your ping, ranging from the free/cheap, to the rather expensive. Fortunately, the problems that can be fixed for free or cheap are the most likely culprits, so by all means, start there. 

A good gaming VPN doesn’t have to be expensive, either. PIA VPN is very affordable, and you can get an even better price with the 3-year plan. You can try PIA risk-free on any plan with our 30-day money-back guarantee.

And if all else fails? You can’t go wrong with the old “turn it off and turn it on again.”

FAQ