Gamers struggle more than once with many technical problems during gameplay. One of the most popular problems is delay or interruption. It can also be annoying during watching series or movies. What could be the cause? You should know what gaming ping is and how to check it, change it or make it better. This is one of the parameters that can make your game more problematic and unsatisfying when it’s too high.
What does ping mean in gaming?
Word “Ping” is a shortcut from “Packet Internet Groper”. It’s a diagnostic tool from TCP/IP protocols. Ping is measured in milliseconds. It tells us about the quality of connection with some servers or other equipment. In different words, we can say that is the time from action taken in one place – e.g. our PC – to deliver this information to the host and obtain the reply.
It checks if there are no bugs or disruptions on the way of the information. It tells us about delays in Internet transmission if there are any. But what is ping in gaming? Or rather – what influence has ping on the game? We explain: the lower the ping, the better the connection and more satisfying gameplay!
What’s a good ping?
If the value of ping is about 20 ms and lower – that’s the best! The lower, the better. When the ping is about 20 – 50 ms, it’s rather enough for many online game plays. You probably will be glad, and this level of delays will not affect your game seriously.
But if the ping is bigger, even 100 ms and more, that’s bad, and your game will be stuck. Can it be improved?
How to check the ping value?
Now you know what's a good ping. But for sure you have to deal sometimes with too high ping (or your friend had) and it’s worth knowing what to do: what to check and how to make it better.
CMD
If you have any version of Windows, it’s easy. Quality of Internet connection you can check in few steps:
- You have to type “cmd” and open the Command Prompt.
- Find the black box, type “ping” and click “space”.
- Now you have to type the IP address.
- Now you should see the ping value.
Some gamers do it in different ways. You can find game settings and then find information about ping. Values may be in “display performance stats” or “display network options”.
League of Legends
If you play LoL, go to the “Setting menu” and click the “Display” tab. Now press the “Toggle FPS Display” in-game to check the value of ping. It will be shown below the game scores.
Valorant
Valorant - you should go to settings and find the “Video” tab, then go to “Stats”. You can choose options like “Text only” or “Graph only” and “Show both”. When you pick one of them, you can select “Network Round Trip Time” and check ping in-game.
Fortinte
When you click on the magnifying glass (it’s in the top corner of the screen, right one), you can type “Network Utility” and see the results. Press the “Ping tab” and check the value.
Roblox
When you are playing Roblox and want to check ping, press Shift and F5 at once. In the top left corner at your screen you will see the value of ping and other stats.
Dota 2
If you want to check gaming ping in Dota 2, open messages and type “-ping” to see the value of ping (of course, open the game first).
CS:GO
In the game, open the console and type “net_graph1”.
Websites
There are also some websites where you can check the speed of your connection. One of the most popular is e.g. the speedtest.net.
How to make gaming ping better?
Knowing what does ping mean in gaming and how important it is, it’s worth it to make it better. It means: make it the lower you can.
First of all, you should delete all viruses from your PC. Before the game, turn off all the applications that are working in the background. You should also stop downloading files and updates. If it’s not working and your ping is still too high, try to change the place of your router. You can also restart it and change its settings. Check network cables and, if necessary, connect the Internet cable.
There is no one way to make ping lower for the simple case: there could be plenty of reasons why your gaming ping is too high, so you should check all the possibilities.
