Ping, jitter and packet loss: why your game lags and whether a faster plan helps

1.Speed and ping are different things

Think of a road. Your plan's speed is the width of the road: how many cars pass at once. Ping is the length of the road: how long one car takes to get there and back. A road can be made wider, but not shorter.

A game needs a narrow road: 1-2 Mbit/s is usually enough. What matters is that every "car" (data packet) arrives quickly and without delays. So at 100 Mbit/s and at 500 Mbit/s the ping to the same game server is almost the same.

2.The path to the game server

While you play, your computer or console constantly exchanges data with the game server: device - Wi-Fi or cable - your router - the provider's network - backbone networks - the game's data center.

Game servers are often not in our city but in Moscow, Europe or Asia. Data travels over fiber, and even light in it is not instant: every 100 km there and back adds about 1 ms. Moscow is about 9 thousand km away by cable, so even on a perfect network the ping to a Moscow server is at least 90 ms, and in practice about 100-120 ms. To Europe it is more. This is physics, not your plan: no speed makes the cable shorter.

3.What ping is

Ping is the time it takes data to reach the game server and come back, in milliseconds (ms). The lower it is, the faster the game reacts to you. Ping adds up from every part of the path: Wi-Fi at home, the router, provider networks and, above all, the distance to the server.

4.What jitter is

Jitter is how much the ping jumps. A steady ping of about 100 ms is playable: the game adapts. A ping jumping between 40 and 200 ms is jitter, and it is what causes stutters and teleports.

Jitter most often comes from Wi-Fi, an overloaded router or someone at home downloading something at the same time.

5.What packet loss is

Packet loss is the share of data that never arrives (in a game it is the percentage next to the ping). Even 1-2% is noticeable, and a few percent means heavy lag.

Packet loss is not normal, and its cause has to be found. Most often it is Wi-Fi (far from the router, walls, neighbours' networks), a bad cable or connector, or an overheated or old router.

6.Will a faster plan help?

Almost never. A faster plan will not lower your ping to the game server: speed decides how fast a game or an update downloads, not how fast the server answers.

The one exception: if someone at home watches 4K films, downloads torrents or updates while you play and fills the whole channel, the ping goes up. Then a wider plan helps - or simply not downloading while you play.

7.What really helps

• Use a cable instead of Wi-Fi. Connect your computer or console to the router with a cable - the main way to get rid of jitter and packet loss.
• If Wi-Fi only - use the 5 GHz band, keep the router close, with no walls or cabinets in between.
• Pick the nearest game server region in the game settings. The ping to a nearby data center is lower.
• Turn off VPN while playing. A VPN sends data to its own server first (often in another country) and only then to the game - the ping goes up.
• Stop downloads: torrents, game and system updates, cloud backups, high-quality video on other devices.
• Restart the router: unplug it for 10 seconds. If the router is many years old, it may not cope - consider a new one.

How to set up your router

8.How to find the problem and what to send us

Run a connection check from a computer connected by cable: the first command shows the connection to our server, the second - to an outside website.

• If the ping to our server is steady and without loss, but high in the game, the cause is the distance to the game server. Try another region in the game.
• If there is loss or the ping jumps already to our server, write to us and send the check result and a screenshot from the game. We will sort it out.

How to write to us

1. 1. Customer account, "Contact us"abonent.bravotele.com - if you are already our subscriber
2. 2. Emailabonent (at) bravotele.com
3. 3. WhatsApp+7-914-419-60-03 - first write your connection address, then your question