How To Reduce Ping In Online Games Using VPN

When it comes to gaming online, there are lots of things that you can control and several other things that are outside of your control that can bog you down. One of the elements keeping you from having the best experience in online gaming is the lag problems. For many folks, the problem with the high ping is the reason that the game will lag. That’s the bad news. The good news is that lowering your ping will help you enjoy your game more instead of fighting against a game where the people you’re playing with are jumping around faster than you.

Why Do Pings Matter?

The ping is a pretty important measurement, it tells you exactly how long it is taking you to essentially get information from your computer to the internet server and vice versa. The higher the time, the greater the lag. There are several reasons this could be, but the good news is there are lots of solutions for the problem of a high ping. One of the best solutions is a gaming VPN, it is a very good way to lower the ping time on your gaming.

Using a VPN has many benefits besides lowering your ping. Between the privacy provided by the VPN along with the different servers, using a VPN for gaming is a great way to keep the speed of your gaming at or above the level of your fellow players.

When you are measuring latency, the ping speed that you’re looking for is around 50ms while a high ping of 250ms means there is great latency in your connection.

Understanding the Causes of Lag and High Pings

There are several factors that influence ping speed. The first thing to notice is whether or not you are actually able to ping. If you get a message that you weren’t able to connect, then that means the request has not been received. The easy way to know if you have a high ping is how long it takes for a page to load. There are several different things coming into play.

The first is bandwidth. If there is a lot of other requests being made over your connection or to the DNS server, it will take a while. An easy way to make sure you’re not using up precious bandwidth on your end is seeing what programs are connected that don’t need to be.

There are other causes of lagging as well. Some of them could be environmental while others could be the region you are in. If you are in a country that throttles, then the lags are an unfortunate part of the problem. Another issue is firewalls. There are usually several firewalls between your computer and the DNS server. Several of these firewalls serve important purposes while others are just a bit excessive. The bottom line is if there are obstacles to connecting, then your ping will be higher.

How Does a VPN Affect Ping?

The key for a good connection is making sure that your server and the game’s server are in relatively close proximity. In the digital world, relatively close is quite far in actual distance, so think of it this way: if the nearest game server is located in New York but you are trying to connect in Vietnam, then it will take a while for the server in Vietnam to connect with the game server in New York. Instead, what you need to do is connect with a server that’s much closer.

The best part about VPNs is this can be done with just a couple clicks. Once you have installed the VPN it takes just a couple of clicks to find the right server in the country that you wish to connect from. The way to do this is to connect to a server close to the game server. So, if following the example above, if you connect to a server that’s located in North America, the ping will be much lower than if you connect with a server that’s located in Asia. Even if the North American server is located in San Diego, it is much faster than a server in Hanoi.

Now, if you find yourself on a server where there are a lot of others, then what you need to do is move to a different one. Just because you’re connected to a nearby server via a VPN doesn’t mean that you are out of the woods. Remember the bandwidth issue discussed earlier. The more traffic, the higher the ping.

Other Considerations for a Gaming VPN

The key to a great gaming VPN is to not just have short routes to the gaming servers but to also offer high levels of encryption. There are lots of malicious actors out there and a great VPN goes a long way towards preventing DDoS attacks along with other targeted attacks. Because you are moving around the web on a dummy IP address, essentially you have the protection of anonymity. However, it is also important to make sure that the VPN you’re using has a history of providing great security for its users.

To get a proper connection, always try to find servers that don’t have as much activity. This will ensure that you have a much faster connection with a low ping.

Conclusion

When it comes to gaming, having a low ping is key to having an enjoyable experience. No one wants to be in a game where they are always are several moves behind just because their connection is not as fast. The solution for the ping problem is to get a VPN that specifically can be used for gaming. VPNs do wonderful work in keeping folks anonymous online but the connection advantages they provide help gamers get a low ping connection. Look for VPNs that have a large number of servers because that is the best way to ensure that you have no problem connecting to the gaming server with a low ping.