Traffic congestion can also cause a slowdown, too, delaying your controller input.Ĭertain types of internet connections inherently have more latency than others.įor example, satellite internet has the highest latency because it’s a wireless transmission that must travel to space and back to reach a remote server. The more hops your signal must traverse, the longer its journey will take-which translates to a higher latency. Why? Because y our signal moves through multiple “hops” as it travels between you and the server.

Games that support co-op and multiplayer use regional servers because geolocation does matter, even if a server is just a few states away.

The physical distance between you and the server There are a number of factors that impact latency. Your game renders the response, but because your latency is high, your movement appears delayed compared to the others. The server acknowledges the movement and sends a response showing your movements along with all the other player movements. If your latency gets too high when you’re playing a game online, you start to experience lag.įor example, you move a mouse and your game reports that movement to a remote server. Latency is also referred to as “ping rate.” The ping utility answers this question by throwing a ball of data at a specific destination and recording the entire trip’s duration-in other words, it pings the server. Picture a racquetball bouncing off a wall-how long does that ball take to return back to you? Latency is a measurement of the time a single data packet uses to leave your device, reach its destination, and bounce back to you. The typical game with high-definition graphics needs an upload speed of about 1–2 Mbps. Even a poor connection can usually meet the necessary speeds, which is why upload speed often takes a backseat to more important factors. Since games are interactive, you also have to consider upload speed or the speed at which information from your computer or console travels to a remote server. Overall, many modern games with high-definition graphics need a download speed of about 3 Mbps to play online. These games can have more real on-screen players than the typical online gaming scenario, causing frame rate drops and “teleporting” players. Out of the items on the above list, player location can introduce slowdowns, especially in massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. Player location (you and everyone else).In fact, very little information passes between the gaming server and the gamer. Unlike an online video - which is streamed to your device over the internet- the graphics chip in your PC or console renders (draws) the game’s world locally and displays it on your screen. Playing games like Destiny 2 and Diablo III online doesn’t require a lot of bandwidth.

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