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Tips to Reduce Lag During Online Gaming

Playing games has now moved indoors, and to be more specific, games have now moved online. It’s estimated that there are about one billion active online gamers on a global scale, with South Korea, China and Japan leading the way. For smooth online gaming, a constant factor is the need for speed and bandwidth. After all, you wouldn’t want to lose a game just because your network was slow or experiencing lag.

Low latency or lag in your internet service makes all the difference between winning and losing a game. Lag is measured in milliseconds and refers to inferior server processing power and a low bandwidth connection. Here are some ways to reduce lag while you are gaming online:

Check requirements

Before starting a game, check its requirements against your hard drive. This will give you a clear idea of whether you will be experiencing lag. Where possible, upgrade the RAM (memory) on your device.

Close other programs

Shut down any other programs running concurrently to avoid burdening the bandwidth. Skype and YouTube are bandwidth hoggers and will need to be shut down to minimize lag while you are playing. You could also ensure others on your Wi-Fi connection aren’t using bandwidth-intensive programs while you are gaming.

Broadband source

Your broadband link grossly affects your gaming experience. If you are using a satellite connection or a dial-up modem, you are bound to experience greater latency and lag as compared to copper cables and fibernet technology.

Wired Connection

It’s better to ditch the router and connect directly to your wired internet connection. Bypassing the Wi-Fi is bound to speed up your gaming experience tremendously. Alternatively, you could invest in a high-quality router that is optimized for gaming.

Disable automatic updates

You could also consider temporary disabling of automatic updates as they can also hog your bandwidth. After all, you wouldn’t want an automatic update to ruin your game! Another option is to disable the device’s firewall. This will prevent it from scanning your game for information and slowing down your game in the process.

Going with a fiber broadband connection is the best way forward for gamers, as there is zero lag and latency involved here.