Ping - what is it, how can you check it and, if necessary, reduce it (lower ping)

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. If you actively use the Internet, and especially if you play online games, then you have undoubtedly heard about such a thing as ping.

Sometimes problems arise with it when it is too high, and the question arises of how to lower the ping. Sometimes for this they even change the Internet provider, reinstall the system and perform other difficult actions.

However, many have heard this word only occasionally and have no idea what it is. So I'll start at the beginning with what ping is, why it's so important, and how you can test it. Well, in conclusion I will mention something that can affect its reduction. I hope it will be interesting.

In general, the word “ping” has two similar interpretations. In everyday life ping is called checking the quality of the Internet channel to see how fast signals travel through it. If it’s fast, it means the channel is good, which is especially critical for those who play online games in which events unfold a little faster than in chess.

You've probably heard about a game like Counter Strike - an online shooter (first-person shooter), when you play via the network with a group of players like you and each of you controls the actions of your character via the Internet. What does ping have to do with it, you ask? But at the same time.

Let's say that you have spotted your enemy and pressed the shoot button. What happens? The signal from the gaming program installed on your computer goes via the Internet to the server (a special computer that can be located anywhere on the network) where the game is running. But the Internet is not an abstract thing, but physical devices through which the signal you send will go. AND signal speed along this path can be completely different.

Very often in everyday life it is the response speed that is meant when talking about ping. Those. how quickly a signal from your computer travels through the network to another computer (or server) and then returns back to you. If the ping is very large (it is usually measured in milliseconds), then your game will ungodly lag, slow down and become dull. And you will be ready to smash your mouse and keyboard on the monitor screen.

How could it be otherwise if you don’t have time to do anything with such monstrous delays in transmitting your actions and receiving a response to them. While your shot signal goes to the server and comes back, you may already be shot (and more than once).

Low ping can drive an avid gamer into a frenzy, and a simple Internet user will not be very pleased to wait a long time for pages to open in the browser. But still, the issues of checking and reducing ping (increasing response speed) are primarily of concern to online players.

How to check ping?

Just above I said that the word “ping” has two interpretations. I explained one of them (everyday) a little higher. But the second is based on the fact that there is such a ping program (on all operating systems that can work with the Internet), which allows you to send a test package to any Internet node that has an IP address (a computer on the network, a server, a router, etc. ) and measure the time it takes for it to return back.

Exactly this time is called ping(delay or lag). The test package is light in weight and is sent using a special service protocol. Due to the latter circumstance, not in all cases a high ping (long delay time between sending and receiving) will indicate a bad Internet channel, because problems with signal transmission can only arise through this service channel, and on the main channel everything will fly with a bang .

But in most cases, you can equate high ping with a bad channel (not suitable for online games). It is impossible to play an online shooter (or any other non-turn-based strategy game) if the ping is 300 milliseconds (a third of a second). But if it is 15-20 ms, then everything is just fine and you won’t even need to know what it is, much less how it is measured. Interest in pinging arises mainly when problems and serious lags appear.

So, to check ping, you don’t need to download or install anything additional. If you are, then the current average (or maximum) ping value (and often fps - rendering speed in frames per second) will most likely be displayed somewhere in the interface of your game.

If you haven’t found it or you are interested in the response speed without application to gaming fun, then there are no special problems here either. As I already mentioned, all operating systems have built-in ping programs. Due to the fact that I am not familiar with Linux, I will explain using the example of Windows.

What needs to be done in Windows to check ping? It's not enough to be banal:

There is also online services for, which will often also check ping (the time it takes for the test signal to travel from your computer to their server). But still, the method described above is the most reliable in terms of measurement accuracy.

In addition to measuring the travel time of a test signal, this program (ping) is often used to ping server or router. In this case, the fact of receiving a response will be important in itself, and not the time it took to send and receive it. By pinging different network devices you can often localize a breakdown in a chain of devices (this is exactly what I do at work). In general, a useful thing????

How to reduce (lower) ping?

If your ping value is very critical, and it is unfortunately very high (such that it creates problems with online games or even when working in a browser), then you naturally begin to wonder if it is possible to lower it somehow. In principle, it is possible, but it is not always possible to reduce ping with simple manipulations.

What can determine response time?:

From your Internet Service Provider.
1. What is important here is not even the width of the channel, but its quality. You can get a ping of 300 ms on a 100 megabit channel (), or you can get 4 ms on a 10 megabit channel. If carried out, then a six-lane gravel road will be a priori slower than a two-lane, but asphalt road.
2. However, channel width still matters. A narrow channel may cause poor response time because... lags can occur due to banal congestion of the channel (packets simply cannot get through). This can be compared to traffic jams on a road that is well paved but too narrow to handle the existing traffic.
From the game server. It may not have a high-quality or too narrow Internet connection, which is why many people experience slowdowns and lags in their games.
From the location of the game server. It may simply be too far from you, and the signal passing through many dozens of intermediate nodes slows down and may even be partially lost.
From the signal passing from your computer’s network card to the file of the game you are running. There can be a lot of reasons affecting ping - from viruses to broken operating system settings.

Actually, from all of the above comes advice that can help you lower your ping to an acceptable value, when it will no longer affect the comfortable use of your computer on the network.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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