Chances are, if you’ve played a multiplayer game online, you’ve experienced lag in some way, shape, or form. Rubber-banding, delayed inputs, and framerate drops are all consequences of broader connectivity problems, and they can make gaming a miserable and frustrating experience. 

More often than not, lag shuts down a player’s success in a competitive setting due to mere microsecond delays that result in missed shots or an inability to react in time. These moments can feel inevitable, resulting in paranoia that makes it feel like interruptions are always looming on the horizon, waiting to strike. As it turns out, however, lag is a fixable problem, one that Lucas Stolze, CEO of ExitLag, helps gamers worldwide overcome.

For those looking for practical ways to reduce lag and determine whether a wired or wireless connection is their best option, read on.

Wired vs. wireless: Which one really performs better?

It’s long been debated whether there’s any real difference between wired and wireless connections when it comes to maintaining connectivity while gaming. As technology has progressed, it’s become increasingly clear that this debate is fairly one-sided once you take a closer look at some technical details.

Let’s start with wireless (Wi-Fi) connections since they tend to be more convenient. When players use Wi-Fi for gaming, “a device (such as your PC) needs to connect to a modem, often through a separate router. The modem converts the signal from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and modifies it so it can be used in your home.” A router then communicates with the modem and creates the network that the device uses.

Notably, the number of steps involved in this process means it takes longer for data to travel from a router to a gaming device, sometimes resulting in instability such as inconsistent pings and unexpected latency spikes.

Wireless connections have other important limitations. By default, wireless connections distribute bandwidth equally among connected devices, so the more devices there are on a given network, the more they compete for bandwidth, slowing overall connectivity. There are also interference factors to account for, such as walls, microwaves, smart appliances, and even neighboring connections, which can disrupt your connection and cause lag.

By comparison, Ethernet avoids or mitigates many of these issues since it provides a direct connection between a router and your gaming console. This direct connection circumvents most of the problems associated with a wireless connection, resulting in lower latency, less jitter, and more stable overall throughput.

As such, in the context of competitive gaming, Ethernet is often considered the easiest, cheapest, and most effective fix for lag. In other words, wired connections can be superior to wireless ones for consistent, reliable performance.

Not everyone can use Ethernet, however, so for those who have to rely on wireless connections, bear in mind the following tips to reduce the likelihood and severity of lag.

Clean up hidden bandwidth drains

Bandwidth is a valuable and finite resource for wireless connections, making it imperative that gamers do what they can to cut down on bandwidth usage while playing.

To start, consider closing any background apps that aren’t in use while gaming. Streaming devices, syncing phones, and open browser tabs all use bandwidth, so they’re worth shutting down when possible. Closing unnecessary programs and connections can go a surprisingly long way in decreasing lag while gaming, but there are additional methods worth considering as well.

For example, ExitLag’s RAM Cleaner conveniently purges background processes with a single click, eliminating the need to hunt down apps that you didn’t know you were running in the first place. To condense this advice into one statement: lighter systems equal more performance headroom, and with more performance headroom comes a better gaming experience.

Prioritizing gaming traffic with QoS

In addition to cutting down on overall bandwidth usage, there are other ways of funneling more bandwidth toward your gaming platform of choice. With the right Quality of Service (QoS) settings, players can have their networks prioritize bandwidth-heavy activities like gaming and streaming.

Experts explain that “networks with a Quality of Service model applied will prioritize, as you tell it, certain applications, services, and/or users over others so the important things have the most bandwidth and the best ping time.” In other words, with QoS, network users can ensure that gaming traffic is given priority.

These settings are most useful when multiple users are vying for connectivity at any given time. Households with multiple users/devices, streaming set-ups, and shared apartments can all benefit from mindful prioritization, though it’s worth noting that not all routers handle QoS equally. That said, basic prioritization can still reduce lag by a noticeable amount.

Keeping hardware updated and healthy

It can be tempting to continually put off hardware updates since they rarely provide obvious benefits, but as it turns out, those benefits are all the more apparent if your devices run slower and slower. Many of these delays can be traced to often-ignored factors such as outdated network drivers and outdated router firmware. Modems can also be a source of anguish in this regard if they haven’t been restarted for an extended period of time (i.e., months or years).

Fortunately, these issues are reasonably easy to fix. Start by rebooting gear regularly and updating all networking software, as these steps are typically straightforward and require little effort beyond finding the right prompt to interact with. Replacing aging routers may help, especially if they are incompatible with modern technologies like Wi-Fi 6.

Choosing the right game server region

Most online games will make a point of showing you where your server region is set to. When you see options like “U.S. Chicago” or “U.S. East,” you know you’re probably looking at settings for server regions. Many games will automatically pick the server closest to your location, but in instances where they don’t, you should still go for that same option.

Simply put, shorter physical distances tend to result in less overall latency. There are times when some servers just aren’t working or are otherwise suboptimal, so it can help to use tools like ExitLag in these circumstances. ExitLag can be useful because it is designed to route data along the fastest path, even if that path is physically distant. By optimizing routing, players can reduce ping and overall packet loss.

ExitLag and advanced lag-reduction tools

The aforementioned lag-reduction strategies are useful in their own right, but they can’t always provide the edge you need to ensure your network can keep up with your performance. This is where ExitLag’s services may be most helpful.

ExitLag excels at providing multi-path routing to avoid congestion and stabilizing latency with built-in algorithms. These services are particularly useful for players locked into poor server connections, such as those experiencing erratic ping despite otherwise fast internet. ExitLag is also useful in cases where games lack server selectors that would improve a player’s connectivity.

All of these improvements are vital for competitive scenarios where reaction times in the range of milliseconds can be the difference between victory and defeat.

Putting frustration-free gaming within reach

Although it isn’t always possible to avoid lag 100% of the time, there are many ways to greatly mitigate its likelihood and severity. By combining wired connections, QoS settings, updated hardware, reduced background load, proper servers, and optimized tools like those from ExitLag, gamers can achieve a stable, responsive gaming experience.

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