How to reduce lag and increase internet speed for gaming

Imagine playing Call of Duty on your phone. You are confronting an opponent right in front of you. You have your weapon loaded, your aim is perfect, and you shoot. But unfortunately, your game froze, and your opponent took the shot first. You are sure that you acted fast. Yet somehow, your actions in the game were slow. You lost the game. You were wondering why that happened to you? You lost the match because your game lagged. You need to conduct a net speed test online to see why the lag occurred.

Let’s talk about this in detail.

Why did game lags happen?

Game lags are pretty common and highly frustrating to all gamers. It is a delay between the action you took and your game server’s reaction. It doesn’t matter if you press the button first; it heavily depends on how fast your game server responds.

Game lags can happen due to the following reasons:

• Slow internet speed and poor internet service provider
• High Ping
• High Latency
• Your location

Understand more about ping, latency, and lag

People often use Ping and latency interchangeably. But that’s not correct. By understanding the related terms about the internet speed and gaming experience, you are most likely to find the root cause of your problem.

Ping is the signal (or, in this case, the command you perform or enter) sent from your computer or smartphone to another on the same network. At the same time, latency is the time it takes for the signal or the ping to travel from one point to another. Both are measured in milliseconds.

20 ms and lower is considered a tremendous low ping rate for any gamer. Anything higher than 150 ms will result in a lot of lag during gaming. Generally, broadbands provide a ping rate of 100 ms or lower. It is considered to be average for gaming.

Therefore, the goal here is to keep the ping rate low. A low ping rate is perfect for real-time multiplayer online games like first-person shooting, racing games, strategy games, etc.

A lag or decreased speed happens due to the high ping rate and latency.

Let’s see how you can overcome these challenges to reduce lags and increase internet speed for gaming.

Get a better ISP offering better internet speed.

One of the primary reasons why you are experiencing lag in your games is the quality of the network provided by your ISP. If you are a professional gamer or a regular one, consider switching your ISP to the best in the area. Go online, compare, and talk to people to understand which ISP has better connectivity. Conduct a google search for ‘internet near me‘ to check for available options.

Airtel Broadband is generally the most preferred option for gamers due to its quality round-the-clock network.

Understand the difference between download and upload speed

Generally, people focus on the download speed when considering an ISP. But as a gamer, the upload speed is more important than the download one.

Download speed means the speed from which data is received from the servers, whereas the upload speed means how much time it takes for you to send data to others. Given that you are sending the commands in a game to another server, upload speed is more significant. Therefore, before choosing an ISP, make sure to understand the upload speed offered by the ISP. Try conducting an Airtel net speed test online for the ISP network you consider installing. The report includes both download and upload speed and the ping rate. This should give you a good idea.

Upgrade your equipment

Sometimes, it is not your internet service provider but your equipment that hinders getting you a reasonable speed. Your ISP will provide you with a decent regular router. But it might not be sufficient for gaming purposes. Therefore, consider investing in suitable modems and routers that are strong and provide high-speed internet.

Sometimes, you experience a lag because too many devices are connected to your router. The bandwidth is shared, and you end up getting slow internet. Consider joining your computer to the internet directly to avoid such issues. Also, stay updated on any software updates pending for the devices.

Stay close to the router.

If you use a wireless connection, make sure your router is centrally located. Also, try to stay close to the router for a better relationship. Choose an area where you get a solid signal for reducing lags in your game.

Background apps

Sometimes, a lot of background applications eat your data and bandwidth. Please make sure any unnecessary data-consuming applications are closed, and their background data usage is restricted. This will allow you to reduce your ping and lag in your game.

So, what are you waiting for? First, conduct a net speed test online to determine your current internet speed and ping rate using the Airtel Speed test. Then, try out these methods to reduce that ping rate and never freeze in your games!