Gaming latency
How to test your ping to a game server
Short answer: the ping on a speed test measures the trip to a nearby test server, so it is almost always lower than the ping your game shows. To see what the game sees, measure to the game's own region or server: read the game's network overlay, then run ping -n 100 to a server address for steadiness and pathping to find where delay or loss starts. Look for spikes and loss, not only the average.
Check idle and loaded latency first
Why game ping is higher than speed test ping
A speed test picks the closest server it can, often inside or next to your provider's network. A game server can be a region or a continent away and reached over a different route. A 6 ms speed test ping and a 35 ms ping in a match on the same line are both normal. What should worry you is ping that jumps around, or that only rises when someone else in the house is online.
Game traffic is small. APNIC research on a dozen popular multiplayer games found that a game-play flow is "typically in the range of 200-400 Kbps", and that experience is impaired "even by transient lag spikes from cross-traffic such as video streaming" (APNIC blog, 2019). That is why a faster plan rarely fixes lag, and why the tests below focus on delay and loss.
Step 1: use the game's own overlay
Most competitive games have a network statistics overlay in their video or interface settings that shows ping (or round-trip time), packet loss and sometimes "choke" or server tick problems. Turn it on and play for ten minutes. Note the normal ping and whether spikes line up with something at home, such as a video starting on the TV.
Step 2: ping a server address for a long sample
On Windows, open Command Prompt and send 100 pings instead of the default four. Microsoft's documentation describes /n <count> as the number of echo requests ("The default is 4") and /t as pinging until you press Ctrl+C (Microsoft Learn: ping). On macOS or Linux, use ping -c 100.
ping -n 100 <server address>Use an address the game publisher lists for your region, or the server IP the overlay shows. Some game servers ignore ping requests; if every reply times out but the game works, pick the publisher's region test address or your provider's first hop instead.
| What the 100 replies show | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Min and average within a few ms, 0% loss | Stable path; any lag is in the game or its server |
| Average fine but maximum many times higher | Spikes (jitter); check Wi-Fi and other traffic at home |
| Any loss above 0–1% | Dropped packets; find where with pathping |
| Everything high even when idle | Distance or routing; consider a nearer region |
Step 3: find where it goes wrong with pathping or tracert
tracert lists every router between you and the server. pathping does the same, then pings every hop for a while and reports loss per hop. Microsoft explains that by default it sends 100 queries to each router and that the busy period lasts "approximately 90 seconds (the time varies by hop count)" (Microsoft Learn: pathping).
pathping -n <server address>Read the result carefully. The same Microsoft page shows routers that drop pings addressed to themselves while forwarding traffic normally: "this loss doesn't affect their ability to forward traffic that isn't addressed to them". Loss that appears at one hop and continues to every hop after it is real. Loss at a single hop in the middle that disappears again is usually that router ignoring pings.
| Where loss or delay starts | Likely owner | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Hop 1 (your router) | Your home network | Test on a cable; fix Wi-Fi or router queueing |
| Hops 2–4 | Your provider's access network | Collect results at several times and contact the provider |
| Later hops, near the game server | Transit networks or the game host | Check the game's server status page; try another region |
Step 4: test under load
Run a long ping while someone streams video or a large download runs. If the ping climbs by tens or hundreds of milliseconds, the problem is latency under load (bufferbloat), not the route. Our speed test reports this directly as latency under load, and our latency vs bandwidth guide explains the router setting that fixes it.
Quick fixes in order
- Play on a cable, or move closer to the router on 5 GHz. See router placement.
- Pause cloud backups and console downloads during matches.
- Enable SQM or smart queue on the router if loaded latency is high.
- Choose the nearest server region in the game settings.
- Only then contact the provider, with pathping results from two or three different times.
Related
What ping means for gaming · Why speed tests disagree · How we measure latency · Household bandwidth calculator