What Is Ping? (Gaming)

If you ever played an online game, you’ve probably heard of or seen the word “ping” or ping time mentioned in a games menu or settings. In this video were going to have a look at what it means and how it can affect your gaming experience.

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To understand what ping is, we first need to understand how online games work. When you’re playing a single player game, everything is run locally on your console or pc. If you were to unplug your router, you’d continue playing as normal. No internet connection is needed.

When playing online things work a bit differently. All players in the game connect to a centralised server when playing with each other. During gameplay, servers receive data packets from each player's gaming device, containing information about player actions, movements, and interactions. The server processes these data packets, updates the game state accordingly, and sends information back to all players to ensure synchronization and consistency across all connected devices.
If a player in the online game runs forward and starts shooting, their console or pc will send this information to the game server which will then send the information to the other players devices which is how they can see the other player run forward and start shooting in the game on their own consoles.

Now we understand a bit about how online games work lets look at where ping comes into this.

Ping tie or ping refers to the round-trip time it takes for a data packet to travel from the gamer's device to the game server and back again. It is usually measured in milliseconds. A lower ping time indicates a faster connection between the player's device and the game server, while a higher ping time indicates a slower connection. A high ping time can result in noticeable delays or lag in gameplay. This is why if your ping time is high you will often find yourself jumping around or moving erratically and unable to interact with things going on around in the game properly. The time its taken for your device to send a receive a response from the game server is too high you’re effectively out of sync with the game and the other players.
Slow internet speeds and connecting to a server far from your geographical location are the most common causes of a high ping time so its always recommended to connect to the game servers closest to your geographical location if the game offers a choice.

Have you ever had any issues with ping time and did you manage to resolve them?

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