Latency and ping
Latency is the time it takes for a small packet of data to travel from your device to a server and back, measured in milliseconds (ms). "Ping" is the common name for a latency measurement. Lower is better. It is governed by physical distance, the number of network hops and how congested each hop is.
Jitter
Jitter is the variation in latency over time. A connection that pings at a steady 20 ms feels smooth; one that swings between 20 ms and 120 ms feels unstable even if the average looks fine. High jitter causes stuttering video calls, warping game characters and dropped VoIP audio.
What counts as good?
- Latency under 20 ms: excellent — competitive gaming and flawless calls
- 20–50 ms: good — smooth for almost everything
- 50–100 ms: acceptable — fine for browsing and streaming, noticeable in fast games
- Over 100 ms: poor for real-time apps
- Jitter under 5 ms is ideal; over 30 ms will cause problems
Why Mbps isn't everything
You can have a 1 Gbps connection that games badly because of high latency or bufferbloat. For anything real-time, a stable low ping beats a bigger download number.
How to lower your ping
- 1Use a wired Ethernet connection instead of Wi-Fi for gaming.
- 2Choose game servers geographically close to you.
- 3Close background apps that upload or download while you play.
- 4Fix bufferbloat with Smart Queue Management (SQM) on a capable router.
- 5Consider fibre if you are on satellite or long-distance DSL.