How to Lower Your Ping
Run a Ping Test first to get your baseline. Then work through these fixes in order — most people are done by step 3.
Measure first
Run a ping test before and after each fix. Changes often produce immediate, measurable results — you'll know within 60 seconds whether it worked.
Ping floor is physics
You cannot beat the speed of light. If the server is 5,000 km away, the minimum possible ping is ~30 ms. Fixes only help with latency above that floor.
Fix 1 — Switch from Wi-Fi to Ethernet
Wi-Fi adds 2–20 ms to your base ping and introduces jitter from radio channel contention. A wired Ethernet connection removes this overhead entirely. This is the highest-impact, lowest-cost fix available.
How to do it: Plug an Ethernet cable from your router directly into your PC, laptop, or console. Cat 5e cable is sufficient for connections up to 1 Gbps. If your device has no Ethernet port, a USB-C to Ethernet adapter costs around £10–15 and works immediately.
Expected reduction: typically 3–15 ms on average ping, with a much more dramatic reduction in jitter.
Ethernet vs Wi-Fi speed comparison →
Fix 2 — Choose the closest server or region
Physics sets a hard floor on ping based on distance. Every 1,000 km adds roughly 5–7 ms of minimum latency over a well-routed connection. Choosing a server region on the other side of the world is the most common cause of high in-game ping.
How to do it: In your game, set the region to your country or continent. In matchmaking-based games (Valorant, CS2, Warzone), use the region selector in settings. Some games auto-select — verify it chose correctly. Our test servers automatically select the nearest location for your speed tests.
Fix 3 — Close background bandwidth consumers
Active downloads, cloud sync, and background streaming fill your router's transmit buffer. When this buffer overflows, new packets queue behind the bulk transfer — adding unpredictable latency to your gaming traffic. This is called buffer bloat.
How to do it: Before gaming or calls, pause: cloud sync (OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive), game updates (Steam, PlayStation, Xbox), antivirus updates, and any active downloads. Check your router's device list for unexpected high-bandwidth usage from other household devices.
Fix 4 — Enable QoS on your router
Quality of Service (QoS) lets your router prioritise gaming and VoIP packets over bulk transfers. Even if a download is running, QoS ensures your game packets are served first — preventing the buffer bloat described above.
How to do it: Log into your router admin panel (usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1). Find the QoS or Traffic Priority section. Set gaming or the specific device to highest priority. Exact steps vary by router brand — search "[your router model] QoS setup" for model-specific instructions.
Fix 5 — Restart your router
Router routing tables and ARP caches can become stale over time. A restart forces the router to reconnect to your ISP fresh and clear queued data from its buffers. This often reduces ping by 5–20 ms on routers that haven't been restarted recently.
How to do it: Unplug the router's power cable for 30 seconds, then plug it back in. Wait 60 seconds for the connection to fully re-establish before retesting.
Fix 6 — Disable your VPN
VPNs route all traffic through an intermediary server, adding routing distance and encryption overhead. A VPN to a server in a different country can add 30–100 ms of additional ping. For gaming, disable the VPN unless you have a specific reason to use one.
How to do it: Open your VPN app and disconnect. Retest ping immediately. If ping drops significantly, the VPN was the cause. If you need a VPN for security, choose one with WireGuard protocol and a server in your own country.
Fix 7 — Switch to a faster DNS server
DNS affects how quickly domain names resolve, not the ongoing game connection ping. However, for applications that frequently look up new servers (matchmaking, voice chat), slow DNS adds noticeable lag to connection establishment.
Recommended DNS servers:
- Cloudflare:
1.1.1.1and1.0.0.1 - Google:
8.8.8.8and8.8.4.4
Set these in your network adapter settings (Windows: Network Adapter Properties → IPv4) or in your router admin panel to apply to all devices. Test which DNS is fastest for you →
Fix 8 — Test at different times to isolate ISP congestion
If your ping is 20 ms at 9 AM and 80 ms at 9 PM every day, your ISP's local network is overloaded during peak hours — nothing at your end will fix this. Confirming it is time-dependent gives you documented evidence to present to your ISP. Check how your ISP ranks →
If ISP congestion is confirmed and persistent, switching providers is the only effective solution.
What won't lower your ping
- Faster download/upload speeds — ping is determined by routing and distance, not bandwidth. Upgrading from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps won't change your ping at all.
- "Ping boosters" and "lag reducers" — most are scams. They cannot route data faster than the physical infrastructure allows.
- Changing your DNS — useful for connection setup time, but won't affect ongoing game ping once connected.