I've been facing a frustrating issue for the past month where I can't play games online, despite having a solid internet connection. For example, I try to join a Battlefield game or play Phasmophobia with friends, and I keep getting kicked due to latency problems. When I played Valorant, I experienced extreme lag with my ping hitting around 1500 at times.
It's not the connection itself that's the problem because my girlfriend can play on her PC without issues. I even tested another internet connection, and the problem persisted. Downloads are quick—I can get Battlefield 6 in about 30 minutes.
I've tried updating my system, rebooting my PC, and a number of other things, but nothing has worked. My PC is about two years old, so I'm a bit concerned if it needs a hardware upgrade. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
3 Answers
Just having high download speeds doesn't guarantee low latency. It's a common misconception! If you're on wireless, that could definitely be your problem. Wireless connections usually have higher latency compared to wired connections. You might want to try changing your network drivers or even get a USB WLAN adapter for testing. It can help, but usually, wired is the best way to go for shooting games.
You should check where the ping is occurring. Try pinging your router, your ISP gateway, and a few external sites like google.com, as well as the game server itself. This way, you can pinpoint where the problem is happening.
If those pings are fine, consider that something on your PC might be spiking the CPU, which can lead to network latency—even the best network card needs CPU resources to function. Also, it’s worth scanning for malware; sometimes these issues are due to unauthorized access to your system.
Thanks for the advice! But can malware survive a reboot?
Are you using Wi-Fi? If so, you definitely need to switch to a wired Ethernet connection. That could solve a lot of your latency issues!
I’m planning to get one today! I’ll update you on how it goes.
Does wired Ethernet work better? I’m getting one today to test it out.