How To Fix CS:Go High Ping
Tactical shooters are one of the hottest trends in video games, with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) leading the pack.
It’s grown incredibly popular across all tiers of players, from the most casual to the most competitive. In esports, CS:GO thrives with over $100,000,000 more in earnings ahead of its most similar competitor, Rainbow Six: Siege.
One of the biggest draws of CS:GO compared to games like Rainbow Six is its emphasis on a player’s raw skill. Many other shooters feature tons of gimmicks and mechanics that can distract from your physical skills, depending on how things play out.
CS:GO levels the playing field and lets the best players show why they’re the best.
With so much focus on precision and reflexes, the importance of lag-free gaming in Counter-Strike is even higher than in most other games.
Today, we’re breaking down what factors might cause lag in your gaming and the best solutions for reducing lag — so you can put your skills into play without avoidable losses.
Let’s get started!
What Are Ping and Lag?
If you’re here, you may already know about ping, in theory. However, ping can have many definitions that change the way it interferes with your game.
What Is Ping?
Ping is a versatile gaming term. In most cases, it refers to the measurement of time it takes data to travel from your local system to an online server. This measurement is usually in milliseconds.
Ping can also refer to the signal being sent containing this data or the command used to send this signal and test how long it takes to travel.
Let’s break it down with an analogy: Think of ping as the time it takes you to drive from your house to your grocery store. Your wallet is (hopefully) full of “data,” and after you arrive, you’ll bring back a response (groceries).
If your mom asks you where you’re going, you could say you're going to “ping” to the grocery store and back. Ping can represent both the journey itself and how long it takes.
In any case, the term ping is always used in the same general context: to talk about how fast your internet connection is and why you’re experiencing lag.
What Is Lag?
Lag is an irregular delay in some part of your game. It might be a choppy render, a delayed input, or even a sound bite that plays a little too late after its cue.
Lag comes in many forms. The most common is something called stutter, which is a typical minor or major delay. Microstutter is a less extreme form of lag that’s typically nothing more than subtle FPS drops. These can be annoying, but they’re rarely detrimental to your game.
Rubberbanding is another type of lag that is seriously bad news. If your character starts to bounce back and forth like they're tied to a post by a rubber band, this is the type of lag you’re experiencing.
Lastly, packet loss is a type of lag in which your ping takes too long or, for some reason, never arrives. You’ll probably see something fail to render or have a lost input (AKA, you tried to shoot, and nothing happened).
How Do Ping and Lag Affect Your Gameplay?
Ping is the single most relevant factor when it comes to network-based lag. If you’re experiencing lag while playing CS:GO or another online game, you probably have high ping. If your gameplay is running smoothly, your ping is probably low.
A less stable connection, such as a wireless connection or a connection on a busy network, might also have inconsistent ping. You may have low ping one moment (less than 30 ms) and high ping the next (300 or 400 ms).
This is often referred to as a lag spike or packet loss, depending on the circumstance. This can be just as frustrating — if not more so — than a consistent but less extreme type of lag, such as stutter or microstutter.
All these types of lag can have serious detriments to your CS:GO experience and win rate.
Whether you’re experiencing consistent smaller bits of lag or extreme but unpredictable lag, the delays caused will interfere with your ability to take precise actions or make timely reactions.
Lag becomes an obvious problem in a game like Counter-Strike, where nothing is more important than your reflexes, and every mistake can be fatal. You simply can’t perform to your skill level when lag interferes.
Reduced lag isn’t going to suddenly improve your skills so that you could beat the world’s best players. It will, however, help prevent you from losing matches where your skills should give you that W.
Ways To Reduce Ping and Stop Lag
If your ping is high or inconsistent, WTFast is here to help. Thankfully, there are a number of solutions to high ping and lag.
Not sure if your ping is high? There are many ways to run a ping test on a PC, and most consoles have a built-in way to run such tests as well.
Once you’ve identified that ping is the problem, here are the steps you can take to improve it.
Use an Ethernet or Wired Connection
The first thing you should do is make sure you’re using a wired connection. Wireless internet connections are convenient for some things, but they’re vastly suboptimal when it comes to gaming.
Not only are you likely to get a higher ping with a wireless connection, but you’re also going to have a less stable connection.
This means that all types of lag are going to be more common. Stutter and microstutter will probably be frequent issues, and severe lag spikes, packet loss, or connection drops will also pop up.
This may not matter too much if you’re playing a slow or casual game. In CS:GO, it’s a huge deal.
Using an ethernet connection is shown to improve your connection speed and stability greatly. However, it’s likely not going to solve everything. For the best weapon against lag, you’ll need the new secret weapon of gaming: a GPN.
Try a GPN
You’ve probably heard of a VPN before. GPN sounds similar, but there are some key differences between these private networks.
A GPN or Gamers Private Network is like a VPN in that it changes the way your data travels from your system to the target server, such as the CS:GO server. However, the GPN’s path is optimized specifically for gaming.
Fastest Route
The biggest benefit of a GPN is how it enhances your connection speed.
Depending on how a VPN is configured and how much traffic goes through it, it might help your speed or hurt it. Physical distance is key to your ping, and if you use a VPN that’s farther from your Counter-Strike server, your ping will increase.
WTFast’s AI finds the fastest route for your data and gets you the closest connection with the least traffic.
A GPN also improves stability, so you’ll have less “flux” (major lag spikes or packet losses). Together, speed and stability are the best tools to combat lag.
Real-Time Gameplay Only
When you use our GPN, you’re still logging in directly to the game server. Any downloads you make for the game use the same direct connection.
Our GPN only gets involved once you enter a match. This is where your real-time responses are at their most important, which is why it’s where we focus our technology. By stopping our network from getting clogged up with other things, you’ll stop experiencing lag due to a big update drop or another unexpected download.
Encryption
While most people use a VPN to encrypt their activity or bypass restrictions, that’s simply not the purpose of a GPN. Our GPN sends your data in a pure state – no masking or hiding.
This is especially relevant for certain game servers that might automatically flag a VPN connection as a fraudster, hacker, or bot. With our GPN, you can rest assured your connection to CS:GO will be free of security issues, and we’ll stay updated if Counter-Strikes standards ever change.
Plug and Play
The best part about a GPN is how easy it is to use. Our WTFast system is easy to install. Once it’s ready, you simply choose your game and play!
Manual settings are available for those who really want to dig in, but our AI is reliable at choosing the fastest and most stable settings for your connection. Beating lag has never been so easy.
Conclusion
Our WTFast GPN is your new secret weapon in the war against lag. Check our website and blog for more helpful services and guides for all your Counter-Strike and online gaming needs!
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