Rubberbanding in Online Gaming
If you are an online gamer, you are probably familiar with the term "Rubberbanding". You may not know what it means, but you may have most likely heard it from someone who also plays online games. Here we will discuss all there is about rubberbanding in online gaming.
What Is Rubberbanding in Online Gaming
Imagine that you are playing a video game, maybe CSGO. Let's say that you try to move forward by pressing "W". As you press the key, the in-game character moves two or three steps forward, out of nowhere the character instantly jumps back a step or two. Now, imagine that this is happening every second, or even faster. This is rubberbanding in a nutshell, and it does not take much thought to realize how frustrating this experience is.
Another common experience similar to Rubberbanding is "Teleportation". The experience is just like what the name suggests, your in-game character keeps on teleporting. Let's take the CSGO example. With teleportation, the in-game character won't be jumping back every second, rather, you will be able to move the in-game quite a long distance before the character jumps back to the starting point.
What Causes Rubberbanding in Online Gaming
Rubberbanding in online video games is most often caused by a network-related issue. However, sometimes the issue may also be hardware-related. Here are some of the most common issues that cause rubberbanding.
Corrupted Game Files
While it is not one of the least common issues that may be causing you to experience rubberbanding in online games, it should certainly not be ruled out as a potential source of the problem. Sometimes game files can get corrupted while downloading or installing. Sometimes the download process or the installation process misses some files. However, game files get corrupted most often after the installation process has been completed.
Unstable Ping
Unstable ping is one of the most common causes of rubberbanding. An unstable ping means that your ping is constantly jumping from low to really high values. For example, you may be getting a ping of 40ms but if it starts spiking up to over 700 or 800 again and again, then this is considered unstable ping. Another common term for this is ping spiking.
Very High Ping
This is different from just high ping. High ping ranges from 150ms to 250ms, but it won't cause rubberbanding. Rubberbanding occurs at really high pings of about 700 or 800. Sometimes, rubberbanding may even start to occur at pings above 250.
How to Fix Rubberbanding
As we have already mentioned that rubberbanding is most commonly caused by issues related to the network. Hence, the solutions that most commonly work for rubberbanding are most likely related to the network. Here are the most common solutions that you can try to fix the rubberbanding that you are experiencing while online gaming.
Reinstalling the Game: As one of the issues that may cause rubberbanding is corrupted game files, you should try re-installing or re-downloading the game. It is best that you do this from zero, meaning that you uninstall the game first.
Updating Drivers: Sometimes it is not the game files that have an issue, rather, it is the drivers. You should always keep your windows and hardware drivers up to date, regardless of whether you are facing rubberbanding or not.
Wired Connection: A wired connection is always much more stable than a wireless connection. So if you are experiencing unstable ping or frequent ping spikes, you should give a wired connection a try. Regardless of rubberbanding, a wired connection is best for gaming.
Separate Internet Connection: You may be experiencing ping spikes, and consequently rubberbanding, because of the users connected to your internet connection using up all the bandwidth. To overcome, you can try getting a separate connection for yourself.
Background Downloads: Sometimes it is not the users connected to your internet using up all the bandwidth, rather, it is all the unnecessary downloads that you are running in the background while gaming. It is best to pause all downloads while playing online games to avoid rubberbanding.
Selecting the Right Game Server: If you are connected to a game server that is very far from your region, then you will certainly experience high ping. It is always best to connect to a game server that is closest to you, for playing online games. For example, if you live somewhere in Eastern region of the United States, then it is best that you connect to EUS (Eastern United States) servers.
WTFast
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