Right after the framerate of a video game, latency is one of the most important things that gamers care about. However, not a lot of gamers know what it actually is and why it is so important for online gaming. Here is our take on everything you need to know about what is latency in gaming and why it matters for gameplay.

What Is Latency In Gaming

As you play online video games, your computer constantly sends data to the game server through the internet. Your computer also receives data from the game server. The time it takes one packet of data to go from your A to B and then back to A is called latency.

In the context of gaming, latency is the time it takes data to travel from your computer to the game server you are connected on and then back to your computer.

Latency in gaming does not stay constant across different games and different servers. On one game on a particular server, you might be getting latency of around 50ms. In another game, you may get a latency of around 100 ms.

Latency depends on the distance that data has to travel. As the distance gets larger, the latency gets larger as well. In other words, if data has to travel more distance, then it will take longer for data to reach its destination.

Imagine a car that has to travel from point A to point B. If the distance is shorter, it won't take long to reach its destination. However, as you increase the distance, the car will arrive at its destination much later.

Since video game servers are not located at the same place and may have different distances from your computer, the latency is different for each game server.

For example, if you live in Norway and are playing Apex Legends on any of the EU servers, you will experience lower in-game latency. However, if you start playing on North American servers, or Japanese servers, you will start to experience higher in-game latency.

How To Check My Latency

If you want to check the latency of a particular game, you will have to turn on the latency display from the in-game settings. The problem is that there is a different method for doing this for each game. However, it is usually not that complicated, and you can find tons of guides on the internet for it.

Another way you can check the latency is by using online ping test websites. Identify the location of the server you want to play the game on and go to a ping test website. Select the server based on the location you identified and start the ping test.

How Does Latency Affect Gaming

The two main things of online video games that can affect your in-game performance and gaming experience include latency and framerate. We all know how the framerate affects gameplay. Latency affects the gaming experience in somewhat the same way.

As latency gets larger and larger, the time it takes for the data to travel from your computer to the game server gets larger. So if you make an input while playing the game, instead of the response being displayed instantly on your screen, it starts to take a second or two.

In other words, as latency gets larger and larger, a noticeable delay starts to appear. Delay that is noticeable and an annoyance is called lag. And lag is something that you absolutely do not want if all you care about is your in-game performance.

Imagine playing a match of Apex Legends, and an enemy comes up in front of you. However, before you even see them shoot, you die. This happened because you have high latency, and the information of the enemy shooting at you did not reach your computer in time.

Sometimes you die without even seeing the enemy. The enemy might have pushed you on their computer, but if the data that tells your computer to display them appearing in front of you does not reach your computer in time, you won't be able to see them, and they will easily kill you.

So it is clear that latency is bad if it is too high. In some severe cases, the latency gets so high that the game is not even playable. For this reason, high latency is one of the worst issues that any gamer has to deal with.

What Is A Good Latency For Gaming

We have explained that latency is bad for your in-game performance when it gets too high. However, how high is too high? What is a good latency to play video games on? What is the latency that average gamers can expect while playing online games? Here is the answer to all these questions.

Extremely Low Latency (<20ms): Firstly, 0ms or even 1ms latency can never be achieved while playing online games. It is only possible with LAN connections. However, if you are getting a latency lower than 20ms, you do not have to worry about it having any detrimental effect on your gaming experience. Your performance will not be limited if you are getting 20ms latency.
Good Latency For Gaming (20 to 70ms): While getting latency of below 20ms is a dream come true for gamers, it is not something that most gamers will be able to achieve. However, this does not mean that you won't be able to get a decent gaming experience. A latency of around 20ms to 70ms is also a great latency to be playing games. You will see nearly zero in-game performance drops on it.
Average Latency (<100): The most common latency for online gaming is 100ms. If you are getting less than 100ms latency while playing online games, you will have little to no issues in your gaming experience. While there will be some lag at 100ms, most of it will not be noticeable and won't cause a serious drop in your in-game performance.
Playable (100 to 150): The problem starts to appear as we get over 100ms and closer to 150ms. At this latency, the game will remain playable but you will experience a noticeable amount of lag.
Unenjoyable (200): 200ms is not a latency that you would want to play games at. While the game will certainly run and you will be able to move around, you will not be able to hit most of your shots and will experience tons of lag.
Unplayable (>200): As you go over 200ms and start to reach latencies of around 300ms to 400ms, you can forget about playing the game. At this point, the game will be completely unplayable with tons of rubberbanding. There has to be some issue with your network connection if you are getting a ping over 200ms, so you should work on fixing that.

How To Improve Latency

If you are getting an unusually high amount of latency while playing online video games, it has to be because of an issue somewhere in your internet connection. Here are some of the most common fixes that you can try right now to fix the high latency issue you are currently facing.

Connecting To The Server Closest To You: One of the most common reasons that gamers experience high latency is that they connect to the wrong game servers while playing an online video game. Go to the in-game settings and make sure that you are connected to the server that is closest to your location. For example, if you are currently living in the UK, you should connect to one of the EU servers.
Get A Wired Connection: It is common knowledge across the gaming community that wifi is bad for online gaming. Wireless connections are unstable and do not deliver high-quality performance. The simple fix for this is getting a wired connection instead of a wireless one.
Remove Unnecessary Load: Another major cause of network issues while gaming includes unnecessary load. To eliminate this, make sure that nothing is being downloaded as you play the game. Also, make sure that tons of other users are not connected to the same internet connection you use for gaming.

WTFast

Another common issue that causes high latency while gaming is bad routing. Sadly, there are not many solutions for this other than switching to an ISP that has good routing. However, WTFast is one of the few solutions out there that can fix a bad routing issue with the press of a button.

WTFast is an all-in-one solution for not only bad routing but almost all kinds of network-related issues. WTFast is a gamers’ private network that works by switching your connection onto a network that is optimized for game data flow.

What Is Latency in Gaming & Why It Matters For Gameplay