How to speed up your online game

Researching the causes of possible slowly online game performance over a period of more than 5 years, allows us to provide you with solutions to speed up online gaming. To be clear and to not create confusion in the online gamer's world: If your game runs smoothly, your computer's performance is OK, your internet connection has quite a proper speed, your system works fine and you are not infected by viruses or other malware, boosting your online game performance is NOT only necessary, it's almost impossible to speed it up on the gamers end technical speaking!

Speed up online games Before we provide a list of suggestions, tips, tricks, tweaks and tunes to get a boost and speed up your online game , it must be clear to every gamer that you shouldn't try to optimize, repair or fine-tine if there is really no need to do so. Work through the provided list of slow online game issues: 1.

Your computer or laptop doesn't meet the system requirements. The game servers have a high load temporary. Some of your computer's hardware is malfunctioning. Your operating system performs too slowly. Old drivers and firmware can cause lag. Internet connection settings, processes and protocols are wrongly configured 4. Your internet connection is to slow. Corrupted system internals, registry settings. Your ISP provides you with weak signals or bad lines.

Virus, spyware, adware, Trojan, root-kit or other malware infection. Your ISP has temporary technical issues. Internet gateway issues of your ISP or the game server. Your router or modem needs special settings. Check out the support forum of the online game.

How to speed up online games? The FCC was a source for some of the most comprehensive studies of internet latency. However, the agency has since stopped including latency in its annual broadband reports, so newer technologies like 5G and home 4G LTE are not included. Although 5G is still an emerging wireless technology —especially its gigabit millimeter-wave connections— it promises to have lower latency than any other wireless connection.

Wireless connections, even fast wireless connections, will add a bit more delay to your connection. Physically plugging into your router with an ethernet cable will bypass this delay, making your connection that much more responsive. If you must use Wi-Fi, make sure that your computer or gaming device is as close to your Wi-Fi router as possible and that you have a clear line of sight with as few obstructions as possible.

Also, be sure to connect your wireless device to the 5 GHz band. Just keep close to the router, as the 5 GHz band has a shorter reach than the 2. With the Nintendo Switch, we recommend playing it docked and using a USB-based Ethernet adapter to connect it to your network. For an expanded explanation, we pit wired connections against wireless in our Ethernet vs. Wi-Fi comparison. Power cycling your router and modem can sometimes improve their performance. To power cycle, unplug your modem or wireless gateway, wait 30 seconds, and plug it back in.

Do the same with a standalone router when your modem comes back online. Hardware manufacturers are constantly trying to improve the performance of their products, so updating your devices regularly will guarantee the best performance possible. Updates can also fix bugs and incompatibility issues that could be interrupting your connection. Be sure to do the following:. If your connection is still struggling while playing games online, try to reduce the amount of traffic on your home network.

Distance is one of the biggest factors in latency. Even if every device on your connection is running at peak efficiency, it still takes time for a signal to travel to a remote location and back. You may need to switch servers if the current one is experiencing issues. While routers typically assign dynamic addresses to your devices which change over time, a static address never changes.

When you assign a static IP address, you can tell the router to forward data to that address through specific ports. Gaming networks typically send and receive internet data through specific ports. To create a static IP address and open ports to that address, you must make the changes in your router or wireless gateway. Port forwarding works with any device—not just gaming consoles. You can allocate more bandwidth to your gaming devices by making a few adjustments in your router or wireless gateway.

Cable internet connections can experience a slowdown based on the amount of traffic in your neighborhood. This means that download speeds can be significantly lower than normal during peak hours, which can also increase latency.

If you experience more lag while playing games right after work than you do late at night, local internet traffic might be to blame. Also, check your internet connection to the modem, as a loose cable will cause lag-inducing instability. Many modern games take up a lot of storage space on your computer or console. This means that downloading games from an online distributor like Steam or the Microsoft Store can take a long time. It can also eat through monthly data caps in no time flat.

Updates can be data hogs too. Latency should still be your number-one priority in choosing an internet plan for playing games online , but choosing a plan with unlimited data will save you a lot of headaches. Fast download speeds also help out with those big new games. Your internet needs become a bit more complicated if you stream your games on Twitch or YouTube.

Streaming has all the normal requirements for a low-latency connection for playing games online, plus the additional upload speed you need to keep a steady bitrate on your livestream.

For more information on what to look for in an internet connection for livestreaming, check out our guide to internet speed for live video game streaming. We also provide a guide on how to stream on Twitch that offers all the information you need.

Cloud gaming services like Stadia and PlayStation Now store and run their games in a virtual machine you stream from their servers. Rather than download and run these games locally on your computer or console, you stream them from the cloud. This eliminates any hardware bottlenecks that could prevent a game from running at its highest quality on your device. Instead, you just need a browser or an app, depending on the platform. The downside to game streaming is that games are rendered on the server and then streamed across the internet in Full HD or 4K resolutions.

And because these experiences are interactive and not passive like Netflix and Hulu , input latency can be an issue.

To play these services without any major issues, you need a good internet connection to support game streaming.

Here are the internet speed requirements for the four major gaming streaming services:. Note that Microsoft suggests an upload speed of at least 4. The game or app installation is corrupted. Your battery is malfunctioning. Your Android phone is infected by a virus or malware. Some Android system settings are wrongly configured. The Android game or app server suffers from high latency Your Android phones CPU usage is high.

The Android game or app is badly coded or not optimized to provide high performance. To many active games or apps running in background. Some of your phones Hardware is malfunctioning. Verify that your Android phone is compatible with the game or app. Update your Android system regularly or turn on auto update in the system settings. Free or open WiFi usually provide low bandwidth. Turn off your phone regularly min. Clear the temp cache of your Android phone, clear saved data of apps and games you do not need via the app settings menu.

Avoid using masks if you recognize your phone gets hot. Turn off your phone and let it cool down. If the problem persists check your battery or CPU usage. Back up ALL your data and files and make a factory reset via the system settings if your Android system is corrupted.

You can also make a hardware reset via the Android boot manager.