Playing games online can be a pastime activity that’s hard to get tired of. But if you’re no stranger to ping and latency, it can also turn into an unplayable nightmare you wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
So what are the culprits that can cause your online experience to take a nosedive? And more importantly, what are the solutions to them? Find out more below.
Defining the Problems
Ping and Lag
The simplest way to describe ping would be to compare it to a reaction time between one server and another. The lower the number, the better the response time.
So if your game feels slow, you may be trying to connect to a server that’s too far away.
High ping means there’s going to be a noticeable time difference between making a move in-game and seeing it resolve. Thus, with high latency or lag, reacting to your opponent’s assaults can be next to impossible.
But here’s the thing – ping is not the only possible cause of lag. It can also occur due to hardware or software reasons.
DDoS Attacks
A DDoS attack is when a hacker sends a truckload of meaningless traffic, intending to overload the server of the target.
It is an effective way of bringing down a website they don’t like. For example, some use it to take down their business competitors to steal their customers.
But you can see this kind of attack in the online gaming sphere too. In gaming, it aims to slow down the player one is competing with.
Combating the Problems
Now that you know where the problems lie, you are halfway there when it comes to defeating them.
The short answer: you should use a VPN. For the long one, keep reading!
A VPN Can Reduce Your Ping
The long distance from the server can impact the quality of your gaming experience in a negative manner. And sometimes your connection will go through many different servers to reach the one you need. It equals to higher ping.
Meanwhile, a VPN will speed up the connection if you know where you’re trying to connect to. In other words, you’ll have a plethora of regions through which you can route your connection. So all you have to do is pick one that’s closest to the game’s server.
Easy, right?
A VPN Acts as a Barrier to DDoS Attacks
As a gamer, a VPN can benefit you quite a lot when you face opponents who take their role a tiny bit too seriously.
Angering someone in a game can be enough to bring DDoS attacks upon yourself. In case you’re a famous streaming personality, it’s plausible that someone may be messing with you to bring your revenue down. But no matter who you are, don’t let them hit you below the belt and always have a VPN at hand.
As it turns out, hiding your IP address with a VPN is an effective deterrent to DDoS attacks. If they don’t know where to send the packets of data to overload you with, you’re already a step or two ahead.
At the same time, a VPN will protect your privacy against snoops who are after your personal data as well as intrusive advertisers.
Bonus: A VPN Lets You Access Gaming Content Early
It’s also worth mentioning that using a VPN can help you access gaming content early.
Contrary to popular belief, a video game can have a separate unique release date for every region or country. As unfair as it is to some gamers, in practice, it means that a given area could access it a week or so ahead. Meanwhile, players residing elsewhere have to wait while watching others have all the fun.
Now, remember how a VPN can mask your IP address? It is another one of the cases where doing so is to your significant benefit. You can connect to the site of the game publisher through a VPN server in another country to get your hands on the gaming content earlier.
Conclusion
In the world of online gaming, some resort to underhanded tactics to win. In some cases, these go beyond the borders of what’s allowed in the game. And DDoS attacks are a fine example of this.
To keep them in check, it’s wise to fire up a VPN when playing your favorite online title. Plus, it will help you reduce the latency and ping, so it’s like killing two birds with one stone.
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