First of all, let’s all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that we have electricity (well for the moment) and the best #BLITSVINNIG internet service from your one and only Webafrica. 😉

One of the most discussed topics in the world of Online Gaming would be lag. But what is lag? More importantly… what can you do to prevent lag when gaming?

Lag defined:

“Lag is a slow response from a computer. It can be used to describe any computer that is responding slower than expected. The term is most commonly used in online gaming. Lag can also be used as a verb for example, a player that is “lagging” may be slowing down the game –  this is the noticeable delay between the action of the players and the reaction of the game server.”

5 Quick hacks to reduce lag for online gamers

 

Check your speeds

  • Webafrica recommends a Fibre line speed of at least 40Mbps for serious gamers.  It also helps to go wired for your gaming – your LAN cable is less likely to pick up interferences than your WiFi, so think about connecting to your router directly (connect the LAN cable into the LAN ports of the router) for your gaming sessions.

Refresh your Hardware

  • Reboot your entire network which would in most cases include devices such as your router, PC, if need be your gaming console, and extenders – reboot all your hardware before you get going. Techs often refer to this as “power cycling” your devices and it has proven to work wonders to improve performance and gaming experience.

Free up your Network

  • If you are in for an evening of gaming you should try to minimize the number of devices (especially if you are using a line speed below 40Mbps) connected to your home network.
  • Do what you can to minimize the number of homies’ on the WiFi … Good luck with that one!

Update your Firewalls and check ports

  • Remember! When updating –  to set it up so that the ports for the game are open to traffic, otherwise, the firewall will treat it as an intrusion attempt.
  • Depending on the firewall that you use, opening up the right ports for the games you want to run should be your only issue. Running Zone Alarm asks you if you want to allow access to the internet, once you check off “yes” and “remember” – you’re good to go.

Run a Speed Test and a Latency (ping) Test 

  • If you are experiencing lag, the quickest way to isolate the issue would be to run a speed test and a ping test, take a screenshot of your results and send it through to us at support@webafrica.co.za and use the subject line “Speed Test Gaming Lag (including your customer code)”. This will help us to see the cause of the issue and get it sorted out chop chop.

 

Author
Rafeeqah Slabbert

Rafeeqah is our social media support whisperer. Having started on our technical support floor, she has been around the proverbial block with all things Webafrica related and is a pretty good source of information when it comes to the technical ins and outs of internet access.

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