Why is my gaming laptop so bad?

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It's interesting to note that Lag was a term originally used only in multiplayer games. This is because when you're playing an online-based game, some level of lag (delay) is inevitable. All your actions need to be sent to a central server for the other players to see what you're doing on their screens. At the same time, the server constantly has to send data on the other players' actions to your computer. There is an unavoidable delay between when the data is sent, and when it is received by either party, which was nicely covered by the term lag. We can call it Ping Lag now to be more specific.

With slight bullet drop and no ping lag, this should be a headshot.

Example 1: You've got the enemy in your sniper sights and as he runs across your screen you squeeze the trigger when you're absolutely certain that his head is square in the middle of your crosshairs. But in the game he continues running along, unhurt and now aware that there's a sniper lining him up for a kill. You scream obscenities into your microphone and accuse the other player of hacking!

Example 2: This time you're the one in the sniper's sights, and you're out in the open. His first shot misses you, and you just manage to get behind a wall - when somehow you still wind up getting killed by the sniper. "Dammit!" you say to yourself, "This guy is definitely hacking... how can he shoot me through a solid brick wall?"

Solution: Nine times out of ten, the other person isn't hacking. It's just ping lag. This form of lag is unique only to multiplayer online games, and again, has to do with small delays in data transmission. These delays are measured by your Ping, which is the time taken for a round trip of data from your machine, to the server, and back again, in milliseconds (1,000 milliseconds = 1 second).

There's no way to completely remove ping lag, because data can't be instantaneously transferred between everyone playing on a remote server. However most online games attempt to cover up ping lag by using some sort of lag compensation so that things don't look or feel laggy on the screen. You can't really change how a particular game deals with ping lag as that's coded into the engine, but you can reduce the frustration of constantly missing what looks like a sure shot, or being hit when you think you've moved out of the way, by making sure you join a server where your ping is low. This means finding a server which is located physically close to you, preferably in the same country, or even the same city if possible. The closer the server, the lower your ping is likely to be. A ping of 100 or less is good enough to give you lag-free gaming and help lower your blood pressure.

Your Ping is usually on the scoreboard

To find out your ping on a server, check for a Ping column in the game's server browser, or on the scoreboard. Some games don't show an actual ping figure, they may have a meter or a warning, perhaps with a particular color, where green typically stands for a good (low) ping and red stands for a bad (high) ping. Remember, ping lag isn't really about how fast your connection is. As long as you have a broadband connection, you should be able to play most online games without ping lag if you join a server with a lower ping.

Unrelated to ping lag, but equally as annoying is Packet Loss. This phenomenon is actually a connection-related problem, because some of the packets of data travelling between you and the server are being dropped somewhere along the line. This means some of your actions won't be reflected in the game, and often you will see a rubber-band or warping effect, and things will become jerky and unpredictable. The only thing you can do at your end is to make sure you disable any background programs which are using your Internet connection at the same time. This includes any file downloading/sharing, messaging or similar programs - they can result in both ping lag and packet loss during online games. If you check with others on the server and they're also experiencing the same problem, the server is to blame and you may need to find another server or wait it out.