n66u Router has problems with playing games

[Ricuno]

Hi guys, im having problems with my router where its only when i play games that my ping go up in the game only. When im doing anything like streaming and downloading anything the ping is normal and fine. My ping is normally at about 40. But the in game ping that is shown to me goes to 400-800. When i do speedtest when in game the ping that is shown to me on speedtest.net is about 100 but my ping in game is about 400-800. Does anyone know the reason for that.

 

[SoCalReviews]

Better routers can help lower latency. From my experience the RT-N66U appears to help lower gaming latency compared to previous routers I have owned. Although the ping time involves latency it is in reality all relative. It depends "what you are pinging". My speedtest.net ping to the closest local area ping test server usually shows a 10ms ping. When I am gaming on my PS3 (Call of Duty and other latency sensitive online games) the ping notification in the game all depends on the "host gamer" and can vary from 50ms and up to 200ms or more.

While your router is a factor the ping time is more often the result of many other factors that are not related to your router such as the networking speed of your gaming machine, the latency of your ISP connection and how many gamers are connected to the gaming servers or host gamer at one time. In general the farther away the host gamer is the greater the in game latency and the higher the ping time or the closer that in game host is the lower the latency and lower the ping. Therefore the differences for your game ping times that you see probably have less to do with your Asus router and much more to do with the pathway your connections take to go through the various internet servers to get to the game server or the game host.

Note: If you feel your router is adding to latency of your gaming in the Asus router settings then try this.... In the Asus router settings assign your gaming machine a static LAN IP address... Then you can enable port triggering or port forwarding for the ports that your particular game uses.... or if you you feel your gaming machine is secure enough to expose to the internet (Linux based or a gaming console) you can simply put your gaming machine's static LAN IP that you assigned (PS3, XBox, etc...) in the router's DMZ.

 

[Ricuno]

well i have a static ip address set for my computer and i have QoS turned on but for some reason it still gets high ping in game. The ping is fine out of game. But the ping that is shown to me in the game is really high.

 

[RMerlin]

Could be the game server you are connecting to. Also, some in-game ping monitors take into account the lag introduced by the client itself.

 

[SoCalReviews]

well i have a static ip address set for my computer and i have QoS turned on but for some reason it still gets high ping in game. The ping is fine out of game. But the ping that is shown to me in the game is really high.

100ms ping seems kind of high for a speedtest.net result but it depends on what server you are pinging and how far away it is. I have seen speedtest.net show a 0ms ping (yes....zero...which I am guessing just means less than 1ms) on my cable internet ISP early in the morning. It usually increases up to 10ms and higher during peak hours. Again...my PS3 C.O.D. in game ping varies from 50ms to over 200ms (at times 300ms) depending on how far away the host gamer is. If you have a 100ms ping then up to 400ms for an in game ping result seems logical even though it may be less than optimal for gaming. 800ms definitely could be problematic for latency sensitive gaming.

My speedtest.net results also vary depending on what computer I am running it from. My older computers show slower results while newer computers show best results and lower latency. While I assign static IPs I have always left QoS turned off. When I switched to the RT-N66U my gaming seemed noticeably better than with the previous upper end name brand consumer routers I used during the last three years. Unless your Asus router's unoptimized settings are to blame I would look at other causes. You could ask your ISP support techs to check your connection for problems. If they tell you they don't find any issues then it might be time to consider another ISP with lower latencies if one is available in your area. Check out the broadbandreports web site for ISP information.