How to Reduce Ping in League of Legends [The Best Tips Ever]
You appear on the fountain and buy starting items. After a few seconds, the block is gone, you click on the lane, and… your character doesn’t move immediately. You feel a delay between your commands and the movement of your champion. You look at the top right corner of the screen next to the FPS count, and here it is - the dreaded three-digit number.
“ Why is my ping so high ?” you’re asking yourself. There is still a small chance that these are only a few lag spikes, that they will be gone in a moment. But they’re not. You let your teammates know that you have ping spikes and you will try to fix it. Hopefully, they will understand and not fall too much behind.
You tried everything in your power, but it didn’t help. Now you’re facing the dilemma: try your best despite lags, or let your teammates down?
It’s a nightmare for every LoL player and virtually any gamer all around the world. Today we will talk about how to avoid lags in games. Let’s get into details of how to reduce ping in League of Legends.
Let’s fix all the errors and never lose a match again because of connection issues.
What Is Ping in Games?
Ping is the delay between a query sent to a host and a response from it. To put it simply, if you ask your father for a few bucks, the time it takes before hearing: “I don’t have any”, is ping.
Back in the day, there was only the NA server in League of Legends. Players from Korea or Europe had to accustom themselves to a constant 200ms ping. Now, there are multiple League of Legends servers. Korea is famous for having the lowest ping among all LoL servers - it’s lower than 10ms. In Europe, living close to the Riot Games servers located in the Netherlands guarantees the lowest latency, comparable with the Korean one.
Why Is My Ping so High?
Ping measures the time your local internet connection takes to communicate with your computer, tablet, cellphone, Xbox, or Playstation. That way, it can tell you if you need to check your DNS server or if there is a problem that will affect you during the game. If you have a high ping, it means your Internet connection is no good and you are at risk of suffering lag spikes. With that in mind, you want to make sure to reduce it in order to play.
How to See My Ping in LoL?
It is important to separate lag and ping. As we have said, ping will help you detect lag that affects your experience in League of Legends or any other game. This is a pretty common problem with lots of solutions. We will try to explain how to fight your internet connection problems to get a lower ping and improve your experience on LoL.
First of all, you need to see the number of your ping to make sure you have a problem. The way to do this is pretty simple. First, you need to start a custom game of League of Legends and open the settings, then navigate to display. Once you are there, look for the “Toggle FPS Display” keybind. Press it and you will be allowed to see your ping in League of Legends.
What Is a High Ping in League of Legends?
When playing League of Legends, the ping is displayed in the top right corner of your screen. However, to see it, you need to be logged in to the game. And once you’re, it may be already too late. So how to check ping in LoL before the game starts, even before entering the lobby? Is there any LoL ping test?
Normally, you will see lags the moment you land on the fountain. But there is a way to check it earlier. Go to “Run” and type “cmd.exe”. Then copy the command for your game server and get the direct response from the server on what the ping is.
Game Server |
Command |
NA |
ping 104.160.131.3 -t |
EUW |
ping 104.160.141.3 -t |
EUNE |
ping 104.160.142.3 -t |
OCE |
ping 104.160.156.1 -t |
LAN |
ping 104.160.136.3 -t |
You have the data, now you have to read it. In LoL or any other games, the higher your ping is, the more problems you have. So what’s the normal range to have a healthy game without murdering anyone in real life because of anger?
The magic number goes from 10 to 60 . Of course, it is pretty hard to hit lower numbers, and it is also normal to be higher than that. The real problem begins once you hit the 100 or more. There are cases of ping in League of Legends that are over 800!
Many factors may influence the ways to lower ping in LoL. For example, the server you are trying to connect to. If you are in Europe and try to play on the North American server, the numbers will increase.
It’s painful when you’re trying to test some stuff on the PBE server, which is exclusively in the USA. Other things that may affect ping are the internet provider you have, the number of megabytes the service provides, and even how many devices are connected via Wi-Fi at the same time.
How to Reduce High Ping in League of Legends?
Don’t worry, there are many solutions to this problem. We’ve got them covered in the sections below.
Swap WiFi for Ethernet Connection
Your WiFi connection will never be as stable as an Ethernet connection. If you have a technical possibility to connect your PC via the cable, do it. Sometimes all it takes for you to have a lag is a wall between the PC and the router. Also, you can restart your modem or router. This is the basic solution every company’s customer support will ask you to do first, since in most cases that solves the problem.
If you still have a high ping, a great solution is to update your drivers. This is another
common thing because players can play for years without even checking at them. Another classic solution is to disconnect other devices from the Wi-Fi, even if they are not using the internet at that time.
Turn Off Internet Using Programs, Apps, and Devices
Another method on how to lower the ping in the League Of Legends is to close all the apps or sites that may be open on your device. Sometimes, even if you are not using them, these apps can consume some Internet data that will affect your game. Check if Spotify, Steam, Google Chrome, etc aren’t running in the background. The same goes for antivirus. Of course, be extra careful because your PC will be unprotected for a while.
Tools, Programs, and Other Software Ping Enhancement
Riot Games even provides a tool that automatically diagnoses your PC. You have to download and install it first. Once it’s done, it can be really helpful.
Disabling any proxy or VPN you are using can also work. Additionally, you can change the DNS server in your settings. To do this, you have to navigate into the network and internet options of the control panel. Then, find the adapter settings and change TCP/IPv4 addresses to another one.
Again - if it’s possible, avoid connecting via Wi-Fi. It is way better to use an Ethernet connection directly to reduce the time frame of connection and lower the ping.
Another option is to renew your IP address is to open the command prompt with Windows Logo + R. Next, type in cmd “ipconfig / release” in the new window. Then, refresh it.
What to do if that’s not helping and your ping in League Of Legends is still on the clouds? The best solution is to contact your internet provider or even Riot Games and ask for support.
Ping Enhancing Software Programs and VPNs
Maybe you don’t have a high ping, maybe you just love LoL too much and want to enjoy the game as a real pro would do. We know that Internet issues can be frustrating. They are also
a good excuse for losing from time to time. So if you want to avoid this situation, we recommend choosing an Internet service that specializes in it.
You may have the best and most powerful internet connection and disconnect all the devices and apps just to play. However, sometimes things can still go wrong. As a gamer, you will always be exposed to failures. That’s why hiring professional services will give you the certainty of having the best quality and the lowest ping number. Then, all you have to worry about is your actions in the game. And in case of unwanted issues, you know that you can contact real experts.
Do not let internet failures screw your day and work on the real solution. Another great option may be ExitLag . It has hundreds of servers spread across the world. Thanks to them, it can guarantee you a stable connection in any place. It also searches for routes in real-time, assuring you are always connected to the best possible option. Finally, you can simultaneously use two internet sources. This way, your game is never interrupted in the case one provider fails.
Now You Can Fight the Packet Loss
I hope this guide can be useful to avoid those horrible stressing moments when you are
highly concentrated but your internet fails. Avoid losing information, reduce the damage and make the peace with the packet loss by following the recommendations in this text. Do you know other ways to fight packet loss, lag, and reduce your ping? Please write them in the comments and don’t forget to read our other content about League of Legends.