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Stupid Buyer's Guide For Low Lag Gaming


stripper

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Shameful disclosure, I'm not even getting paid to type this blog. It's just a little PSA, sort of, about what readers can buy to improve their gaming experiences. But really, everyone hates lag and not everyone knows nor cares about reducing lag. I've talked to competitive Smash Bros Brawl online players about it and they're ignorant and apathetic, and they're the kind of gamers who should be raging the hardest about lag

 

In most modern games, net code has improved so they'll still be playable even without my recommendations. This is more for the perfectionists, competitive players, and anyone who plays FGs

 

The biggest thing anyone can do to improve their online experience is upgrading their internet service to anything that isn't shitty like dial up (if it even still exists) or even worse, satellite. Your ISP service is going to be the worst bottleneck because it's the weakest link in your connection, which for almost all cases, it will be. Network speeds are only as fast as their weakest links

 

The next biggest thing you can do to improve connection speed is by getting an ethernet cable to connect your system to your router. You don't need an expensive category 7 cable. Cat5e will be plenty. It theoretically supports a network speed of up to 1 Gb/s, which is way more than what games demand. You'd have to have like a $1,000/month internet bill to put all of that speed to use. Whatever you do, don't buy these cables in retail stores. They're their profit makers which have excessive markups. Buy them from online stores instead which sell them for like only 10% of the cost

 

If you can't use a wired connection for gaming online, you could try upgrading your wi-fi router antennas. Most routers come with cheap tiny antennas to cut costs on the final product and maybe also to help them look less ugly so that customers might be more likely to buy them. Generally, the bigger the antennas, the farther they can send signals. Look for antennas with the highest amount of gain, measured in dBi ( I recommend http://www.simplewifi.com/9dbi-large-indoor-antenna-smarp.html )

 

Also, you might want to upgrade your internal wi-fi card too to improve signal strength on the other side of the connection. The 1 found in your laptop will probably be good enough for most wi-fi use, but you might be able to buy something better. Look for wi-fi cards that support 802.11ac since it's the newest standard. Connection speeds on those cards can reach up to 867 Mb/s. Your router will need to support it so that your wi-fi card can use it. You could also install 3rd party antennas with flat ends to help improve signal strngth ( https://www.amazon.com/PORJET-Notebook-Bluetooth-Broadband-Internal/dp/B01F6GDM84/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1475905532&sr=1-8&keywords=laptop+antenna )

 

Lastly, if you have any spare Lego, Rubik's cubes, or anything like them, you could prop up your laptop to stand above whatever surface it's on. It can improve signal strength by up to 10 Mb/s. However, I've only tested this in a specific environment so it might not generalize to other situations well. It worked for me on Windows 7 in a basement with a concrete ceiling in a dorm that holds 180 students. The results didn't clearly replicate when I tried it again like a year later in the same place. You can try it and enjoy what'll mostly be a placebo if you want. I always did it with my laptop to help cool it by giving the bottom intake vents a bigger pool of air to pull from and to protect it in case anyone spilled anything on the same table it was on

 

Unrelated to network lag, the other key area where lag can occur is on your display. Monitors don't display images instantly. Except CRTs, practically. But new GPUs don't support VGA connections anymore, so you can't use modern GPUs on them without converters anymore. But for modern monitors, just look for any gaming monitor. Asus and Benq are the biggest producers of them so I'd recommend any by these brands. In my opinion, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313&cm_re=asus_248qe-_-24-236-313-_-Productis the best <$300 model you can buy. According to http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2013/test-asus-vg248qe-teil7.html#Latenzzeit , this monitor has been tested to have only 1.6 MS total image change time at 144 Hz mode. Also, the faster the refresh rate on the monitor, the sooner it will display the next frame. More frames/second simply feels smoother. For me, it's painful to go back to 60 from 144

 


All of the products I've mentioned are only suggestions and only things I've tried using. I know their results from actual gamer feel and placebo. I can't deny that the latter could affect me, especially on my laptop trick. But really, if you find anything you think could be better for reducing lag, go for it. This blog is just a fun little unsponsored PSA for gamers to reduce lag, if they want to. It's more fun. Lag just feels bad. Your opponents will thank you, especially in FGs, if you lag less. It has happened to me when I played Brawl online a few times. You might even thank someone too if you're a competitive tryhard

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