[SOLVED] High ping in games.... but i have fast speeds

[Jip Emmerich]

Hello,

I recently changed my router to a Apple airport time capsule router and i have noticed that my internet ping just spikes randomly in games like MW and Rocketleague.
I thought that the problem was my ethernet cable (CAT 5) that runs form my router to my PC. I was planning to buy a CAT 6 version because of the better bandwith that it has. But maybe it is my router that is holding me back. I also have a internet speed of 250Mbit/sec and a upload of 25Mbit/sec.

What should i upgrade??
The Ethernet cable or the router?

 

[bill001g]

You would only replace the cable if it was defective. Cat6 has no real benefit over cat5e. Both can run gigabit speeds. The port in the machine controls the speed not the cable. This is like saying you take you car to the race track and because the road is better your car can now do 200mph.

Cat6a cable can run 10gbit but only if it is connected to 10g ports it will run 1gbit just like cat5e if you connect it to gigabit ports. Normal cat6 cable ...ie without the "a" on the end is kinda a useless cable. It is not certified to run 10g and it run 1g the same as cat5e. There are some strange 2.5g ports that uses cat6 cable but the are kinda rare.

Then again none of this really matters when you talk games. Most games use well under 1mbps many are under 300kbps so people with slow DSL can play the game too.

Now if you had a small connection the ping might spike if someone else was say watching netflix. You ping/game traffic could get stuck behind their traffic. With a 250mbps connection it is highly unlikely you are using all your bandwidth. Make sure any downloads are configured to say only use 200mbps then you could actually download while you play games and not be affected.

I would leave a constant ping run to your router IP while you run games. This will show if the problem is inside your house or not.

 

[Eximo]

Possibly neither.

Monitor your network speeds on the computer. My guess is you are experiencing brief periods of no connection. You need to trace that problem down.

If the router and your internet connection are functional, something else is wrong. Could be software related on your computer.

I have experienced annoyances similar to this, there was a problem on the cable lines somewhere outside my home causing interruptions in upload speed, but not download. So speed tests usually came up just fine. And those are averages, wouldn't really notice 100ms interruptions.

 

[Jip Emmerich]

You would only replace the cable if it was defective. Cat6 has no real benefit over cat5e. Both can run gigabit speeds. The port in the machine controls the speed not the cable. This is like saying you take you car to the race track and because the road is better your car can now do 200mph.

Cat6a cable can run 10gbit but only if it is connected to 10g ports it will run 1gbit just like cat5e if you connect it to gigabit ports. Normal cat6 cable ...ie without the "a" on the end is kinda a useless cable. It is not certified to run 10g and it run 1g the same as cat5e. There are some strange 2.5g ports that uses cat6 cable but the are kinda rare.

Then again none of this really matters when you talk games. Most games use well under 1mbps many are under 300kbps so people with slow DSL can play the game too.

Now if you had a small connection the ping might spike if someone else was say watching netflix. You ping/game traffic could get stuck behind their traffic. With a 250mbps connection it is highly unlikely you are using all your bandwidth. Make sure any downloads are configured to say only use 200mbps then you could actually download while you play games and not be affected.

I would leave a constant ping run to your router IP while you run games. This will show if the problem is inside your house or not.

Thanks for your reply! I will look into it.

 

[Jip Emmerich]

You would only replace the cable if it was defective. Cat6 has no real benefit over cat5e. Both can run gigabit speeds. The port in the machine controls the speed not the cable. This is like saying you take you car to the race track and because the road is better your car can now do 200mph.

Cat6a cable can run 10gbit but only if it is connected to 10g ports it will run 1gbit just like cat5e if you connect it to gigabit ports. Normal cat6 cable ...ie without the "a" on the end is kinda a useless cable. It is not certified to run 10g and it run 1g the same as cat5e. There are some strange 2.5g ports that uses cat6 cable but the are kinda rare.

Then again none of this really matters when you talk games. Most games use well under 1mbps many are under 300kbps so people with slow DSL can play the game too.

Now if you had a small connection the ping might spike if someone else was say watching netflix. You ping/game traffic could get stuck behind their traffic. With a 250mbps connection it is highly unlikely you are using all your bandwidth. Make sure any downloads are configured to say only use 200mbps then you could actually download while you play games and not be affected.

I would leave a constant ping run to your router IP while you run games. This will show if the problem is inside your house or not.

I have a Cat 5 cable not a Cat 5e.
Is there a difference between those?

 

[bill001g]

I bet the cable is cat5e. I would be over 10yrs old if it is cat5. It would likely only run at 100mbps rather than gig if it was actually cat5.

Pretty much the cost to manufacture cat5e is the same so they stopped making cat5 many years ago.

A bad cable would actually have more issue running the speed test than the game. They tend to get more data loss when you try to put more data through them.

Again the test is ping the router. If you see no packet loss then your cable is fine.