How can i lower in my average ping?

[Bigyoman]

Some days I can get my ping on certain games like Battlefield 2, CODMW2, Bad Company 2 down to about 5-10 ping on full online servers with everyone (3 computers) using the internet. But when I'm the only one using the internet, my ping skyrockets to about 500-800 avg ping on these games . Why is this so? Is there a way to reduce my ping on these situations?

I have Southern California's Time Warner Cable, Roadrunner DSL Turbo running at 1.0 Gbps


~Thanks in Advance

(The following may be irrelevant to the subject)
OPERATING SYSTEM:WINDOWS 7
CPU TYPE:INTEL(R) CORE(TM) I7 CPU 920 @ 3.2 GHZ
CPU SPEED (GHZ):3.223
SYSTEM MEMORY (GB):5.991
GRAPHICS CARD MODEL:NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 285
HARD DISK SIZE (GB):1,863.02
HARD DISK FREE SPACE (GB):1,186.022

 

[LePhuronn]

ping is all down to the connection you have, the bandwidth being used, the amount of traffic between you and the server and the server load itself.

i.e. it's mostly out of your control.

you can check who else is on your network or what other internet-enabled services are running on your machine to free up a little bandwidth, but honestly there's not a lot you can do, especially as your rig is more than capable of handling heavy workloads.

 

[czerro]

Ping is a seperate issue from bandwidth. Purchasing a higher bandwidth subscription will not solve your problems. Cable is good bandwidth wise, but often suffers from high latency. I'm not sure why this is, possibly interference from television signals across the lines + overloaded nodes. As far as a DIY fix or optimization, there isn't one. Simply an infrastructure and/or noise and/or load issue in your area which is quite common and cable companies are loath to fix.

Online games do not require much data overhead, simply a way to quickly transmit lots of tiny sequential packets back and forth. Bandwidth is not the issue.

 

[HEXiT]

its the other way round in the uk cable has good latency and is the best deal as you get what you pay for. unlike the telecom companies. you pay for upto 20 mb and your lucky to get 8mb often it can be as low as 2.5mb with over double the ping i have on my cable. telewest/virginmedia also use fiber optics for there cable services and this is the reason its so much better than the uk telecom companies.

what users can do is optomize there Internet with tools like tuneup utilities 2011, this will give basic tuning that will roughly match your line speed. it will adjust things like packet size, buffer size and other dhcp/tcp settings. it is a very basic noob friendly way of doing it but it works.

 

[grimlan]

Disable firewall, forward ports, don't use wireless, join servers close to your region, turn off messengers or any other programs that may be increasing your ping.

 

[Daave12]

I don't think there is something that you can do to get the problem solved, as it is due to some internal settings that cannot be changed.

 

[skaz]

Some days I can get my ping on certain games like Battlefield 2, CODMW2, Bad Company 2 down to about 5-10 ping on full online servers with everyone (3 computers) using the internet. But when I'm the only one using the internet, my ping skyrockets to about 500-800 avg ping on these games . Why is this so? Is there a way to reduce my ping on these situations?

I have Southern California's Time Warner Cable, Roadrunner DSL Turbo running at 1.0 Gbps


~Thanks in Advance

(The following may be irrelevant to the subject)
OPERATING SYSTEM:WINDOWS 7
CPU TYPE:INTEL(R) CORE(TM) I7 CPU 920 @ 3.2 GHZ
CPU SPEED (GHZ):3.223
SYSTEM MEMORY (GB):5.991
GRAPHICS CARD MODEL:NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 285
HARD DISK SIZE (GB):1,863.02
HARD DISK FREE SPACE (GB):1,186.022

It's interesting that your ping actually increases when less people in your home are using the internet. 5-10 is very good. I usually pick servers that are anywhere in the double digit range.

First question. I know its dumb. But do you make sure to sort your server list showing the lowest ping first?

Second. Does your router have any QoS functions active? I'm wondering if for some reason the QoS is kicking on when you have multiple users online but not when only your using the internet.

 

[czerro]

its the other way round in the uk cable has good latency and is the best deal as you get what you pay for. unlike the telecom companies. you pay for upto 20 mb and your lucky to get 8mb often it can be as low as 2.5mb with over double the ping i have on my cable. telewest/virginmedia also use fiber optics for there cable services and this is the reason its so much better than the uk telecom companies.

what users can do is optomize there Internet with tools like tuneup utilities 2011, this will give basic tuning that will roughly match your line speed. it will adjust things like packet size, buffer size and other dhcp/tcp settings. it is a very basic noob friendly way of doing it but it works.

That's interesting, I was speaking from my experiences here in the US. I am not too concerned with bandwidth, I rather want something speedy. I just wanted to point out that bandwidth does not translate to low latency. Lot's of times people will upgrade to 'premium' packages expecting that the bump in bandwidth will somehow improve their latency, when it will infact be identical. A simple metaphor would use some plumbing: An extremely wide pipe with slow moving current is technically moving a LOT of water per second though it is not moving the individual water molecules themselves(packets) very quickly (high latency/high bandwidth). A very tiny pipe moving a very tiny fraction of that water at a very high rate provides a much better flow. Although there is no reason that the very wide pipe could not perform as well as the very tiny pipe, except for the fact that the plumbing in your building is already there and you really have no choice but to use the wide slow pipes as it would cost a lot of money to invest into infrastructure to turn those pipes into wide fast pipes when the water company knows you really have no choice but to use the wide slow pipes regardless.

Mixed metaphor complete.

 

[crewton]

When you are "by yourself" do you have other programs/downloads in the background?