updated 21 April 2022
When I had my first stable Internet connection at home, I was so satisfied by the loading speed every time I watched YouTube videos. There is almost no lag and the download speed is more than 25+ MBPS.
And then I played the online Counter Strike. I realized I have a problem. Casual games are no problem but when a split-second fast action game is what you want, you need to optimize everything, particularly your latency.
My company too has a great and dedicated Internet connection but when I tested it also with the online Counter Strike, things were not that simple. I asked myself why I'm having a very high ping when the Internet speed in my workplace is more than 50MBPS most of the time?
So I really need to have that answer. And now I have the answer.
First of all, you know that when you just want a quality experience watching YouTube videos or Netflix, all you need is a fast connection, right?
That's true. My connection here is a 25MBPS subscription. It's not pure fiber, so download speed is faster than the upload speed. But that's just okay. I have my online class and things have been okay for several months.
I was not noticing the importance of other factors, until I played online Counter Strike. So again, for just browsing and regular connection, just knowing the Internet speed is enough. More than 25MBPS download speed plus 5MBPS upload speed is fast enough.
Bandwidth is when you think of the volume of data passing through your connection: think of a road. The more lanes it has, the more vehicles can pass through at a given time.
So here is the catch: no matter how fast your connection is, say, your modem is being used by so many people, it can only transmit the maximum data it can handle. So it will result in a clogged network when it can't handle all the demanding uploads and downloads.
This clogging will affect your latency because no matter how fast your connection is, if it's clogged, then you can't send and receive data in real time, it will increase your latency.
Take note also that fast action games do not require too much bandwidth compared to watching YouTube videos, rather it is affected by the clogged bandwidth because, again, you can't send and receive data in real time.
Latency is how long (duration in milliseconds) data sent will return to the device that initiated the ping. Ping is the signal sent. In gaming, since ping is a shorter term, mostly it will be used, but the complete term is ping rate / latency.
At this point, several factors are involved. You can have a good ping but still you lag in your fast action game. Conversely, you can have 200+ ping but you don't experience any lag. All of these things I experienced when playing CS online. And I was wondering why despite the connection being so fast.
One is the quality of connection. You know, even if it is fast, sometimes it's being shared by all users in your home or all users in your certain area.
Another one here is network traffic, most of the time when I'm testing in incognito a random search and recaptcha appears, I know my connection is distorted. At this point, data sent and received will also be distorted, causing lagging regardless of the ping.
Another one is the connection itself. No matter how fast your Wi-Fi technology is, interference will be there from time to time. Whenever I'm lagging severely, I will check whether the Wi-Fi signal is full bar or not, and most of the time, it's not. If it goes back to full bar, I still lag because my connection is now fluctuating. So better use a cable, not necessarily the latest one, but cat7 will do.
Also, as we all know, geographical location is very important. For example, Malaysia and Singapore are closer to one another than the Philippines. If the game server is located in Singapore, then this causes better ping for Malaysia and Singapore players than the Philippines most of the time.
Another one is your firewall and real-time antivirus. You can simply turn them off when you are playing.
As we all know, in CS:GO, when there is an official competition, they will be playing somewhere where they use LAN connection, not the Internet. This is actually a way to eliminate the reason that a player lost the game because of lag and bad ping, plus all those setups that will affect the gameplay.
Now, I've been observing this at the Knife Map (no guns and explosives, pure knife only) of online CS 1.6, whether the 4 ping rate can be defeated by a higher ping like 50 ping rate.
Just to give you a complete idea, knife skill in CS 1.6 is really a skill, it will require you to have perfect timing before hitting, a split-second eye-hand coordination. Now, in order to win, you should not hit too close, because by that time, you're dead when you battle a pro knife gamer. Nor should you hit too far, since after a hit your opponent has the chance to move a little bit forward and hit you.
The question is, can a higher ping defeat a lower ping, particularly too low ping? I've seen pro gamers that constantly have a 4 ping rate. In a direct attack battle, mostly you will not win if you have a higher ping but with a trick, you can still win. Now my problem is that, what if you always attack directly without a trick, can you still win?
The low ping has all the advantages because he has no delay and the movement is really in real time, while you with a higher ping will have a little bit of delay, so mostly he will defeat you. Now there are instances where a higher ping gamer will still win the battle. In this case, a lot of questions are actually arising.
Will a gamer with a higher ping, with a perfect timing, still hit correctly? Maybe yes. I'm thinking in the code level of this game, that when you reach the distance that you should hit and you hit it perfectly, the code will still process this without bias, whether the other one has a lower ping rate. For example, in reality, it's just like hitting a physical button when both players started at the same time. But in online gaming, whether the other one has a little bit of delay, the code will still process it as who hit the button first, regardless of the delay, the server will wait for both hits and process it who hits first.
But this is still debatable. Other maps, like fight yard, gun game, sniper etc., in my experience, even with 200+ ping rate, I can still win the battle against lower ping rate provided it's not lagging. It's just that, knife map is quite a unique situation.
But of course, this is mostly theoretical discussion. If you are a gamer, you should have the lowest possible ping rate.
https://www.ghostgb.co.uk/ping-vs-latency-vs-jitter/
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/tech-takes/5-reasons-your-ping-is-so-high