In online games, it is not uncommon for your teammates to apologize for their inept game, referring to the fact that they have a "ping" ping. What does this mean? What are the players talking about and how to avoid such situations on their computer?
Definition
There are several meanings of the word ping. The first of them has almost no connection with the gaming industry, but is in close contact with the second. This is the process (command) of transmitting information packets to the specified node (site, address). The pinging procedure allows you to find out if a particular computer can interact with an object on the Internet or if access to it is closed.
The second meaning of the word "ping" is closer to the gaming industry. Ping is the server response time to the request. That is, this is the period during which the signal will reach a certain address on the Internet and will receive an answer.
So what is ping in a game? The same as in the previous version. In the gameplay, this is expressed as a delay between your actions and the hero’s reaction to them. Ping also affects the relevance of the information displayed on the screen. For example, you want to apply the skill to the area in which your opponent is located, but you don’t get there because he hasn’t been there for a long time, and outdated information comes to your PC. Therefore, high ping in "DotA 2" (and any other game) often leads to freezes and various "lags".
Client
Now that we’ve figured out what ping is in the game, let's look at the main causes of the problems associated with it and how to solve them. Oddly enough, but most often the user is to blame for the poor connection. And the high ping in “DotA 2” is the result of poor care of the player’s computer. What could be the reason?
- The presence of viruses that consume part of the Internet traffic.
- A large number of applications and other "garbage" stored on the computer.
- Parallel applications launched, for example, torrents or communication (skype).
Now you can figure out how to reduce ping in "Dota 2". As you know, solving such problems is very easy. To get started, remove everything superfluous from the computer - empty the basket, erase games and applications that you don’t use, defragment the disk with the built-in utilities. So you solve the problems from the second item on the list.
Then install a good antivirus program and CCleaner. Kaspersky should be avoided because it consumes a lot of system resources and traffic, sometimes causing problems worse than viruses. But its reliability is lame. Next, clean the PC from the installed malware. Use the "Cliner" to analyze the registry and clean. Correct the detected problems (automatically).
Applications
If after these actions ping jumps in DotA 2, check what other programs you are running at the moment. Is anything downloaded from the Internet through a browser / torrent. Or are you listening to music online. All this takes part of the bandwidth and can cause problems with ping. Also, do not use bulky communication programs like Skype. Despite its stability, it can also take up a lot of traffic and system resources. Try something simple like RaidCall or Mumble.
Server
Do you still have high ping and actions occur with a long delay? There is another way to reduce ping in "Dota 2". One of the reasons for the increased response time is the remoteness of the player from the server on which the match is running. Let's go back a bit and remember the first part of this game.
In DotA 1, each individual match was processed on the personal computer of the user who created the lobby. Therefore, if this player was from Japan, and the opponent connected to him from Europe, then the signal from one to the other had to go through many nodes, and the delay (ping) was huge. Also, a lot depended on the speed of the Internet host. Will he be able to process information from 9 other computers, or not.
In DotA 2, the second part of the problem is solved. All games are created on Blizzard servers capable of supporting high data exchange speeds. But in this case, connection problems are possible.
How to reduce ping in "Dota 2"? The answer is simple - change the server. For example, if you live in the Far East, then perhaps the ping to the Japanese server will be several times lower than to the European or even Russian. This can only be verified empirically. The reverse situation is also true: living in the Kaliningrad region, you can have a more stable connection to servers in the same Germany, but poor communication with Russian and Japanese nodes.
Server problems
As is already clear from the subtitle, the solution to the question of how to reduce ping in "Dota 2" does not always fall on the user. Have you played on the same server for a long time and have you never had a problem? And today your ping is jumping like crazy? This does not mean that you caught the virus or forgot to disconnect something. Perhaps there was just some kind of crash on the game server.
This may be a DDoS attack carried out by some "gifted" person, or just technical problems. Or yesterday installed the update, and it went "crookedly." There may be many reasons, but in this case there is only one solution - wait until the server is repaired.