Guides
Ping, lag and FPS, explained.
What makes a game lag, how to find out where yours comes from, and what actually helps. Written by the people who build NoSpike; useful whether or not you use it.
Ping spikes: what causes them and how to find yours
A ping spike comes from one of five places: your PC, your home network, your provider, the route to the game, or the game server. Here is how to tell which, in ten minutes.
Ping, jitter and packet loss: what each one does to your game
Ping is the delay, jitter is how much it wobbles, packet loss is what never arrives. What each one feels like in a game, what counts as good, and how to measure them.
How to lower your ping in CS2
What decides your ping in Counter-Strike 2, the settings that show it, and the things that lower it: from the cable to the route your traffic takes to Valve.
Minecraft server lag: is it your ping or the server?
Blocks that come back, mobs that freeze, hits that land late. How to tell a slow Minecraft server from a slow connection to it, and what to do about each.
Gaming VPN or game routing: what's the difference?
A VPN moves all of your traffic through one server. Game routing moves only your game, through whichever path measures fastest. When either one lowers ping, and when neither can.
Wi-Fi or Ethernet for gaming: what actually changes
Wi-Fi rarely raises your average ping by much. It makes it uneven. Why that matters more, how to check your own, and what helps when a cable isn't possible.
Windows settings that affect FPS, and the ones that don't
The handful of Windows settings that really cost or cap frames, where to find each one, and the popular tweaks that do nothing.