Does router speed affect ping?

Question

I currently own a 150mbps router and I am playing to MW3 on PS3 with about <75ms - <100ms ping.

Does getting a new 300mbps router make a big difference? Would it reduce my lag?

Answer 1

Probably not. The biggest thing you can do to improve your performance is to purchase a higher-tier internet speed with a larger bandwidth. As you've probably figured out, the 4 mbps you're getting is nowhere near the limit of your router (150 mbps). This implies that the router is more than capable of handling the data you're sending through it, and the likely culprit is a lower-tier internet connection.

Answer 2

Getting a higher-tier internet connection will probably not improve your ping. All networked XBox 360 games are required to keep their bandwidth below 8KBps; the requirements for PS3 are likely similar. With a 4mbps (500KBps) connection, you will be using less than 2% of your total bandwidth.

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Your ping is the time is takes a packet to make it from your computer to the server, and back again. There are a few reasons you might have high ping, and a few things you can do about it:

• Lossy wireless connection. If you're on wireless and there's a lot of interference, you could be losing packets. Try pinging your router a few times, and make sure you never get "request timed out." If this happens, switch to wired.
• Slow router. Although doubtful, you could have a faulty/overheating router which is running much slower than it should. It's easy enough to check: ping your router again, and make sure the response-time is small. There is really no reason the response should take more than 1 ms. If this happens, get a new router.
• Saturated bandwidth. This could be the case if the PS3 is downloading updates in the background, or your brother is downloading torrents on his computer, or your neighbors are leeching off your wireless, etc. Log into your router's administration page, and see if it has any statistics on previous/current bandwidth usage.
  If you are saturating your bandwidth, find out who's downloading what, and stop the downloads.
• Slow ISP. ISP's usually sell much more bandwidth than they are capable of providing, on the assumption that most people will not be saturating their connections all the time. Sometimes they are not able to meet the demands, causing everyone's internet to run slower. If this happened, it would affect both your ping and your bandwidth, so a simple way to check would be to use a bandwidth test and make sure you are getting the full bandwidth you're paying for. If you're not, call up and complain.
• Server is too far away, or is overloaded. This is the most common cause of lag, and there's really nothing you can do about it besides choosing a new server that resides closer to you.

It could also be that you're not actually experiencing lag; many people confuse low fps with network lag. Low FPS could be caused by poor programming, or system overheating. If you have one of the older, fat PS3's, you should be seriously concerned about this, as all the old fat PS3's seem to be dying from overheating lately.

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Lastly, I'd like to mention that 75ms ping is really not bad at all - the average human reaction time is about 210 ms, with the best-of-the-best around 160ms. A 75ms ping does not put you at a significant disadvantage over someone with a better ping - if you find you are dying a lot, just keep practicing :)

Answer 3

I contacted SKY about my internet connection, and they put me on a gamers package that reduced my ping. Might be worth phoning your ISP too and see if they have a similar deal!

Answer 4

I understand you are running a wireless connection. Check whats your ping to the router and do you have any packet loss. If possible try connecting through ethernet. Also make sure there is no p2p software running while you testing. Not only on your computer, but on every computer connected to your network. On ADSL type of connections massive upload may increase your ping big time.