This is how you can lower your ping in League of Legends

Playing with a high ping in any online game can be very frustrating, and the same goes for League of Legends. Here’s how you can potentially lower your ping. 

League of Legends is a game where quick reactions and keeping track of different things are key parts of succeeding. Without being able to make quick movements, cast a quick spell combination, or keep an eye on opponents and teammates, it’s very hard to succeed in LoL and climb the ranked ladder. This is why ping is a crucial factor when playing. A high ping will result in big disadvantages that will ultimately hurt the game experience for any player. 

These methods will help to handle a high ping and to avoid playing with a high ping to begin with. 

What does ping mean? 

Ping is also commonly referred to as latency. The ping tells something about how much time it takes for a data set to be sent from your device to a server and then back to the device once again. The ping, therefore, refers to a two-way latency, since it’s basically doing a round trip. This can be any action in an online game like League of Legends, such as casting a spell or just moving around the map.

What is a good ping in LoL?

Having a good and stable ping is luckily very easy to keep track of. While playing a game, players enable the ping to display on the screen at all times to make sure it’s not too high. Simply navigate to the settings, click on “display”, and enable the “toggle FPS display” keybind function. 

When enabled, the ping will always show in the corner of the screen while also showing while in the loading screen as always. So what is a good ping? What players find normal is very different as it’s possible to get used to playing with different pings. In professional games, players are playing with a ping at around 1, but that is very hard to reach while playing on official servers online. On a server like EUW, a ping from 10 to 70 is considered normal and good. Everything above might feel laggy to some. In the North American server, pings can be higher since data sometimes have to travel further. This means that depending on location and internet speed, some players can have pings at over 100 at a regular basis. 

How to lower your ping in LoL

These methods should hopefully help you to lower your ping in League of Legends.

Common solutions:

• Restart the PC, modem, and router. Restarting all devices will in many cases fix high pings. It’s a good idea to restart the internet router at least one time a week to keep it working at full capacity.
• Update PC drivers. Updating drivers is important to keep the PC up to speed. Old drivers can sometimes interfere with the ping and other things while playing. 
• Use an ethernet cable. This solution is mostly relevant for laptop players since an ethernet cable can provide a more stable internet connection and lower ping.
• Close unnecessary applications on the PC. Sometimes, applications in the background of the game can cause lag issues. This could be everything from browser windows to other games. 

Other solutions: 

• Diagnose the PC with the Riot Games Hextech Repair Tool. The diagnostic tool made by Riot could help identify the problems causing higher ping in LoL. Download it from Riot Support and follow instructions.  
• Renew IP address. Renewing the IP address can help fix lag issues. This can be done quickly by opening the command prompt with the Windows button + R. When opened, type in “ipconfig /release” and press enter.  

Note that a high ping can also be caused by other factors that players can’t do anything about. It can be because of Riot Games’ servers, or specific internet providers in a user’s area. In these cases, players must wait it out until the ping is back to normal, or pursue a solution with their ISP.