Feel depressed every time you’re kicked out when you join a game? Pointing out that you have a high ping? Whew, I know that too since I moved to another country and played with my Garena colleagues back in my homeland. We tried to play still despite the high ping but what a game, it lags all from the start of the game and we opted not to finish it. I’ve been trying to figure out on how to reduce ping or latency in online network games and luckily, for so may times checking it in several forums, I found the solution and I want to share it with you.

If you’re a newbie to online games, you need to know what “ping means” and how it is connected to “lag”, which is the experience in delay caused by packets of information which are delayed it its delivery, a slang term for latency issues. In a network, latency is an expression of how much time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another. This is commonly referred by online players as “ping” (short for Packet Inter-Networking Groper) which is seen between their computer and the other player or to the server depending on the game itself. Low amounts of ping are desirable since they allow smoother gameplay with more updates of game data in the averaged milliseconds.

To reduce ping or latency, there are two (2) possible ways:

1. TcpAckFrequency

Note: This works fine under Windows XP. For Windows Vista, this setting may not have any effect.

- Type "regedit" in windows “run”.. dialog to bring up registry menu

- Then find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\

There are multiple NIC interfaces listed and have long names like {7DBA6DCA-FFE8-4002-A28F-4D2B57AE8383}. Find the one that is used to connect to the internet by clicking each one of it. The right interface will have lots of settings in it and your machine’s IP address listed there somewhere.

- Right-click in the right hand pane and add a new DWORD value, name it TcpAckFrequency, then right click the entry and click Modify and assign a value of 1.

You can change it back to 2 (default) at a later stage if it affects your other TCP application performance. It tells windows how many TCP packets to wait before sending ACK. If the value is 1, windows will send ACK every time it receives a TCP package.

2. TCPNoDelay

- Type "regedit" in windows "run”… dialog to bring up registry menu

- Then find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters

- Right-click in the right hand pane and add a new DWORD value, name it TCPNoDelay

- Then right click the entry and click Modify and assign a value of 1.

- Click Ok and close the registry editor, then reboot your PC.

The first one is more recommended to use, however the second option might be useful for those in overseas. Note that when doing these reduction techniques, be sure to let the latency settle. It’s normally higher when you first log in but it will go down after a minute or so.

For more info, check this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890.