14th Jul, 2021by Florian
If you enjoy playing multiplayer games on your PlayStation 4, you might occasionally suffer from high or unstable ping (also known as latency). Since there are multiple causes for this, this article will present some solutions that you can try out.
How high or low is an ideal ping?
Ping is usually measured in milliseconds (ms) and should ideally be below 60 when playing multiplayer PS4 games online. Anything above a ping of 80 and you can expect various difficulties, such as lagging during multiplayer games.
Basically: the lower your ping, the better.
What are some ways to lower ping on PS4?
Typical ways to improve ping on PS4 include checking your Internet connection, connecting your PS4 to the Internet via cable instead of Wi-Fi, using a VPN and changing the default DNS servers configured on the PS4.
If all of this sounds a bit complicated, don’t worry; we describe all the options in detail below.
Check your internet connection
As a first step, use the PS4’s built-in connection-check tool to make sure that your Internet connection isn’t the problem, or to find other clues about what could be causing your high ping.
Connect PS4 via cable instead of WLAN
Try connecting your PS4 to your router with an Ethernet cable. Often, a poor Wi-Fi connection is responsible for ping being too high when playing games, especially if you are far away from the router.
If your PS4 is not near your router and there are no network cables in your home, try using a powerline adapter, which is the next best solution in this situation.
Use a VPN
In many cases, a VPN connection can help stabilize or even reduce your ping, since it allows data packets to take a more direct route to the game server and cannot be prioritized by your internet service provider (ISP), depending on the service.
Although the PlayStation 4 does not support VPNs by default, you can still use one on the PS4 with the help of a trick: the Shellfire Box.
Change the DNS server configuration on PS4
If the trick with the VPN doesn’t work or you don’t want to use a VPN at the moment, you can also try to change the DNS server on your PlayStation 4.
This is possible via Network > Configure Internet Connection. There, you can select manual mode under the DNS settings and enter a new DNS server. You can try it with one of the following options, for example:
- OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
- Cloudflare: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1
- IBM Quad9: 9.9.9.9
- Google: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
If changing the DNS server doesn’t reduce or stabilize the ping on your PS4, there’s nothing to stop you from reverting the settings back afterwards.
Play on servers that are geographically closer to you
Sometimes high ping is simply due to your geographical location being too far from the server you are playing on.
In this case, try to use servers that are geographically closer to you, if possible.
Conclusion
There are numerous causes for a too-high ping on PS4, and thus there are also numerous different solutions, of which we have explained the most important ones in this article.
Do you suspect that your problem is different? Have you found another good solution for improving ping on PS4? Feel free to leave a comment below this article so we can adapt and improve it in the future!
Featured image: dolgikh / 123RF
Source: shellfire.net
https://gospeedcheck.com/article/how-to-reduce-ping-on-ps4-599
