How to Fix High Ping and Lag in Counter Strike 2
High Ping and lag in Counter Strike 2 will ruin your chances of reaching Global Elite. In a game that requires great aim and reaction times, ping spikes and packet loss can leave you feeling completely out of control. In this blog we will cover a range of network optimisations and solutions to combat all forms of network lag.
Server Status
Counter Strike has always been one of the most popular first person shooter games in the genre. With such a large player base, its expected the servers can become overworked. Especially during peak times or after a new content update. If too many players are online at one time, it can lead to connection problems.
We recommend checking the Counter Strike 2 server status if you are experiencing lag on a usually stable connection. We’ve linked some helpful sites to check whether other players are experiencing any issues with the servers.
If the servers are down/ experiencing issues, you may have trouble logging in, or experience an unstable connection. Unfortunately, there’s no direct fix we can offer for this. Its up the the game developers to issue an update or fix the servers before your connection will return to normal.
The benefit of knowing the servers are experiencing issues is you know it’s not anything on your network causing you to lag in Counter Strike 2.
Counter Strike 2 Server Status
Wired Connection
To succeed in Counter Strike 2, you’ll need pinpoint accuracy and responsive gameplay. The best way to achieve this, other than to sync hundreds of hours into the game, is to play on a stable connection.
Using a wired (ethernet) connection is the simplest way to achieve this. An often overlooked change is switching from a wireless (Wi-Fi) connection to a wired connection. Gaming doesn’t actually require much bandwidth to run smoothly. Stability is a much more important factor when it comes to having great gameplay. A wired connection provides a more stable connection as it does suffer from interference, like a wireless connection.
Wi-Fi is very convenient to connect your PC to your router, especially if they are far away from each other. Although, it’s not ideal for gaming. As the signals travel through walls/ floors they can become weaker, or worse yet being dropped completely. This is a common cause of packet loss or packet burst in Counter Strike 2.
If the distance between your PC and router is stopping you from using a wired connection, we have a solution for that. It’s a piece of tech call Powerline Adapters. They allow you to carry an ethernet connection through your homes existing electrical wiring. This provides a stable connection, even between rooms or floors in your home.
DumaOS 4
If the servers are fine and you’re using a wired connection, but still experiencing lag, you’ll want to read this section. The main reasons you will be lagging in Counter Strike 2 is connecting to far away servers and/ or other people congesting your network. DumaOS is our router software that has a suite of powerful features that directly solve these two issues.
We’ll be explaining how three features of DumaOS can completely optimise your connection for Counter Strike 2 in this section. These features are part of the new DumaOS 4 update, available on our Netduma R3 Gaming router. If you are using a router with DumaOS 3.3, we have specific 3.3 blog for Counter Strike 2 here.
Geo-Filter 2.0
Let’s make sure you are playing on the best servers in Counter Strike 2. To do this, we can use our most popular gaming feature – the Geo-Filter. It allows you to control exactly what servers you can and can’t connect to, so you can ensure you only play on low ping servers every game.
The problem with connecting to servers that are far away is your data has to travel further to reach the server. This is what causes you to have high ping, making your inputs delayed and your gameplay worse.
Geo-Filter creates a customisable filter radius around your home location. This radius will determine the range in which you can connect to servers in.
Using another DumaOS feature, Ping Heatmap, you can find where the best Counter Strike 2 servers are. Ping Heatmap will provide you with the server locations and their connection quality. With this information you can adjust your radius in Geo-Filter to only include the servers that will give you the best connection.
Steady Ping
We can optimise your gaming connection further with Steady Ping. This is a new and powerful feature in DumaOS 4 that allows your to remove jitter from your connection. This makes your already low ping gameplay feel even more responsive as you will be playing on a almost perfectly stable ping.
If you aren’t familiar, jitter is the constant changes in your ping. You’ve probably see this when checking your ping in the scoreboard screen, the ping value is never a constant value. Even if it only changes by a few milliseconds, it can still cause your accuracy to suffer.
Steady Ping works by applying a ping buffer to your connection. This will slightly increase your ping, but it does this to account for the changes in ping or jitter you would normally experience. This results in an almost perfectly stable ping in every game of Counter Strike 2.
SmartBOOST
After setting up Geo-Filter and Steady Ping, the only thing that could slow down your gaming session is other people on your network. This is where SmartBOOST comes in.
It’s very common to be gaming on a busy home network nowadays. Whether its people downloading files, streaming 4k shows or on a work-from-home call, it will all take bandwidth away from gaming. Bandwidth intensive activities like file downloads or 4k streaming take as much bandwidth as possible. This results in your gaming traffic getting stuck in a queue on your network. This is a common cause lead of packet loss and packet burst.
SmartBOOST solves this by allowing you to prioritise the traffic of certain applications or devices.
We’d always recommend setting gaming as your networks top priority. This means SmartBOOST will ensure it always gets the exact amount of bandwidth it needs to perform optimally. SmartBOOST will also send your top priorities traffic first on your network. So if gaming is your top priority, it won’t be negatively affected by other applications.
We have a live demonstration of SmartBOOST in action. It shows a congested home network being optimised by SmartBOOST. Check out the full video below:
Thanks for reading
If you have followed the steps we have included in this blog, you would have completely optimised your connection in Counter Strike 2. Now armed with a low and stable ping, you’ll be able to climb to the peaks of the Global Elite in no time (maybe).
If you would to learn more about the features we have mentioned in this blog, and the other features included in DumaOS, check out the rest of our site here.
DumaOS 4 is currently exclusive to the Netduma R3 Gaming Router. As a thank you for reading the whole blog, we’ve offering a discount code if you want to get your own R3 to experience its powerful features.
