Welcome to L00tsma's guide for knowledge and reducing of lag.

So, we all know what lag is and how much we all hate it. It's what get's us killed, and bad gaming experience, etc. This guide is to hopefully stop all lag for you guy's. I hate lag with a passion and I always love fixing it, it makes me feel like I'm slapping lag right in the face! BOOM!!!


Anyways, in this guide I'll teach you what lag is, what causes it, and how to fix it.


Part I. What is lag? Understanding lag.
Part II. What causes lag?
Part III. Easy fixes. (mainly connection)
Part IV. Hard fixes. (mainly hardware)

I. What is lag? Understanding lag.

Lag has to do with Client and Server communication. All games are maintained on a central server to keep away from problems with individual clients. So, the game really has no direct control on the central state of the game and may possibly only send change request to the server, and can only update the local game state (yours) by getting updates from the server. So, basically there's a lot of communicating between servers, clients, etc. This communicating causes delay time between the client and the servers which ultimately makes you lag because you're receiving the updates too slow. This can be caused by many things in which I'll explain in the next section.

This is how a game contacts between the servers, clients etc

II. What causes lag?


First, there is hardware lag. When playing games you have something called a frames. Basically a frame rate is when it takes your input (clicking, etc) and does the necessary calculation etc.. When it's done with that frame it will update the game and give the player the output (either in a new image on the screen or a packet is sent from the game to the server). How fast you do these frames is called your Frame rate (the higher the better). The better your hardware (GPU, CPU, Memory, etc) the better the frame rate, mainly because it can process and dish out frame rates faster.

Second, there is latency lag. Latency lag can be caused by many things. The only thing you can control is the bandwidth. Bandwidth is another word for "Data transfer rate" which is the amount of time information can be sent between one place to another on the Net. Now, the better connection you have and the more bandwifth you can dish out in a certain amount of time means more data efficiently sent from your connection to the server. A lot of things can affect your bandwidth which I'll be showing you how to fix.

III. Easy fixes (mainly connection)

So, I've explained what lag is and what causes it. Now, it's time to fix it. Typically lag can be easy to fix other times it might cost money, etc (better connection or new hardware). First let's talk about the easy fixes:


Easy fixes:

Since most of the time lag originates from connection. It's usually caused from simple things such as downloads.

1. If you're experiencing lag (mostly delay time with connection problems) stop all downloads. By downloads I mean everything. Such as bit torrents, loading videos, updates, streaming music sites, etc. Why videos and streaming music sites, because everytime you go to a site you download things (that's why it's important to be careful which sites you go to), this is because you have to download the information to see the site. So, with videos and music streaming sites (last.fm, pandora, etc) you're downloading video and audio information which uses a lot of bandwidth. So, stop everything.

2. Now, if the previous didn't help then it could be that your computer is running too many high usage processes and is clogging your CPU. To check to see if that's happening go to your Task Manager, click All User Processes, and look for high usage processes or processes that look strange and like they shouldn't be there. If you're confused about a process and don't know if it's a threat or if it's necessary for your computer to run just Google it.

3. If that doesn't fix it then you should restart your modem. This makes your connection start fresh again and deletes all useless information that's clogging your bandwidth. To restart your modem:

First, unplug the modem and router (if you have one).
Keep it unplugged for 30 seconds.
Then plug it back and wait till it's fully booted.
re-connect on your computer and boom! It's done.

4. Unfortunately there are some viruses that eat up your bandwidth and make you lag, which are called Botnets. A Botnet is a virus that infects a host's computer and it turns it into a zombie (i.e. using it to send ping to sites (known as Ddos'ing) or just doing random things with it).

You will not know you're infected until you experience latency lag or if you have a monthly bandwidth internet service and you look at your bill. If you've tried all of the above and nothing has worked, I would think you're infected with your botnet (but still it's unlikely). However, you can never be too sure.. So, I would recommend getting a Anti-Virus and a Anti-Malware program. I would recommend the following:

AVG free Anti-Virus

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware


5. Now, if that doesn't work then it may be a problem with your internet service. I would contact your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and ask if they can see if there's a problem. Or, it could just be your internet service is very poor quality and I would recommend upgrading it.

IV. Hard fixes (mainly hardware):


Hard Fixes:

First off, you should turn down the graphics settings and see if that helps.


Next, I would recommend defragging your memory (RAM) and your hard drive (HDD). Defragging is when Windows makes different sorts of corrupted files which ultimately clog your Memory and HDD. You can fix this by defragging (I defrag a few times a week),

1. memory you can do two things, first manually:

Open up Notepad.
You now have two options, if you have less then 128 Mb of RAM (I don't know why you would and would be wanting to even try playing 12 sky2) then type this:
Mystring = (16000000)

If you have over 128 Mb of RAM type this:

Mystring = (80000000)

Save it as "Memory.vbe" (with the quotation marks).
Then close out as many programs as possible and double click it.

If, you want a program to do it for you I would recommend the following,

Iolo® Memory Mechanic.

2. For defragging your HDD do the following (it may differ from OS to OS but, it generally should be the same):

Start,
My Computer,
Right Click C:/,
Properties,
Tools,
Defrag.

Close out as many other applications as you can.

Basically if nothing of the above fixed anything, then it's most likely your hardware. Good frame rates require good hardware (such as graphics, memory, and CPU). So, if you have an outdated CPU or graphics and want good frame rates on games, I would recommend a upgrade.


That's generally every way you can fix lag ^.^

Thanks for reading and hoped this helped. If you have any questions post here, PM me, or add my MSN which is located on my profile.


~L00tsma

Good guide! sticky

killerbobness wrote:

Good guide! sticky

Thanks man, hope this helps some people!

Bump