Maximizing Gaming Performance With Proxies: Tips to Improve Ping

There’s no debate that online gaming is extraordinarily popular. Over 6.4 million people watched the League of Legends 2023 finals , bringing more and more people to online games. However, one thing that sets online gaming apart from offline gaming is that it requires a speedy and stable internet connection. If you have ever tried to score a kill on Counter-Strike with 300 ms or higher, then you know the frustration.

A good gaming proxy offers more than a few features that can enhance your online gaming experience. It’s true that a proxy server can slow down your connection speed, but gaming proxies will reduce your ping if you choose a server that optimizes data routing. They also let you bypass geo restrictions and play early access games that are yet unavailable in your country.

Let’s take a deeper look at how a gaming proxy solves several online gaming issues.

Strategies for Improving Gaming Experience with Proxies

You have to do some hand-picking to make the best out of gaming proxies. But after you find a fast proxy server with excellent uptime, you’re able to fix latency issues, protect your IP address from DDoS , or create multiple online gaming accounts.

Tips to Improve Ping

Because proxies work as intermediaries between your device and game servers, your data makes an additional hop before reaching them, which usually increases session latency. So, how can a gaming proxy reduce ping or increase connection speed?

The answer lies within data routing optimization. Sometimes, when you play global online games, your data travels through multiple countries. Imagine that the internet service provider in Malaysia has outdated servers that accept too many users simultaneously, and they need better geographical placement. Once your data reaches this network, it will significantly slow down, and you will experience lag or even disconnect.

That’s not the case with professional proxy providers. You can pick a speedy Malaysian proxy that is as close to the game server as possible. Instead of going through the long ISP server maze, it will travel a shorter distance, reducing gaming session latency. Eliminating lag will not only improve the online gaming experience but also help you secure a victory in first-person shooters, where every millisecond matters.

ISP speed throttling is another issue. Occasionally, shady ISPs can impose speed limits for bandwidth-heavy activities or during internet use peak hours. You will avoid speed throttling if you connect to a gaming proxy that will handle all the data transfers, and you’ll get a better connection speed.

Although these are somewhat niche scenarios, many online MMORPG players improved playtime results using gaming proxies.

How to Choose the Right Gaming Proxy?

When it comes to selecting a gaming proxy, it’s important to consider the proxy type, server location, and available protocols. If your aim is to enhance connection speed and reduce session latency, datacenter proxies are the top choice. They’re known for their speed and excellent uptime. However, it’s crucial to be aware that they’re easily detectable and may fail to bypass geo-blocks. If a game has a policy against proxy usage, there’s a decent risk of a ban.

On the other hand, residential proxies are excellent at obfuscating your online traffic. Furthermore, you can find residential proxies that are just as fast, and they can fully optimize data routing if your residential proxy is near game servers. Choosing a proxy location that will shorten the distance between your device and the target destination is paramount and applies to datacenter and residential proxies simultaneously.

What is The Right Proxy Protocol?

Lastly, switch between available proxy server protocols. Regarding online gaming, you will most often encounter SOCKS and HTTP protocols. SOCKS proxies are preferable as they optimize data transfers for a better connection speed, which is essential for playing online. They also support the UDP protocol, which is designed to facilitate the fastest online communication.

However, you’ll notice that the HTTP protocol is more often used for browser games . That’s because web browsers rely on this protocol to communicate online, and using a SOCKS proxy might not be possible. Consider switching between the two to enhance your online gaming experience.

Additional Tips to Reduce Ping

We want to draw your attention to a few things that affect online gaming but are unrelated to gaming proxies. They may sound straightforward, but the simplest answer is often the correct one!

Check Network Settings

Firstly, ensure that your network configuration is optimized for playing online. That means you should switch from a wireless to a wired connection whenever possible. Simultaneously, you should turn off apps that consume the most bandwidth. You can quickly check this by clicking Ctrl + Shift + Esc on Windows, then inspect the network column in the processes tree: apps with the biggest Mbps consumption can cause online gaming lag.

Upgrade Hardware

If you’ve tried everything above but are still experiencing lag, consider upgrading your hardware. Firstly, verify that your router is powerful enough for online gaming. This is especially important if you have several devices connected to the same router. If that doesn’t help, investing in a gaming router might be the way to go, as they can enable you to prioritize certain activities, devices, or types of traffic on your network.

Upgrade Internet Plan

We also recommend double-checking your internet service plan and whether fiber optic internet is available at your location. It supports up to 1 Gbps download and upload speeds , so you’ll never experience anything close to a bumpy connection.

What Else Can Gaming Proxies Do?

Increasing connection speed and reducing online gaming session latency is excellent, but we’ll be transparent that it is situational. However, a proxy server will improve your online gaming experience even if the issue is unrelated to the internet connection quality. Here are 4 use cases that will benefit many online gamers.

Have Multiple Gaming Accounts

Some video games (especially MMORPGs!) require tons of grinding to get the best items and maximize your characters. Furthermore, some players like having multiple accounts to experience the game fully, with different class characters joining different guilds to make more connections. The trouble is that many online games only allow one account from the same IP address.

To avoid multiple account detection and bans, we recommend using residential proxies. You can get dedicated residential proxies to assign their IP addresses to each online gaming account. This way, the video game will not identify you as the same user, reducing detection and ban risks.

Bypass Geo Restrictions

One of the most popular proxy server use cases is bypassing geographical blocks. For example, the viral South Korean online game Solo Leveling: Arise was released globally on May 8, 2024 , but it was available in Canada from March 21! That’s more than two months that Canadians could play it while the rest of the world eagerly waited.

Unless the tech-savvy part of that world used Canadian proxies to bypass the geo-block. Once you connect to a proxy server in a different country, it masks your original IP address and assigns you a local one. The game server notices that the IP address is from the required region and lets you download and play games without restriction. We recommend residential proxies for geo-block evasion because they offer robust online privacy features.

DDoS Protection

DDoS stands for distributed denial-of-service attack, which is more common in the video game industry than we’d like to see. The attacker uses a bot network to target a specific computer network that they choose by the player’s IP address. Then, they flood that IP address with fake requests that overload the network, causing a player to disconnect from a match and potentially experience a defeat.

Because gaming proxies obfuscate the player’s original IP address, attackers can only target the proxy network. Even if they manage to bring it down, the player can connect to a different proxy and continue playing or default to the original ISP server to avoid a disconnect.

Doxing Protection

Just like in the previous example, doxing is an attack that can target players to intimidate and harass them. This time, attackers utilize the original IP address to learn the victim’s true identity. Although a single IP address is not enough for that, it is a crucial part of the attack that helps to know other essential details, like the victim’s geographical location. Because gaming proxies obfuscate the original IP address, they offer substantial doxing protection.

Conclusion

Although many proxies are not designed for gaming, a reliable gaming proxy can fix the latency issues. Moreover, this technology is one of the best tools to bypass online restrictions and add an additional layer of privacy, which protects you from uncompetitive players who resort to hacks to get wins. If you have powerful hardware and a fast internet plan but are still experiencing online gaming lag, try out proxies because they might be the cure!