Ping spikes and jitter
Your average ping can look fine while the game still feels wrong. Valve defines jitter as a disruption in the even flow of packets: a traffic jam makes one or more packets arrive later than expected, perhaps in a clump. A ping spike is a sudden increase, and Valve describes spiky jitter as delays that are very large but occur only rarely. This guide covers why it matters, how to see it, what causes it and what helps.
Why a steady ping matters
Valve explains that games need messages to arrive on time, not just arrive: a message delivered late is usually just as bad as one that is dropped, which is why a network test that only measures packet loss is incomplete. Epic's latency guide says jitter matters as much as the average.
Respawn's 2021 deep dive shows what that looks like. A trace from one of its pro players to an Apex server had a best of 31 ms and a worst of 522 ms, and Respawn called his game experience extremely bad because his connection swung by around 500 ms.
Riot's Valorant team described another cost in a 2022 update on gameplay consistency, written for patch 4.10. A quick ping spike builds up a queue of moves on the server or on your client, which keeps latency higher until the queue gets back to its target size. With patch 4.10, Riot said, a backlog of five extra moves that could take up to 5 seconds to clear now takes under a second, and in severe cases the game resets the queue instead, which means a move correction.
How to see it
- Valorant: under Settings, Video, Stats, the Network RTT Jitter graph shows how your round-trip time changes from packet to packet. Riot added it in 2022 to show conditions that would not appear in the regular round-trip graph due to averaging.
- CS2: the Telemetry HUD's network jitter / misdelivery graph draws one bar per network message, and the bar's height is that message's jitter. A bar turns red when the jitter risks a missed tick. The detailed network display shows your peak jitter as a number.
- Outside the game: run Epic's 50-ping test from Command Prompt and compare the minimum and maximum. Epic says they should be reasonably close.
- League of Legends: Riot's Log Reader reads a game's netlog file and includes jitter over time.
What causes ping spikes
- Other traffic on your connection. Epic says that if another device fills your connection, the game's data may wait in line behind it, and that uploads are the most disruptive.
- Wi-Fi. Epic says wireless can add delay due to signal loss, and Respawn's 2021 answer to players whose latency goes up and down begins: "If you play on WiFi, we can't do much for you!"
- Routing between networks. Epic says a sudden increase in ping is usually caused by how your provider routes traffic: if an internet exchange point it uses is down or congested, your ping can spike.
- The game server. In 2021 Respawn said rapidly changing latency can sometimes be related to its server performance. Valorant shows a Low Server FPS indicator when the server's frame rate drops, and Riot's 2021 Valorant guide says that one is on them.
- Your own PC. Riot's 2022 consistency update describes a case that is not a network spike at all: alt-tabbing with Limit FPS in Background on, then returning to the game, could feel like playing at a very high ping that the round-trip graphs did not show. Riot said patch 4.10 should resolve it quickly.
What helps
- Give the game priority on your router. Epic says QoS or gaming mode keeps the game's data moving ahead of large transfers from other devices, so your ping stays steadier when the network is busy.
- Pause uploads and large downloads. Epic suggests avoiding them on the same network while you play.
- Use a cable. Epic says wireless can add delay due to signal loss.
- In CS2, add buffering for rare, large spikes. Valve says the engine adds enough buffering on its own when jitter is frequent, but when it comes in sporadic spikes with long periods of calm in between, you might need to raise Buffering to smooth over packet loss / jitter. The cost is added latency.
- Report it with a trace. In 2021 Respawn said it asks players for network traces to find where the congestion point is, and Riot's 2021 Valorant guide suggests using Tracert to collect network logs and reaching out to your provider with the details.
How NitroPing helps
Your ping depends on the path your internet provider sends your game's traffic along, not only on the distance. NitroPing sends only your game's traffic through one of our relay servers over an encrypted tunnel, which can be a shorter, steadier path than your provider's default route. Everything else on your PC stays on your normal connection.
Pick Auto and NitroPing measures the relays from your PC and uses the one with the lowest latency, or pick a city and it stays there.
What it cannot do: shorten the physical distance to your game's servers, or fix Wi-Fi trouble or a connection that is already full. If your provider's route to the game is already good, the difference will be small.
Common questions
What is jitter in gaming?
Jitter is how much your ping changes from packet to packet. Valve defines it as a disruption in the even flow of packets, also called latency variance, because packets do not all take the same amount of time to cross the network.
How do I know if my jitter is too high?
Watch the game's own graphs: Valorant's Network RTT Jitter graph, or CS2's jitter / misdelivery graph, where a red bar means the jitter risked a missed tick. Outside the game, Epic says the minimum and maximum of a 50-ping test should be reasonably close.
Why does my ping spike when someone else uses the internet?
Their traffic shares your connection. Epic says that if another device fills your connection, the game's data may wait in line behind it, and that uploads are the most disruptive because most home connections have much less upload capacity than download. A router's QoS or gaming mode keeps the game's data moving first.
Can NitroPing fix ping spikes?
It cannot fix spikes from Wi-Fi or from a connection that is already full. What it changes is the path: NitroPing sends only your game's traffic through one of our relay servers over an encrypted tunnel, which can be a shorter, steadier path than your provider's default route.
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