High Ping in Games? Two Hops Here Showed 100 Loss

Your download speed is fine. The speed test says so. And yet you are getting hit through walls, and the scoreboard says your ping is 90.

So you run a trace, see red numbers halfway down it, and conclude your provider is broken. That conclusion is wrong far more often than it is right.

I ran the same trace on this connection twice and got two hops reporting one hundred percent loss on a link that is working perfectly. Here is why that happens, and what to read instead.

Ping is not one number

It is a number per destination, and they are not close.

⭐ Measured here, three targets, same minute. The router at the end of the room answered in 1 ms. One public server answered in 33 ms. Another answered in 51 ms.

⚡ Nothing changed between those three except where the packet went. Same laptop, same Wi-Fi, same second.

⚠️ So a game showing 90 ms is telling you about one server, not about your line. A different server in a different city gives you a different number and neither is a fault.

⛔ That is why the first thing to time is your own router. If your gateway answers in 1 or 2 ms, everything inside your house is fine and the problem is further out.

The trace result almost everybody misreads

This is the measurement that changes how you read the rest.

⚡ Documented by Microsoft on its pathping page: the command "Provides information about network latency and network loss at intermediate hops between a source and destination."

⭐ Read here, six hops out to a public server. I ran it twice deliberately, because one reading of a network is a guess. On the run I have in full, hops 2 and 5 each reported 20 of 20 packets lost, a flat 100%.

⛔ The destination on that same run reported 0% loss. Every link row reported 0% too. A separate ping to the same address got 30 replies out of 30, which is what your traffic was actually getting.

⚡ The earlier run disagreed, and that is worth knowing. It showed one link row losing 2 of 20, and the destination carrying that same 10% while its own node loss stayed at zero.

⚠️ Microsoft explains it in one sentence, about its own example: those routers "are also dropping packets addressed to them, but this loss doesn't affect their ability to forward traffic that isn't addressed to them."

⭐ A router that ignores a ping aimed at itself is doing its job. It is not dropping your game traffic.

⚠️ And loss on a real link comes and goes. Two runs minutes apart gave two different answers, which is why one trace is never enough to blame anybody.

What to read instead, in Microsoft's own layout

The columns are not equally useful, and the one you need is easy to miss.

⚡ Microsoft says the loss rates on the links, "identified as a vertical bar (|) in the address column, indicate link congestion that is causing the loss of packets that are being forwarded on the path."

⭐ Those bar rows sit between the numbered hops. They are the ones that matter to you, and every screenshot on every forum crops them off.

⚠️ Run it yourself with a short count so it finishes in half a minute rather than a couple of them:

pathping -n -q 20 1.1.1.1

⛔ A numbered hop showing loss with clean bars above and below it is noise. A bar row showing loss, with every hop after it losing the same share, is real.

Jitter is what you actually feel

Average ping is the number you see. It is not the number that ruins the round.

⭐ Measured here over thirty pings: average 33 ms, and an average gap between one reply and the next of 3.6 ms.

⛔ But one single jump was 20 ms, from a connection that looks stable on every graph.

⚠️ A steady 90 ms plays better than a 40 ms that swings to 90 and back. Your game predicts a steady delay and cannot predict a swinging one.

⚡ That is why a ping figure alone never settles an argument. Watch whether it moves, not where it sits.

The cause that sits inside the laptop

Found here, and it is the one worth checking before you blame anybody.

⛔ The Wi-Fi card in this machine supports Wi-Fi 6. It is currently connected on 802.11n, on the 2.4 GHz band, at a receive rate of 52 Mbps with the signal at 69%.

⚠️ Nothing on screen says that. Windows shows full bars and a working connection either way.

⭐ 2.4 GHz is the crowded band, shared with every neighbor, every microwave and most smart plugs. Latency there is worse and less predictable than on 5 GHz.

⭐ On a laptop, I check the radio state before anything else. It costs one command, and it explains more of these than any other single reading.

⚡ Read yours in one line, in Terminal:

netsh wlan show interfaces

⛔ Radio type, band and receive rate are the three lines to look at. A weak or fallen-back radio has its own fixes.

What actually lowers a real ping

Five things, and only one of them costs money.

⭐ A cable. Ethernet removes the whole radio problem, and on a laptop that is one adapter away.

⚡ The 5 GHz network, if your router offers both as separate names. Less crowded, lower latency, shorter range.

⚠️ A closer server in the game's own settings. Most competitive games let you pick a region, and people leave it on automatic.

⛔ Someone else's upload, not yours. A big backup or a video call running elsewhere in the house adds delay to everything. Upload congestion is measurable on its own.

⚡ And a router restart, which is worth doing once and no more. If it comes back the same, it was never the router.

What will not lower it

Three that get sold to people every day.

⛔ A faster broadband package. Latency and throughput are different measurements. Going from 100 to 500 Mbps changes the second one, and even 4K video asks for only a fraction of it.

⚠️ A gaming VPN, in most cases. It adds a hop by definition. It only helps when your provider's own route to that server is bad, which is rare and testable.

⭐ And any tool that promises to optimize your connection. There is no setting in Windows that makes light travel faster to another country.

Status: timed here on 27 August 2026, Windows 11. Ping, jitter, pathping loss and the wireless radio state were all measured on the connection this was written on. ⛔ Nothing was changed.

Why is my ping high when my download speed is fine?

Because they measure different things. Speed is how much fits through per second, and ping is how long one packet takes to get there and back. A connection can carry 500 Mbps and still take 90 ms to reach a server on another continent, and no package upgrade shortens that distance.

My trace shows 100% loss at one hop. Is my connection broken?

Probably not. Two hops on this connection reported 100% loss while the destination reported none and a plain ping got every reply back at the same time. Microsoft's own documentation says routers may drop packets addressed to them without that affecting traffic they forward. Read the link rows marked with a vertical bar instead.

Does a VPN lower ping for gaming?

Usually the opposite, because it adds a hop your traffic did not have before. It can help in the narrow case where your provider routes badly to a particular server, and that is worth testing rather than assuming. Measure your ping to the same game server with it on and off.

What is a good ping for gaming?

Under 30 ms feels immediate, 30 to 60 is fine for almost everything, and above 100 starts to be noticeable in fast games. Steadiness matters more than the figure. A stable 80 plays better than a 40 that keeps jumping to 120.

The Short Version

• Ping is a number per destination, not one number for your line.
• Time your own router first. One or two milliseconds means your house is fine.
• Hops showing 100% loss are usually routers ignoring pings aimed at them.
• Read the link rows marked with a vertical bar, not the numbered hops.
• Jitter ruins games more than a high average ping does.
• Check whether your Wi-Fi card has fallen back to 2.4 GHz and 802.11n.
• A cable, a 5 GHz network and a closer game server are the real fixes.
• A faster broadband package does not lower latency.

Where to Next

Ping your own router first. One line, two seconds, and it splits the problem in half before you do anything else.

Then run pathping with a short count and read only the rows with a vertical bar in them. The numbered hops with red numbers are the ones that mislead people.

While you are in Terminal, check what your Wi-Fi is actually connected as. A Wi-Fi 6 card sitting on 802.11n at 2.4 GHz is doing you no favors at all.

If the game lets you pick a server region, look at it. Automatic has put plenty of people on the wrong continent.

If your speed itself is the problem rather than the delay, that is a different measurement. Start where the download actually goes.

And if you have ever been talked into a faster package to fix lag, tell me what happened in the comments. I would like to know whether it ever worked for anybody.