How to fix high ping and packet loss issues in Apex Legends

Apex Legends is a first-person shooter online game, which invariably means that factors such as high ping and packet loss are bound to ruin anyone’s overall gameplay experience. Keeping these factors in check is necessary to play the game at an optimum level and to give yourself and your teammates a fair chance at victory.

Generally, ping below 100 ms is considered decent, and keeping it under the century mark is key to avoiding lagging issues. Moreover, ping below 50 ms is considered good, and can very slightly give you an edge in shooter games.

What is ping and packet loss?

Ping, also known as latency, is the time it takes for game data to be sent from your PC or console to the game servers, and vice-versa. This data includes player input, meaning that ping will determine how long it takes before the actions you trigger in the game, such as movement, taking aim and shooting, take place in the game.

As for packet loss, it represents the percentage of data packets that have failed to reach the game servers from your PC or console or failed to come back from the servers to your platform.

How to fix high ping and packet loss?

There are several ways you can try to fix high ping and packet loss issues in Apex Legends. You can try changing your server on Apex Legends. Sometimes, there can be better data centres to connect to, which may provide better latency and no packet loss occurrences. It is key to note that both high ping and packet loss instances will increase when you pick game servers that are located far away from your location.

Internet connectivity is also a key area of improvement. Having a fast internet connection is not the only factor that affects ping and packet loss. Settings on your internet router are also important to ensure that the game’s connection is not interrupted. Players on Xbox usually run into issues where Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is disabled on their router. Some players on PlayStation also have to deal with NAT-type issues. These instances occur when the game’s connection is moderated and limited by the router.

Enabling UPnP on Xbox, and enabling port-forwarding in Wi-Fi settings are some of the ways to improve connection on PlayStation.

Moreover, there are other general factors as well, that can influence the ping you experience while playing Apex Legends. Running many background apps on your PC, having multiple devices using the same Wi-Fi connection, and even distance between your PC/console and your Wi-Fi can lead to a slower connection.