In multiplayer games, ping plays a crucial role during the gameplay. In Apex Legends, doing whatever you can to improve hit detection and minimize lag is absolutely essential if you want to ensure a victory for your team. Checking your ping and the data center that you’re connected to are the main factors here. Also, you can do it for every multiplayer game you play. In Apex Legends, however, checking your ping isn’t that obvious and straightforward.
What Is Ping?
You may not care what ping is, as long as it’s in the low numbers, but truly understanding what it means may help you find your own ways to lower it. The ping number represents the time it takes for the server to receive your computer’s response. This number is represented in milliseconds, and, the lower it is, the faster your response is.
The faster this happens in real-time, the better, because your status and position will be updated more often, giving a clearer picture to the server and other users on the server. In Apex Legends, this pertains to everything, from moving and shooting to chatting and switching weapons. If a player’s ping is too high, you’ll often see their character running in place, seemingly ‘blinking’ around the area, and displaying clear signs of what is known as ‘lag’.
Clearly, this dilutes the game experience for everyone involved.
Checking Ping
Changing the data center and checking your ping is unnecessarily difficult in Apex Legends. This is a big problem, as professional gamers pay a lot of attention to these factors.
As a cross-platform multiplayer battle royale game, Apex Legends is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Methods for checking ping are similar on every platform, though there are some minute differences. Let’s dive in.
PC
First, you’ll need to start the game. Once the game loads and you see the main screen, let it sit idle for around 90 seconds. Don’t hit the Continue button; just let it sit for a while. After 90 seconds, hit Esc.
You will be prompted to exit the game. Instead of exiting the game, select Cancel and you’ll see a new button, Data Center, pop up in the lower part of the screen. Click it and you’ll see the list of all available data centers and your ping to each one. Choose the data center with the lowest ping number and connect to it.
Xbox One and PS4
Although the process is fairly similar for the console version of Apex Legends, there are some minute differences. First, start the game on your console. Wait for it to load and don’t click Continue. Let it sit like that for two minutes (keep in mind that it is 90 seconds for the PC version). Once the two minutes have passed, navigate to the Accessibility menu and exit it.
If you’re doing this on an Xbox One console, press the right stick and the Data Center menu should pop up. On PS4, press the R3 button to display the menu.
How to Lower Ping
As a rule of thumb, the server that is the closest to your location is the best choice, because it allows better server-to-PC communication. Keep this in mind when picking servers.
On PC, go to the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Sift through the list of open apps and close that the ones you don’t need, as they may be compromising your connection.
Reset your router. Unplug it, leave it off for 5 minutes, and turn it back on. This will help it cool down and may boost the connection.
Other Reasons for Lag
If your ping is low and you’re still experiencing lag, exit the game and make sure that you’ve closed all internet-based applications. If you’re listening to music on YouTube while playing, close the browser window and see if lag still persists. If you’re a console gamer and are using a laptop or phone to play music from YouTube or other streaming services, this may overload your connection and cause connectivity issues and lag.
There are other reasons for the lag in Apex Legends that aren’t necessarily your fault. It may seem to you that you are the one experiencing connectivity issues, but it may well be that the other players are the ones with high ping. Also, Apex Legends servers aren’t perfect (no game server is) and the problem could be with them.
Lag doesn’t have to be a consequence of a slow connection. Your PC’s hardware simply may not be up to the task. You may meet the Apex Legends minimum system requirements, but you’ll likely have to lower the graphics if you don’t meet the recommended ones.
Minimum System Requirements
a) Windows 7 64-bit
b) Intel Core i3-6300 3.8GHz or AMD FX-4350 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Processor
c) NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 or Radeon HD 7730
d) 6GB RAM
e) 1GB VRAM
Recommended System Requirements
a) Windows 7 64-bit
b) Intel i5 3570K or equivalent
c) Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290
d) 8GB RAM
e) 8GB VRAM
Check the requirements and compare them with your PC’s specs before you blame the lag on your internet connection or that of other players. This, of course, doesn’t go for the console players. If there is lag on the console versions of Apex Legends, it is most probably due to high ping.
Always Know Your Ping
As you can see, getting information about your ping is unnecessarily complicated in Apex Legends. However, it is important that you keep it in check and switch servers if there is a better one.
Have you ever experienced a lag in Apex Legends? How did you lower your ping number? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.
