Computer game troubleshooting

If the game uses a peer-to-peer P2P setup, like some Call of Duty games, your experience will be affected if another player has a poor connection. In games with dedicated servers, though, only your connection will suffer. By the way, network lag is not the same as input lag. Input lag can occur offline and refers to a delay between you pressing a button and you seeing that action happen in the game.

If you're suffering from input lag, you should turn off VSync, a common PC game graphics setting that can introduce this problem. You may also need to disable any post-processing features on your monitor, which can add input lag.

When troubleshooting network lag, you should be aware of your ping. This is a value, in milliseconds, that indicates how long it takes your actions to go to the server and back to your device.

As you'd expect, a higher ping results in delayed inputs. Most online PC games have an option to show your ping on the screen in real-time, which you can use to gauge the health of your connection.

Generally, you'll notice lag with anything over ping. If your ping is 50 or under, you're in pretty good shape. Keep in mind that location plays a huge role in determining ping. If you're in the US and playing a game on EU servers, you'll experience much higher ping because your inputs have to travel a greater distance.

This is why it's best to select servers that are as close to you as possible. When games don't run smoothly, it's a huge pain. If you regularly experience sudden freezes in offline games where the game slows down and then has to "catch up," chances are that at least one component of your system is a bottleneck. You can take a few quick steps to troubleshoot this game hanging problem.

If possible, drop the graphical options to a lower setting so that the game isn't as resource-intensive. Make sure you have some free disk space so your game has room to breathe. If these fixes don't solve the game freezing, you should review your current PC hardware and make sure that it meets the specifications of the game you're playing. There are several easy ways to find out if your PC can run a title. You may need to upgrade if your system isn't up to snuff.

If you can't keep a consistently smooth frame rate, it's probably time for a new graphics card. Check out the upgrades that will improve your system performance the most to get an idea of what you need. We covered general visual artifact issues earlier, but screen tearing is a special case. This visual problem occurs when your screen shows multiple frames from a game at one time, split into two or more parts that don't align correctly. Unlike many PC gaming issues, this isn't really the fault of any one component.

Screen tearing occurs when the feed that your video card sends to your monitor does not sync up properly with the display's refresh rate. In effect, your card submits a new frame before your monitor has finished showing you the last one, so you see a broken image containing both. Everything You Need to Know. Most games include a feature called VSync vertical synchronization to combat this. Enabling it prevents the video card from updating your display until the monitor finishes the current refresh cycle.

While this helps prevent screen tearing, it can also introduce input lag, as discussed above. Enabling VSync can also cause sharp drops in frame rate—during intense moments, your graphics card might show even fewer frames per second to match the monitor's refresh rate, which causes choppy gameplay. Thus, whether you decide to use VSync depends on what type of game you're playing. In a multiplayer game where every instant counts, you should probably keep it off. But in a slow-paced single-player game, using VSync will make your display look as smooth as possible.

Visual and performance issues are frustrating, but at least they don't prevent you from playing the game. Games that continually crash are an entirely differently story, though. When games crash, it's quite annoying because you can lose progress. If a game crashes frequently, you might not even be able to start it.

Some of the advice we've touched on above applies to games crashing too. Make sure that you have the latest video drivers installed and that your system meets the recommended requirements to play the game. Restart your PC to make sure it's not a temporary problem, and make sure your game is up-to-date. From there, you can jump into some other steps to troubleshoot crashing games. Disable your antivirus and other software that might interfere with a game's proper operation.

You should also try running the game as an administrator, which can sometimes clear up crashing issues. Next, reinstall the game to confirm all its files are installed correctly. If none of this fixes the problem, it's worth Googling the specific game to see if other people have had similar issues. In some cases, you may have to attempt a specific workaround for that title, like modifying a config file. Best Smartwatches.

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