Arrive Blog

Arrive vs. a VPN: How They Differ

2026-10-16T00:00:00.000Z

No, Arrive is not a VPN (virtual private network). Both send your traffic through a server, but after that they are built for different jobs. A VPN is built to encrypt and relocate everything you do online. Arrive is built to get your game packets to the match with less delay.

What does a VPN do?

A typical VPN does three jobs. It encrypts your traffic. It gives that traffic a new exit point, so websites and game servers see the VPN’s location. And it can change your lag, sometimes for the better and often for the worse.

Arrive shares the second job, for game traffic, and is built around the third. The first is a difference worth being clear about.

A VPN Arrive

Encrypts your traffic A VPN: All of it Arrive: Not today, by design for performance. Games typically encrypt their own traffic.

Gives you a new exit point A VPN: For all of your traffic Arrive: For your game traffic

Changes your lag A VPN: Sometimes for the better, often for the worse Arrive: Lowering it is the whole job

The three jobs a typical VPN does, and which of them Arrive does.

Is Arrive encrypted like a VPN?

On the normal internet, a lot of traffic is already encrypted, and some of it is not. A VPN encrypts all of it. Your packets go through an encrypted tunnel to the VPN server, and your internet provider only sees a stream of traffic to that server. They can no longer tell that you opened Google, Amazon, or a game. That privacy is the product: you are trusting the VPN company with the activity your provider can no longer see.

Arrive does not do this today. We tunnel game traffic, and we do not add our own encryption on top. Game traffic is, in most cases, already encrypted by the game companies. General browsing is where the extra privacy of a full tunnel matters, and that is not the traffic we carry.

With a VPN

GameVPN server
BrowserVPN server
Other appsVPN server

Everything goes through an encrypted tunnel and leaves from the VPN server.

With Arrive

GameArrive server
BrowserNormal path
Other appsNormal path

Only game traffic goes through Arrive. Everything else stays on its normal path.

Which traffic goes where.

We may add our own encryption in the future, if we can do it without adding overhead, and if there is a benefit. For now, leaving that layer off is a performance choice.

Will Arrive change my game region?

Say you live in Atlanta. A game server sees a connection from Atlanta, because that is where you are. With a VPN, it sees the VPN server instead. Pick a server in Paris, and the game, Google, and everyone else on that path see Paris. Many games will then try to place you on a server near Paris, because they are trying to give you low ping and they believe you are there.

Arrive works the same way here. The game sees the Arrive server you selected, or the one we selected for you. We cannot send you out of Paris and still make the game think you are in Atlanta. That is just how an exit point works, and in practice it rarely changes anything you care about.

Some games do use that location for matchmaking: if they see Paris, they put you in a European queue. Others ignore it and use the region on your account. Valorant is one of those. If your account is set to North America, Valorant keeps showing North American servers such as Dallas and Chicago, even if you live in Europe or send your traffic through an Arrive server in Paris.

Can a VPN lower your ping?

A lot of people picture the internet as a system that automatically picks the fastest route. It tries, loosely, and often lands on a route that is cheap or convenient for the networks in the middle. Your provider only has the paths it has built or bought. Between your house and the game server, packets pass through routers. Distance costs time, and a busy router often costs more.

VPNs sometimes land you on a cleaner path by accident, as a side effect of a product built for privacy. For Arrive, finding that cleaner path is the product. A route through our servers can be physically longer and still faster, because it skips a congested hop. In one simplified case, that takes a path from 80 milliseconds (ms) down to 46 ms. We go through that example, and the cases where Arrive cannot help, in How Arrive Reduces Your Ping.

It will not help every connection. If your provider’s route to the game is already short and quiet, there is nothing useful for us to change.

Which network tools does Arrive use on Windows?

Players sometimes look up the pieces of software on their PC. These are the ones that handle Arrive’s packets, from the Arrive app down to Windows itself. We use them because they are the straightforward way to steer game traffic on Windows.

ArriveAsks for the packets that match a filter: your game traffic
WinDivertFree, open-source library that captures, filters and reinjects packets
Windows Filtering PlatformBuilt into Windows. The Windows firewall is built on it

How Arrive picks out game packets on Windows.

WinDivert

WinDivert is the library Arrive uses to ask Windows for the game packets that match a filter. It is a free, open-source packet tool for Windows, written by basil and published at github.com/basil00/WinDivert. Firewalls, tunnels, traffic tools, and apps like Arrive use it to capture, filter, and reinject packets.

Writing our own kernel driver for the Windows Filtering Platform would mean maintaining a sensitive piece of software for a problem Windows and WinDivert already solve. WinDivert is the maintained library that does it, and we use it to route gaming traffic to Arrive servers.

Windows Filtering Platform

Underneath WinDivert is a system Windows already includes for inspecting network traffic and deciding what happens to it, called the Windows Filtering Platform. The Windows firewall is built on it, and so are many security and networking apps. We need Windows to hand us the game packets so we can send them toward our servers, and to leave everything else on its normal path. The operating system already knows how to do that job.

OpenVPN

OpenVPN is an open-source way to build an encrypted tunnel. Many VPN apps offer it as a connection mode, because it is widely supported and it does the privacy job well. But encrypting and decrypting every packet adds work on your PC and on the server, and OpenVPN was not built to keep that overhead as small as possible. A VPN user who wants the lowest latency often switches to a newer protocol the same app offers. For a game, those extra milliseconds are the thing you came to remove.

Arrive does not use OpenVPN. We are not building a private tunnel for all of your internet traffic. We select game traffic and send it on a route we operate, using the Windows tools above.

Should you use a VPN or Arrive for gaming?

Use a VPN for privacy and Arrive for ping, but not both at once while you play: a VPN can get in the way of Arrive finding the best route.

If your ping is high or spiky after you are on a wired connection and on the closest game server, the remaining cause is often the route between your provider and the game. That route is the part Arrive works on.

Arrive is a free Windows app that sends your game traffic through our own network, and it covers North America and Europe (in alpha). Pick an Arrive server near your game server and compare your ping with it off and on. Routes change from night to night, so the quickest way to find out what it does for your connection is to try it.

Download Arrive

How Arrive Reduces Your Ping

2026-10-16T00:00:00.000Z

Arrive reduces your ping by moving your game traffic onto a faster route: around a congested router, or onto a long-distance path your internet provider does not have. Where your provider already has the fast path, there is nothing for Arrive to improve, and we cover that case too.

Why is my ping high when my internet is fast?

Ping, also called round-trip time (RTT), is the time your game packets spend on the path between your PC and the game server and back. Two different things inflate that time. A router in the middle can be busy, so packets wait. Or the fast road between those two cities was never a road your internet provider could put you on.

The numbers below are simplified, so you can see where the time goes. Real routes have more hops, but the shape of the problem is the same.

Can a longer route have lower ping?

You live in Atlanta. The game server is in Chicago. Your provider’s route passes through one congested router in Washington, D.C. The distance is fine, since Washington is a reasonable place for that traffic to pass through. The delay is the router, which is also carrying everyone else’s traffic and adds 40 milliseconds (ms) of waiting.

Arrive can move the game traffic onto a different route, through a Dallas server we keep uncongested.

Your provider’s route80ms
- Atlanta → Washington, D.C. 20 ms
- Time on the congested router 40 ms
- Washington, D.C. → Chicago 20 ms
Through Arrive’s Dallas server46ms
- Atlanta → Dallas 25 ms
- Time on the Arrive server 1 ms
- Dallas → Chicago 20 ms

Atlanta to a game server in Chicago, simplified.

Dallas is physically longer: the fiber portion goes from 40 ms to 45 ms, so the extra distance costs 5 ms. But skipping the congested router saves 39 ms, since the Arrive server adds only 1 ms. The net change is 34 ms, from 80 ms down to 46 ms. A longer line on the map was the faster trip, because the time was sitting in a queue, not in the fiber.

Does my internet provider use the fastest route?

A common picture of the internet is that your connection can take any route, and that some system is already choosing the fastest one. What you have is the small set of long-distance routes your provider has actually bought.

Those long-distance routes are called transit. A handful of large transit networks sell passage between cities. Your internet provider buys some of them, and the network that hosts the game server buys some too. Neither side is shopping from the full list. A very rough approximation is that an internet service provider (ISP) has at most about 10% of the long-haul paths the major transit networks offer. The rest are invisible to your connection, so a faster path can exist and still be one your provider has no way to use.

That is a separate problem from the busy router. There, the path existed and was congested. Here, the better path was never on the menu.

How Arrive finds a faster route

Part of how we reduce ping is by assembling a wider mix of those transit paths than a single home provider typically buys. Game traffic enters an Arrive datacenter, and it can leave on a route your ISP does not have. Where that route is shorter, quieter, or both, your ping drops.

We do not have every path either. The difference is that adding them is the business. A home ISP’s business is selling you internet. Carrying your game traffic from Las Vegas to one particular Los Angeles building, on the best fiber available that week, is a small detail for them and the whole product for us.

That makes Arrive sound a little like a VPN (virtual private network), but it is not one. For how the two differ, and the Windows tools we use to steer the traffic, see Arrive vs. a VPN: How They Differ.

Why Arrive lowers ping for some players and not others

This is also one reason Arrive cannot improve ping for everyone. Take a player in Las Vegas on a Valorant server in Los Angeles. Those cities are close, and plenty of networks already have a direct route down that corridor. If your ISP has it, you are at about 20 ms, and Arrive, on that same route or one very like it, lands at about 19 to 22 ms. There is nothing meaningful to improve.

Now change providers. This one buys its transit for that traffic in Salt Lake City, a major meeting point for networks in the western U.S. So the packets go north to Salt Lake first, then come back southwest to Los Angeles: the wrong direction. Phoenix or Denver plays the same role for other providers. Arrive still has the direct path, so the result flips, and the ISP’s path spends the extra time on a detour our network does not have to take.

An ISP with the direct route20ms
- Las Vegas → Los Angeles 20 ms
An ISP that goes via Salt Lake City45ms
- Las Vegas → Salt Lake City 20 ms
- Salt Lake City → Los Angeles 25 ms
Arrive’s direct Los Angeles path19–22ms
- Las Vegas → Los Angeles 19–22 ms

Las Vegas to a Valorant server in Los Angeles. Same house, same game server, different provider.

Can Arrive make my ping worse?

Yes. When we do not hold the route your ISP holds, Arrive can be slower. Sometimes that is only a few milliseconds, and sometimes the gap is large. If that happens, try Arrive’s other servers first, and turn Arrive off for that game if none of them helps.

Why does my ISP send traffic the long way?

The Salt Lake detour is not a broken route. The ISP chose it, and the software that carries the traffic out is doing what it was set to do.

BGP does not choose the lowest ping

The main routing protocol on the internet is BGP, the Border Gateway Protocol. When networks connect, BGP is how they announce which destinations they can reach, and how a path gets selected.

BGP does not measure milliseconds and then sort. What it usually prefers is a smaller hop count: fewer networks from you to the destination. A lot of the time that lines up with lower ping, because a shorter chain of networks is often a shorter trip. A minority of the time, the smaller hop count is the long way around, and that still comes up often enough to matter in a game.

Take the Las Vegas example. Path A passes through 2 networks, and one of those hops is the long haul up to Salt Lake City and back down to Los Angeles: 45 ms. Path B passes through 5 networks, each a short stretch of fiber on the direct road: 20 ms.

Path A · 2 networksBGP’s pick45ms
Path B · 5 networksLower ping20ms

BGP sees 2 networks and prefers them to 5, so the packets take Path A.

The route through more networks was the efficient one, and it was not the route the protocol picked. This is part of where Arrive comes in. We measure which routes actually have the lower ping, and we send the game onto those. Hop count is the hint the internet already used. The milliseconds are what we check.

ISP networks are built for video

ISPs have investors and a margin to hit. A direct, quiet path to every city a match might land in is real capacity, and someone has to pay for it. Your bill does not go up because your ping to one game server dropped, so an ISP that bought the highest-performance route on every path would have to charge far more for home internet. A competitor that skips those routes can charge less and still run video without complaints.

And video is what the capacity is sized for. A stream can use 10 times the bandwidth of a game, and in some cases 100 times. That is on the order of 90% of what an ISP spends to move data, so it is what they have to prioritize to stay in business. Games are a small share of the bill. So the ISP signs with the transit provider whose path is cheaper, even when it goes through a city off the direct line, and its engineers tell BGP to prefer that provider. The long route is the route the contract selected.

A movie never notices. If playback starts 50 milliseconds later, the app buffers the upcoming stretch and the picture does not stop. A game cannot buffer what has not happened yet. The server has to hear that you moved or fired, and the reply has to come back, inside the same few milliseconds a video would have absorbed. Voice and other real-time communication are in the same position.

Why ping changes from one game server to the next

Run the comparison per server, not once for your whole account. In Valorant it is very common for your provider to already have a strong route to one city and a poor route to another. For example, one player’s Chicago server might go from 45 ms toward 20 ms while their Los Angeles server stays where it is, because that route was already good.

ChicagoWe have a better path here

45 → ~20ms
Los AngelesTheir route was already good

No change

One player’s example, from a connection where we already have a better Chicago path.

For some players we do not have a better path to any server they play, and Arrive will not lower their ping until we add one. One test on one server does not describe the rest of the region list.

The network keeps growing

We keep adding datacenters and routes, so a test you run today measures the paths we have today. We expect to add a large number of them over the next five years, and a path we could not offer on your first test may be one we have bought since.

We are also in conversation with game companies and network providers about building routes that are not offered on the public internet at all. That is a plan with a cost attached. Nothing in Arrive today comes from it.

How to test whether Arrive lowers your ping

Play with Arrive off, then on, on the server you actually play, and compare the in-game ping. If it drops, keep it on. If not, try Arrive’s other servers, and turn it off for that game if none of them helps. Then check back in about six months.

Arrive is a free Windows app that sends your game traffic through our own network, and it covers North America and Europe (in alpha). The quickest way to find out what it does for your connection is to try it.

Download Arrive

Bringing Arrive Back to Europe

2026-09-24T00:00:00.000Z

We’re bringing Arrive back to Europe. Servers are live in London, Frankfurt, Madrid, and Amsterdam. This is an alpha release; initial performance is a bit limited compared to what we already offer in North America.

These new servers are targeted for Valorant. They may also work for League of Legends, and you can experiment with them on other games Arrive supports.

Hang tight if the current server list isn’t effective in your area. We plan to keep expanding our Europe servers in the near future, and beyond. As always, you can drop us feedback on Discord.

How to try Arrive in Europe

Download Arrive

Install Arrive and pick your game. Valorant is the one these servers are built for.
On the map, click the European city closest to the game server you play on: London, Frankfurt, Madrid or Amsterdam. Then pick one of its servers.
Turn Arrive ON and launch your game.
Compare a few matches with Arrive off and on. If your ping doesn't improve, try a neighbouring city, or switch Arrive off and check back as we add servers.

For the step-by-step setup in each game, see our guides for Valorant and League of Legends, or the full tour in How to use Arrive.

Which Europe server should I pick?

Start with the city nearest the game server you play on. Arrive's job is to get you to that game server on a better path, so the Arrive server closest to it is usually the best place to begin. If you're unsure, try two cities and keep the one with the lower, steadier ping.

What "alpha" means here

The four Europe servers are new, and our network there is still small. Results will vary more than in North America for now, and some areas will see little or no change yet. Arrive doesn't help every connection even where we're well established, so the honest test is your own before-and-after.

Still have questions?

Tell us how the Europe servers work for you in the Arrive Discord. Every report helps us decide where to add servers next.

How to Fix Lag in CS2

2026-04-17T00:00:00.000Z

You swing first, you fire first, and the kill feed says you lost. In CS2, the gap between a clean peek and a death behind a wall is often a few dozen milliseconds of lag.

The good news: CS2 is unusually honest about what's wrong. It can show you your ping, your missed ticks and your frame times live, so you don't have to guess which fix you need.

Is it ping, packet loss or FPS?

What happens	What it usually is	Go to
You die behind walls, enemies seem to see you first	High ping	Set your matchmaking ping
Rubber-banding, hitches, shots that don't register, a red network warning	Packet loss or jitter	Fix your connection
The picture stutters or freezes for a moment, smokes tank your frames	Low FPS or frame time spikes (your PC)	Smooth out your FPS

Ping, or round-trip time (RTT), is how long your shot takes to reach the server and the answer to come back.
Jitter is how much that time varies. Uneven timing makes the game miss updates even when nothing is lost.
Packet loss is data that never arrives. CS2 reports both as missed ticks: moments when the server or your PC didn't get an update in time.

1. Turn on CS2's telemetry

CS2 has a built-in network display. Go to Settings → Game → Telemetry and set each of these to Always while you troubleshoot (or If conditions are poor to see them only when something's wrong):

Show frame time and FPS: your average FPS, and your worst recent frame time.
Show ping: your current ping to the server.
Show network problems: the share of ticks missed because of loss or jitter, with an up arrow for your PC to the server and a down arrow for the server to you.

For more detail, turn on Use the detailed network quality display, which spells out ping, missed ticks, loss and peak jitter as numbers. Valve suggests setting the Network tick miss rate warning threshold to between 0.1 and 0.5%.

Then play a Deathmatch and read the numbers:

CS2’s warning100ms

0–40msCrisp: what you want for duels
40–70msFine for most players
70–100msPeeks and wide swings start to feel late
100+msYou're fighting the lag

A rough guide to CS2 ping. Valve doesn’t publish targets, but CS2’s telemetry flags your ping as poor from 100 ms by default.

Missed ticks should stay at or near 0%. If the up arrow climbs, the problem is your upload; if the down arrow climbs, it's on the way back to you.
Frame time spikes with steady network numbers mean the hitch is your PC, not your connection.

2. Fix your connection

Loss and jitter almost always start between your PC and your internet provider.

Get off Wi-Fi. A cable is the single biggest fix for missed ticks. A powerline adapter is the fallback.
Quiet the rest of the house. Uploads, cloud backups, Steam downloads and streams on other devices all compete with your game. The buffer bloat explainer shows why uploads hurt most.
Restart your modem and router.
Turn off your VPN. It's one more stop between you and Valve.

If you still see occasional loss or jitter spikes, CS2 can hide them for you. Buffering to smooth over packet loss / jitter (in Settings → Game) can be set to None, 1 tick or 2 ticks. Each tick of buffering makes the game steadier and adds a little delay, so leave it on None if your connection is clean.

3. Set your Max Acceptable Matchmaking Ping

There's no region picker in official CS2 matchmaking. Your control is Max Acceptable Matchmaking Ping, in Settings → Game. It runs from 25 to 350 ms, and the default is 150.

Below the slider, CS2 lists the nearest official datacenters with your ping to each, plus a button to measure them again. Lowering the limit tells matchmaking to stick to the datacenters under it. If none are under your limit, you'll still be placed on the nearest one, even if it's over.

Set it just above your ping to your closest one or two datacenters. Queues can take a little longer, and your matches will play on the servers that suit you best.

4. How CS2 actually connects you

You never connect to an official CS2 server directly. Your game joins Valve's relay network, the Steam Datagram Relay (SDR), at a relay near you, and Valve carries the traffic the rest of the way to the match server.

Your PCYour internet provider carries you to the first stop
Arrive server If you use ArriveTakes the quickest path it knows from here
Valve’s relayWhere your traffic joins Valve’s network
CS2 serverThe datacenter your match runs in

Where your CS2 traffic goes on its way to an official match. The Arrive stop only applies if you use Arrive.

That's also why switching routes in the middle of a match is a bad idea: it moves where your traffic enters Valve's network, and the game has to find its way again. The part you can improve is the first stretch, from your PC to that relay.

5. Smooth out your FPS

Frame drops feel exactly like lag, and the telemetry's frame time tells you when they're to blame.

Everything here is in Settings → Video → Advanced Video. Start at the top: turn off Boost Player Contrast, which Valve's own description warns can cost performance. Under Frame Pacing, set NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency to Enabled (or Enabled + Boost) if you have an NVIDIA card, and set Maximum FPS In Game at or above your monitor's refresh rate.

Then work down the Presets. Turn off Ambient Occlusion, which Valve also flags as costly, and lower Global Shadow Quality, Multisampling Anti-Aliasing Mode and Particle Detail. Setting Dynamic Shadows to Sun Only helps too. Or pick a lower Current Video Values Preset to change them all at once.

On a laptop, keep it plugged in. Laptops slow themselves down on battery.

6. Fix the route with Arrive

If you're wired in, your missed ticks are near zero and your ping is still higher than it should be, the slow part is probably the route between your provider and Valve's network. Providers choose paths for cost, and they're often not the fastest ones.

That first stretch is what Arrive improves. Arrive is a free Windows app that sends your CS2 traffic through our own network of datacenters to reach Valve's network on a quicker, steadier path. It isn't a VPN, it works on official Valve matchmaking servers, and it currently covers North America and Europe (in alpha).

Download Arrive

Install Arrive and select CS2.
Switch on Enable CS2 and pick an Arrive server close to you. It's worth trying two or three to find the one that gives you the lowest ping.
Turn Arrive ON.
Launch CS2 and set your Max Acceptable Matchmaking Ping as in step 3.

Choose your server before you queue. Changing Arrive servers mid-match moves where your traffic joins Valve's network. That can cause a lag spike, rubber-banding or a brief disconnect, and the match may stay unstable afterwards. Switch only between matches.

Check it with CS2's own numbers. Arrive reads CS2's in-game ping, so its overlay (Ctrl+P) matches your telemetry. Play a Deathmatch with Arrive off and another with it on, and compare ping and missed ticks.

Arrive won't help every connection. If your provider already takes a fast route to Valve, there's nothing for us to improve, and you'll see the same ping. Turn it off and try again in a few months, as our network keeps growing.

CS2 lag FAQ

What is a good ping for CS2?

Under 40 ms is ideal for duels, and most players are comfortable up to about 70 ms. CS2's own telemetry warns you from 100 ms, and Damage Prediction, which plays your hit effects without waiting for the server, switches itself off when your ping is high. A steady ping with no missed ticks matters as much as a low one.

Why do I die behind walls in CS2?

The server decides what happened, and your view is always slightly behind it. The higher your ping, the longer you stay visible to the other player after you've already stepped back. Lowering your ping and fixing missed ticks shrinks that gap.

What does the red network warning in CS2 mean?

Your missed ticks went over your warning threshold, so the game didn't get updates in time because of packet loss or jitter. Check whether the up or down arrow is climbing, then work through step 2.

Can I choose my server in CS2?

Not directly. Official matchmaking has no region picker, but Max Acceptable Matchmaking Ping limits which datacenters you can be placed on. Set it just above your ping to your closest datacenters.

Does a VPN help with CS2 lag?

Rarely. A VPN pushes all of your traffic through an extra server, and that detour usually costs ping. Arrive is built differently: it handles only your game traffic and looks for a faster way into Valve's network. Here's how Arrive and a VPN differ.

Still lagging?

Tell us what your telemetry shows in the Arrive Discord, or read how to use Arrive for a full tour of the app. Playing other games too? Here are the guides for every game Arrive supports.

How to Fix Lag in Dota 2

2026-04-17T00:00:00.000Z

You Blink in, press your ultimate, and for a heartbeat nothing happens. By the time your hero moves, the enemy support has already used their disable. Dota is a game of tiny windows, and lag closes them.

Before you change any settings, find out which kind of lag you have. Each has a different fix, and the table below points you to the right one.

What kind of Dota 2 lag do you have?

What happens in your games	What it usually is	Start here
Orders land late, last hits slip away, your Blinks feel slow	High ping	Choose your matchmaking regions
Heroes jump around, orders get ignored, you rubber-band back	Packet loss or jitter	Sort out your home network
The picture stutters when a big teamfight starts	Low FPS (your PC, not your connection)	Raise your FPS

Ping, also called round-trip time (RTT), is how many milliseconds an order takes to reach Valve's server and for the answer to come back.
Jitter is how much that ping moves around. Dota feels better on a steady 60 ms than on a ping that swings between 30 and 110.
Packet loss is data that never arrives. The server doesn't see the order you gave, so your hero just stands there.

Dota's server updates the game about 30 times a second, so every tick is roughly 33 ms. With 100 ms of ping, your orders are about three ticks behind the game before you've even reacted.

1. Turn on Dota's network display

Dota 2 can show its own numbers. Go to Settings → Game → Miscellaneous and tick Display Network Information. Your FPS, ping and packet loss, both in and out, appear in the top-right corner of the screen.

Play an Unranked game and keep an eye on them. Valve doesn't publish a target, but players generally treat it like this:

Ping: under 50 ms is excellent, and up to about 80 ms plays fine. Above 100 ms you'll start noticing it in last hits and disables.
Packet loss: should stay at 0. Any loss that keeps coming back, in or out, is worth fixing before anything else.
FPS: at or above your monitor's refresh rate, including in teamfights.

2. Sort out your home network

Most packet loss and lag spikes start inside the house, so check these before you blame the game.

Use a cable. Wi-Fi drops packets far more often than Ethernet, and Valve's own troubleshooting steps start with a wired test. If a cable can't reach, a powerline adapter can work, though it can pick up interference too.
Stop the uploads. Cloud backups, game downloads, streams and video calls on any device can push your ping up mid-game. Our article on beating buffer bloat explains why uploads hurt the most.
Restart your modem and router, then try again.
Close your VPN. It adds an extra stop between you and the server.

If packet loss keeps coming back after that, look at Network Quality in the same Miscellaneous settings. I have a Low-end Network trades a little extra latency for smoother play when packets go missing. It hides the loss rather than fixing it, so leave it on I have a High-end Network once your connection is steady.

If your lag only shows up in the evenings, Steam's support notes that your internet provider may be managing traffic at busy times. That's a route problem, which step 5 covers.

3. Choose your matchmaking regions

Open Play Dota and click Region, just above Find Match. It reads Region: Auto until you change it. That opens Select Matchmaking Regions. It lists every region with your current ping to it, and Refresh Pings measures them again.

By default Dota picks a region for you based on your location. Untick Automatically pick the best region and choose up to three regions yourself. More regions mean faster queues, and also more chances of landing on a server far from you. If ping matters to you, tick only the one or two with the lowest numbers.

Region	Where the servers are
US East	Sterling, Virginia
US West	Seattle
Europe West	Western Europe
Europe East	Vienna

You don't connect to the match server directly. Valve carries Dota traffic over its own relay network, the Steam Datagram Relay (SDR): your connection enters Valve's network at a relay near you, and Valve takes it the rest of the way. The part you can affect is the stretch between your PC and that relay.

Your PCYour internet provider carries you to the first stop
Arrive server If you use ArriveTakes the quickest path it knows from here
Valve’s relayWhere your traffic joins Valve’s network
Dota 2 serverIn your matchmaking region, where the match runs

Where your Dota 2 traffic goes on its way to a match. The Arrive stop only applies if you use Arrive.

4. Raise your FPS for teamfights

Low FPS feels like lag, but no amount of network fixing will help it. It usually shows up when five heroes cast at once.

Go to Settings → Video → Rendering and choose Use advanced settings, so you can turn options off one by one.
Untick High Quality Water and Ambient Occlusion first. They're among the most expensive options for very little gain. Then lower Shadow Quality (it goes down to Off), Effects Quality and Anti-Aliasing.
Keep Compute Shaders ticked. On most setups it makes the game run faster, not slower.
Set Maximum frames per second allowed to at least your monitor's refresh rate.
Under Video → Options, try both Rendering API choices, Direct3D 11 and Vulkan. Which runs faster depends on your hardware, so play a game on each.
On an NVIDIA card, set NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency to Enabled.
On a laptop, play plugged in. Laptops slow down on battery.

5. Fix the route with Arrive

If you're wired, queueing your closest region, and your ping is still higher than it should be, the slow part is probably the route between your internet provider and Valve's network. Providers pick the paths that suit their costs, and those are often not the quickest ones.

That's the part Arrive works on. It's a free Windows app that sends your Dota 2 traffic through our own network of datacenters to find a quicker, steadier path. It isn't a VPN, and it currently covers North America and Europe (in alpha).

Download Arrive

Install Arrive and select Dota 2.
Switch on Enable Dota 2 and pick the Arrive server nearest the region you queue for: Washington, D.C. for US East, Seattle for US West, Frankfurt or Amsterdam for Europe.
Turn Arrive ON.
Launch Dota 2 and, in Select Matchmaking Regions, tick only that matching region.

Pick your server before you queue. Switching Arrive servers during a match changes where your traffic joins Valve's network, which can cause a lag spike or a disconnect and leave the rest of the match unstable. Change servers between games.

Compare it yourself. For Dota 2, Arrive reads the game's own ping, so the number in Arrive's overlay (Ctrl+P) matches what Dota shows. Play one Unranked game with Arrive off and one with it on, and compare ping and packet loss in Dota's network display.

Arrive won't help every connection. If your provider already has a good route to Valve, there's nothing for us to improve, and you'll see no change. Turn it off and check back later: we keep adding to our network.

Dota 2 lag FAQ

What is a good ping for Dota 2?

Under 50 ms is excellent, and under 80 ms is comfortable for most heroes. Steadiness matters too: watch for jitter and packet loss, not just the average.

Why is my ping high on only one region?

Your route to that region is the slow one. Your connection is fine for other regions, so it isn't your PC or your Wi-Fi. Queue a closer region, or try a route optimizer like Arrive for that path.

Why do I get lag spikes only in teamfights?

If the network numbers stay steady while the fight happens, it's your FPS dropping, not your connection. Lower the video settings in step 4. If ping or packet loss jumps at the same moment, it's the network.

What does "Unable to ping any region" mean?

Dota can't reach Valve's network at all. Something is usually blocking it: a firewall, antivirus or a router setting. Restart your router, allow Dota 2 and Steam through your firewall, and try again.

Does a VPN lower Dota 2 ping?

Rarely. A VPN wraps up everything your PC sends and detours it through one more server, and that extra distance usually shows up as extra ping. Arrive works differently: it moves only your Dota 2 traffic onto a quicker path and leaves the rest of your connection alone. Read how Arrive and a VPN differ, and switch your VPN off while you play.

Still lagging?

Tell us what you're seeing in the Arrive Discord, or read how to use Arrive for a walkthrough of the app. Playing something else too? We have guides for the other games Arrive supports.

How to Fix Lag in 2XKO

2026-02-06T00:00:00.000Z

Zero rollback frames is only half the battle. In a fighting game, a slow or shaky connection shows up as fighters teleporting, combos that drop for no reason, and a match that keeps freezing for a beat.

How 2XKO handles your connection

2XKO uses rollback netcode on servers, not peer to peer. Riot's servers run each match, keep both players' clocks in sync and share the work of rollbacks between them. Every match has a fixed 3 frames of input delay, online and offline, to keep rollbacks short.

Rollback hides small delays well. When your inputs arrive late, the game predicts what happened, then quietly corrects it. The longer the delay, the bigger the correction:

Higher ping means longer rollbacks. At 60 frames per second each frame lasts about 17 ms, so every extra 17 ms of delay is roughly one more frame the game has to rewrite.
Packet loss causes the worst of it: big rollbacks where fighters teleport, and sudden lag spikes.
A struggling PC stutters on its own. Riot names PCs just below the minimum specs as one cause of stutter and rollbacks.

Fix your connection first

These follow Riot's own troubleshooting advice for 2XKO:

Play wired. Wi-Fi is the most common cause of lag spikes and packet loss.
Turn off any VPN or proxy. Each one adds an extra stop.
Update your network drivers, and restart your router.
Check your Riot account's region. It should match the region you actually play in. A mismatch puts you on a far-away server.
Stop the uploads on other devices while you play. Our buffer bloat explainer shows why they hurt.

You can't choose a 2XKO server

2XKO has no server picker. Matchmaking uses your account's region, and Riot's servers carry your match over its own network, Riot Direct. The part you can still change is how your traffic reaches Riot.

Your PCYour internet provider carries you to the first stop
Arrive server If you use ArriveTakes the quickest path it knows from here
Riot’s networkWhere your traffic joins Riot’s own backbone
2XKO serverRuns the match for both players

Where your 2XKO traffic goes on its way to a match. The Arrive stop only applies if you use Arrive.

Fix the route with Arrive

If you're wired in and still seeing big rollbacks, the slow part may be the route between your internet provider and Riot's network. Arrive is a free Windows app that sends your 2XKO traffic through our own network of datacenters to reach Riot on a quicker, steadier path. It isn't a VPN, and it currently covers North America and Europe (in alpha).

Download Arrive

Install Arrive and select 2XKO.
Switch on Enable 2XKO and pick an Arrive server close to you.
Turn Arrive ON and launch 2XKO.
Since you can't pick a server in 2XKO, try two or three Arrive servers near you, a few matches each, and keep the one that plays smoothest.

For 2XKO, Arrive's overlay (Ctrl+P) shows your ping to the Arrive server, so the game's own number will be a few milliseconds higher. Here's why. Arrive won't help every connection: if your provider's route to Riot is already good, you won't see a change.

2XKO lag FAQ

Is 2XKO still playable online?

Yes. Riot is ending active development in December 2026, but has said the servers stay online beyond 2026 on PC and consoles. Ranked was removed in September, and casual matchmaking remains.

What is a good ping for 2XKO?

Riot doesn't publish one. Lower is always better for rollback, and steadiness matters as much: a steady ping with no packet loss plays smoother than a lower one that spikes.

Why do fighters teleport in my 2XKO matches?

That's a big rollback. The game received inputs late, usually from packet loss or a ping spike, and had to rewrite several frames at once. Start with a wired connection and stop any uploads on your network.

Can I change my 2XKO server?

Not in the game. Matchmaking follows your Riot account's region, so make sure it matches where you play. Arrive can change the route your traffic takes to get there.

Still lagging?

Tell us about it in the Arrive Discord. We also have guides for the other games Arrive supports.

How to Fix Lag in League of Legends

2026-02-06T00:00:00.000Z

Riot's own network engineers put it well: League is "not a game of seconds, but of milliseconds." A video can buffer ahead to hide a slow connection. A match can't, so every delay shows up on screen, usually in the play that mattered.

"Lag" is the word for all of it, but the cause can be your connection, the route to Riot, or your own PC. Each has its own fix, so start by finding out which one you're dealing with.

Where is your League lag coming from?

What you see	Likely cause	Fix it in
Everything you do lands a little late, all game long	High ping	The route to Riot
Champions dart around, skillshots teleport, "Attempting to Reconnect"	Packet loss or lag spikes	Your connection at home
The game stutters when effects fill the screen	Low FPS (your PC)	Your video settings

Ping, also called latency or round-trip time (RTT), is how long a command takes to reach Riot's server and get an answer back, in milliseconds. Most of it comes from distance.
Jitter is how much your ping wobbles. A steady 60 ms beats a ping that hops between 30 and 120.
Packet loss is data that never arrives, so the server never hears about a click.

Lag spikes: ping jumping up and down A steady, lower ping

What lag spikes look like on a ping graph. Every spike is a moment when your clicks arrive late.

Why lag hurts some champions more

Some plays can absorb 80 ms of ping and some can't. Last hits, Flash dodges, Smite fights and quick combos all depend on your input reaching the server at the right moment.

Riot has even changed champions because of it. In patch 7.8 it adjusted Karthus's and Ryze's Q abilities, saying their quick combos created a large gap between players on low and high ping. If you play mechanics-heavy champions, a steady connection matters more for you than for most.

1. Put your ping on screen

Press Ctrl+F in a game to show your ping and FPS in the top-right corner. Press it again to hide them. If it doesn't work, check Toggle FPS Display under Hotkeys → Display in the settings.

Play a game of ARAM and watch the numbers. Riot doesn't give a target, but this is how ping tends to feel:

Riot’s aim for NA80ms

0–50msExcellent
50–80msPlays well
80–100msYou start to notice it
100+msDodges and last hits suffer

A rough guide to League ping. Riot doesn’t publish targets, but when it moved North America’s server to Chicago, it aimed for almost every player to be under 80 ms.

Lag spikes: if the number jumps around, you have jitter or packet loss, not just distance.
FPS: at or above your monitor's refresh rate, even in teamfights.

Seeing Attempting to Reconnect? That's packet loss, so start with step 2.

2. Clean up your connection

These follow Riot's own troubleshooting order, and they fix most packet loss and lag spikes.

Plug in a cable. Wi-Fi is the most common source of lost packets. If a cable can't reach, try a powerline adapter.
Stop what's sharing your connection. Game updates, Steam downloads, torrents and streams can all fill your connection. Uploads are the worst offenders; our article on beating buffer bloat explains why.
Turn off Windows Delivery Optimization. It lets Windows share updates with other PCs over your connection in the background. Find it under Settings → Windows Update → Advanced options.
Update your network driver, and restart your router while you're at it.
Turn off your VPN or proxy. Riot advises against both. They add an extra stop on the way to its servers.

3. Know where your League server is

You can't choose your server in League. Your Riot account belongs to one region, and every game you play runs on that region's server. These are where the North American and European ones are:

Region	Server location
North America (NA)	Chicago
Europe West (EUW)	Amsterdam
Europe Nordic & East (EUNE)	Frankfurt

When Riot moved North America's server to Chicago in 2015, it aimed for almost every player on the continent to be under 80 ms. If you live further away, some distance is unavoidable. Moving your account to another region costs RP and resets your ranked placements, so it's only worth it if you've actually moved.

What you can change is how your traffic gets to Riot. Riot runs its own network to carry League traffic, and your internet provider decides how you reach it. That first stretch is often the slow part.

Your PCYour internet provider carries you to the first stop
Arrive server If you use ArriveTakes the quickest path it knows from here
Riot’s networkWhere your traffic joins Riot’s own backbone
League serverYour region’s server, where the match runs

Where your League traffic goes on its way to a match. The Arrive stop only applies if you use Arrive.

4. Lift your FPS

Low FPS isn't a network problem, but it feels like lag. Press Esc in a game and open Video:

For a quick fix, drag the Graphics slider toward Increased Performance. It lowers everything at once.
To tune it yourself, lower Shadow Quality first, then untick Anti-Aliasing under Advanced. Riot suggests turning both off to see how much they cost you.
Then lower Character Quality, Effects Quality and Environment Quality, and tick Hide eye candy to drop decorative effects.
Set Frame Rate Cap (under Advanced) to at least your monitor's refresh rate.
Leave Wait for Vertical Sync unticked if you notice input delay, and expect some screen tearing.

Test each change in a Custom Game, where nothing is at stake. On a laptop, play with the charger plugged in.

5. Fix the route with Arrive

If you're wired in and your ping is still higher than it should be, the slow part is probably the path between your internet provider and Riot's network. Providers route traffic in ways that suit their costs, and those routes are often not the fastest ones.

Arrive works on that path. It's a free Windows app that carries your League traffic through our own network of datacenters to find a quicker, steadier route to Riot. It isn't a VPN, and it currently covers North America and Europe (in alpha).

Download Arrive

Install Arrive and select League of Legends.
Switch on Enable League of Legends, then turn on Auto and Arrive picks the best route for your connection. Prefer to choose? Turn Auto off and pick a server yourself: Chicago for NA, Amsterdam for EUW, Frankfurt for EUNE.
Turn Arrive ON.
Launch League and play as normal.

See the difference in League's own numbers. Arrive reads League's in-game ping, so its overlay (Ctrl+P) shows the same number you get with Ctrl+F. Play one ARAM with Arrive off and one with it on, and compare.

Arrive won't lower everyone's ping. If your provider already takes a good route to Riot, there's nothing for us to improve on, and you'll see the same number. Switch it off and check again in a few months, as our network keeps growing.

League of Legends lag FAQ

What is a good ping for League of Legends?

Under 50 ms is excellent, and anything under 80 ms plays well for most champions. A steady ping matters as much as a low one, so watch for lag spikes too.

Why is my League ping high when my internet is fast?

Speed and ping measure different things. League sends very little data, so a faster plan doesn't help if your Wi-Fi drops packets or your provider takes the long way to Riot. Check your ping with Ctrl+F, not your download speed.

Can I change my League of Legends server?

Not within a region. Your account plays on its region's server, and the only way to change that is a paid region transfer, which resets your ranked placements. You can still change the route your traffic takes to get there.

What does "Attempting to Reconnect" mean?

The game has stopped receiving data from the server and is catching up. While it does, your champion may freeze, or keep moving while everything else stands still. It almost always comes from packet loss on Wi-Fi or a busy home connection, so work through step 2.

Will a VPN fix League lag?

Usually not, and Riot recommends against using one. A VPN sends all of your traffic through an extra server, which tends to add distance. Arrive handles only your game traffic and looks for a faster path to Riot instead; here's how the two differ.

Still lagging?

Ask us in the Arrive Discord, or read how to use Arrive for a full tour of the app. We also have guides for the other games Arrive supports.

How to Fix Lag in Valorant

2026-02-06T00:00:00.000Z

You hold the angle, they swing, and you're dead before they even show up on your screen. In a game where rounds are decided in a few milliseconds, lag loses fights that your aim would have won.

"Lag" in Valorant is really three different problems, and each one has a different fix. Spend two minutes finding out which one you have before you change anything.

Why is Valorant lagging?

What you notice	Likely cause	Go to
Everything feels a beat late, and enemies seem to see you first	High ping (latency)	Pick the right server
Rubber-banding, players teleporting, shots that don't register, sudden spikes	Packet loss or jitter	Fix your home network
A choppy picture, or stutter when abilities go off	Low FPS (your PC, not your internet)	Valorant settings

Ping (Valorant calls it Network RTT) is how long your data takes to reach the game server and come back, in milliseconds.
Jitter is how much that ping jumps around from moment to moment. A steady 50 ms plays better than a ping that bounces between 20 and 120.
Packet loss is the share of your data that never arrives. When it's lost, the server never hears that you moved or fired.

1. Check your numbers in Valorant

Open Settings → Video → Stats and set these to Text Only (or Both if you like graphs):

Client FPS
Network RTT Avg / Max
Network RTT Jitter
Packet Loss

Then play a Deathmatch and watch them. As a rough guide:

Ping: under 40 ms feels great, and up to about 80 ms is fine. Past 100 ms you're giving up peeker's advantage in every duel.
Packet loss: it should sit at 0%. If it keeps showing 1% or more, that's your problem.
FPS: at or above your monitor's refresh rate, without big dips in fights.

Valorant also shows warning icons on screen when something is off. If the one you see is Low Server FPS, that's on Riot's side and there is nothing for you to fix.

2. Fix your home network

Most packet loss and lag spikes start inside your own home, so start there.

Plug in an Ethernet cable. Wi-Fi is the most common cause of lost packets and ping spikes. If a cable can't reach, a powerline adapter is the next best thing. If you have to stay on Wi-Fi, use the 5 GHz band and sit close to the router.
Pause the bandwidth hogs. Downloads, cloud backups and video calls on any device in the house can spike your ping, uploads most of all. Our guide to beating buffer bloat explains why.
Restart your modem and router. It takes a minute and clears up more problems than it should.
Turn off your VPN. A VPN almost always adds distance, and distance is ping.

3. Pick the right Valorant server

In the lobby, click the ping bars above your player card to open the server list. It shows your ping to every server in your region. You can change it when you're solo or the party leader.

By default Valorant balances low ping against a short queue, so it can place you on a server that is further away. Select only the one or two servers with your lowest ping. Queues may take a little longer, and your games will feel better.

4. Change these Valorant settings

If your FPS is low, go to Settings → Video → Graphics Quality:

Set Material, Texture, Detail and UI Quality to Low.
Turn off Improve Clarity, Bloom, Distortion and Cast Shadows.
Close browsers, launchers and recording apps you don't need, and update your graphics driver.
On a laptop, plug in the charger and set Windows to its best performance power mode. Laptops slow themselves down on battery.

If you have packet loss, try Settings → General → Other → Network Buffering. Leave it on Minimum when your connection is steady. Moderate smooths out other players' movement when packets go missing, at the cost of a small extra delay. It hides the symptom and doesn't fix the cause, so go back to step 2 as well.

5. Fix the route with Arrive

If you're wired in, on your closest server, and your ping is still high or spiky, what's left is the part you can't reach from a settings menu: the path your data takes between your internet provider and Riot's servers. Providers pick routes that are cheap for them, and those are often not the fastest ones.

That path is what Arrive works on. Arrive is a free Windows app that sends your Valorant traffic through our own network of datacenters and looks for a quicker, steadier way in. It isn't a VPN, and it currently covers North America and Europe (in alpha).

Download Arrive

Install Arrive and select Valorant.
Switch on Enable Valorant and pick the Arrive server closest to the Valorant server you play on. If you play on US Central (Illinois), choose a Chicago server.
Turn Arrive ON.
Launch Valorant and select that same server in its server list.

Test it honestly. Play a Deathmatch with Arrive off and another with it on, and compare Network RTT and Packet Loss in Valorant's own stats. Arrive's overlay (Ctrl+P) shows the ping to our servers, which won't exactly match the in-game number.

Arrive won't help everyone. If your provider's route to Riot is already good, there is nothing for us to improve. If your ping doesn't drop, turn Arrive off and try again in a few months. Our network keeps growing.

Valorant lag FAQ

What is a good ping for Valorant?

Under 40 ms is excellent and under 80 ms is comfortable. A steady ping matters as much as a low one, so watch jitter and packet loss too.

Why am I lagging in Valorant with good internet?

Internet speed and latency are different things. Valorant uses very little bandwidth, so a 1 Gbps plan doesn't help if your Wi-Fi drops packets or your provider sends your traffic the long way round. Check packet loss and ping, not download speed.

How do I get better latency in Valorant?

In order of what usually helps most: play on a wired connection, select only your lowest-ping server, stop other devices from uploading while you play, then try a route optimizer like Arrive for the stretch between your provider and Riot.

Why did my Valorant ping suddenly get high?

Something changed. The usual suspects are someone else using the connection, a switch from cable to Wi-Fi, Valorant placing you on a different server, or your provider's route getting busy in the evening. Step 1 tells you which.

Does a VPN reduce lag in Valorant?

Rarely. A VPN adds an extra stop and encrypts everything, which usually raises ping. Arrive is not a VPN: it only carries your game traffic. Don't run the two together.

Still lagging?

Tell us what you're seeing in the Arrive Discord, or read how to use Arrive for a full walkthrough of the app. Playing something else too? We have guides for the other games Arrive supports.

How to use Arrive

2026-01-02T00:00:00.000Z

Download and Install

If you've already installed Arrive, skip this step!

Download Arrive

Note: Arrive requires Overwolf. If you don't have Overwolf, then it will be installed automatically with Arrive.
Select Your Games and Servers

Pick a game from the bar on the left, then click Enable Arrive for [game] at the bottom of the map.

To choose a route, click a city on the map and pick one of its servers. The city closest to the game server you play on is usually the best start. For League of Legends you can also turn on Auto, and Arrive picks the best route for your connection.
Each game has a few quirks of its own, like matching your in-game region. Pick your game for its setup tips:
Start Your Game

Once Arrive is configured, start your game and the app will begin optimizing your connection routing in the background.

You can monitor your connection quality and see how Arrive is working for your specific setup. Feel free to experiment with the server select if you're not seeing satisfying results on auto-select!
Control Arrive Anytime

By default you can toggle the in-game Arrive window with Ctrl + P (you can change this binding in the settings).

You can start or stop Arrive mid-game without restarting, and you can enable or disable it for specific games. This gives you the flexibility to test different configurations and find what works best for your connection.

In-Game Widget
The Arrive Widget displays your Arrive ping and jitter at a glance. Press Ctrl + O to hide or show it, and Ctrl + P to reposition it.

If Arrive doesn't work for you today, don't give up!

Arrive won't work for everyone. Here's why:

The internet wasn't designed with real-time gaming in mind, and every connection is unique. Your home network, ISP, and routing paths all affect your personal experience and performance differently. How Arrive Reduces Your Ping explains why it helps some connections more than others.

That said, we are constantly expanding our network, so if you aren't seeing an improvement for your gaming latency with Arrive, then check back in a few months as we add new servers and routes.

We're doing our best!

About our Team

The Arrive team is just a bunch of software dev nerds who love online gaming, hate lag, and are doing the best we can to make this tech work for as many users as possible ❤️.

Server Select Release

2025-09-05T00:00:00.000Z

We’re excited to announce our new game select + server select feature! This update gives you more control over where and how you connect, ensuring your gaming experience is as smooth as possible.

What’s New:

Server stability

We've made improvements under the hood to Arrive's server infrastructure

League of Legends

You can now select from multiple servers when playing.
Prefer a hands-off approach? Simply let Arrive auto-select the best server for you.

Valorant

Valorant requires that your chosen server matches the in-game server you play on. For example, Illinois players should use Chicago 1 or Chicago 2 for optimal ping.

Valorant Notes:

For Valorant specifically, the Arrive client can only display the ping from our servers to the user. Due to current limitations, we cannot measure your actual in-game ping like we do for League, so the ping shown in Arrive may not exactly match what you see in-game.
Valorant support is still experimental. You may encounter bugs, disconnects, or even higher ping. If you experience any of these, please turn Arrive off to avoid disrupting your game for you and your team.

More Control, Your Way

We’ve also added flexibility: you can now toggle Arrive off for specific games if you prefer to handle your connection manually.

This release is all about giving you the tools to tailor your setup to your playstyle—whether you want automation or precision control.

Play with better ping

Download Arrive today and experience League or Valorant with server select and optimized ping!

Valorant Support Alpha

2024-10-18T00:00:00.000Z

Introducing Alpha Support for Valorant (Illinois Server Only)

Refer to this guide to get this experimental preview working for you. Valorant support is in very early access, and at this time will only support the Illinois server in game. Mileage may vary significantly based on where you are playing from!

How do I enable Valorant support?

Start the Arrive app and click on the "Arrive Labs" tab on the notch menu (beaker icon)
Click the toggle to enable "Illinois Server Valorant Test"
Start Valorant and select the Illinois Server before beginning a game.

How do I turn Valorant support off?

Open the Arrive app and navigate back to "Arrive Labs"
Toggle "Illinois Server Valorant Test" off.

Notes:

You must have Arrive Installed before proceeding to test.
At this time when Arrive is ON, League of Legends will always be enabled.
If you play with friends, you'll all have to play on the Illinois servers.

We hope your ping and jitter are improved while playing on the Illinois server during this test. As always, our team would love to hear about your experience during this test in the Arrive Discord.

Thank you and happy testing!

Ping Perfection

2023-11-09T00:00:00.000Z

Ping is King -- low ping, that is. At least in the case of most online competitive titles. Whether you are playing League of Legends, Valorant, Counter-Strike or Fortnite, a low ping puts you on a level playing field.

Does Ping = Latency?

In technical terms, ping is a specific tool used to measure the round-trip time between two devices, while latency is a broader concept that encompasses all the delays that can/will affect the data transfer between point A and point B.

In gaming terms, ping and latency are essentially the same thing. Ping/latency refers to the delay in time it takes for your data packets (game inputs) to travel from your device (PC, game console or phone) to the game server, and then return a response back from the server to your device. This is also known as the Round Trip Time or RTT.

If you are playing League of Legends and you see 30ms in the top right corner, it means your game inputs take approximately 30ms to reach Riot’s servers and return to your computer. This is called a 30ms ping.

Ping = Latency, and Ping/Latency represent the total round-trip time of your game packets.

High Ping Hurts

Let’s compare two players in a game of Rocket League. Player 1(P1) is rocking a 50ms ping while Player 2(P2) is closer to 100ms. P1 is looking to knock that giant ball into the net and P2 is ready to defend but just misses the save! Even with perfect reflexes, P2’s perception of what’s happening on the field is 2X times slower than P1’s. Having a lower ping gives P1 an advantage over P2.

Can I lower Ping?

The short answer is YES! Results can vary, and there are a lot of factors that contribute to high ping. Some things to consider:

Distance: Your location vs the location of the game servers can often be the biggest determining factor of your ping. The further away you are situated from the game server, the higher your ping will be.

There are a handful of online games that have a server selector, or a “max ping” selector that will try and connect your game to a server closer to your location, but with games that have primary static servers (League of Legends for example), there’s unfortunately not much you can do aside from playing on your local region.

ISP: Every single person will have a unique connection from their residence to the internet service provider. Routing, network congestion, and network quality need to all be taken into account.

If your ISP is holding you back, you can often phone them to send a network technician to check and test your copper, cable or optic lines for proper continuity.

Home Network: If your home network is sub-optimal, it can negatively affect your ping and gameplay.

Fortunately this is the one you have the most control over! Using a hard wired (ethernet) connection from your computer directly to the modem/router will often provide the best ping. If hardwired is not possible a mesh WiFi network is also a good option.

Using a router equipped with SQM technology can also have a great positive impact on your ping while gaming.

Software

Lag sucks. We created Arrive for this very reason. Arrive’s proprietary software helps your gaming traffic find the fastest route on the internet. Currently in pre-alpha, Arrive supports League of Legends with many more games coming soon.

Beating Buffer Bloat

2023-10-27T00:00:00.000Z

Lag, the scourge of online gamers everywhere. New routers, faster internet packages, and downloaded tools all promise to squeeze every bit of performance from your network. Yet the problem remains, internet gaming can be frustrating and inconsistent. One important aspect of lag you can address in your network is "Buffer Bloat".

When an excessive amount of data buffering occurs in network devices (like your router or a network switch), this is referred to as Buffer Bloat. Busy network hardware sometimes has more throughput than it can handle in real time. A buffer is necessary to prevent packet data from being lost, but this comes at the cost of your network traffic being temporarily held up from reaching its destination.

Buffer Bloat is like crawling through a traffic jam on the freeway during rush hour. Imagine all the cars (data packets) trying to reach their destinations (servers on the internet) at the same time. The highway (your network + the internet) is clogged with too many vehicles. Traffic lights (buffering in network devices) cause delays and make you late (increased latency) for your appointment.

For example, your router may be processing packets for a big file transfer while you are playing a game. By default, the packets will be processed in the order they are received, and if they can't all be sent in real time your gaming packets may get shuffled into a memory buffer. This causes higher latency. Low latency is optimal because it keeps your game session in sync with the gaming server.

When latency becomes inconsistent, "Jitter" may also be introduced. Jitter can cause you to miss skill shots and mis-time your abilities.

Packet Loss can also occur with Buffer Bloat which leads to phenomena such as rubber banding (when your game seemingly rewinds to a previous state or it feels like you are "teleporting" around the map).

There are a few steps that can be taken to reduce Buffer Bloat in your home network.

Newer gaming focused router that comes equipped with "SQM" (Smart Queue Management). This will prioritize your gaming traffic packets, and help move them to the "front of the line".
Cut down on network congestion. Streaming video and downloading/uploading large files can significantly affect Buffer Bloat. Try to keep load to a minimum during online gaming sessions.
Using wired connections over Wifi can help lower latency and Buffer bloat in many cases.

Your home network is just one of the many places Buffer Bloat can occur. The internet is a labyrinth of routers, networks, & servers. All of these devices are also just as susceptible to Buffer Bloat as your network devices are.

Arrive.gg was built to optimize the network traffic between your home network, and the gaming server. When one internet path is suffering from Buffer Bloat, Arrive can reroute your packets to a path that is less congested. This helps to lower latency, reduce jitter, and minimize packet loss.
Currently Arrive is in pre-Alpha and supports League of Legends. Many more games will be added soon. Try Arrive Today!

Faster internet for gamers

2023-10-26T00:00:00.000Z

Why did we create Arrive?

As CEO of Arrive, I got into this space about 10 years ago while playing League of Legends. I had such bad lag I couldn't play the game, and I put to use my skills in multiplayer game development to create a solution just for myself so I could get back to playing. This solution evolved into what is now Arrive!

Our goal at Arrive is to help you fix your lag. Reclaim your internet connection, get a competitive edge, and most of all, get more from your gaming experience!

Perhaps you have unstable internet causing frequent freezes in game leading to rubber banding, or constantly missing shots and abilities not due to your skill, but due to instability. Your internet may be smooth, but your ping is so high that you can't react quickly or do particular combos like performing a flawless Lee Sin Insec in League of Legends that require low latency. Everything is consistent, but it all just feels sluggish.

Or, you could have decent internet but would like a competitive edge. Reducing even a couple milliseconds of ping, or having your connection move from "pretty smooth" to "perfectly smooth" allowing you to enjoy your games just that much better.

As founders of Arrive and lifelong gamers, we've been afflicted and frustrated by all these problems and wanted to do something about it.

What's the magic tech?

How does one go about creating a faster, real-time internet for gamers?Arrive is working with some of the best network engineers in the business . These include leads from network and infrastructure teams at major game studios plus ISPs, to those who helped invent some of the original internet protocols. We have already shipped an early version of our product that you can download now and test out. We're hard at work designing and building the full solution. Simultaneously we're getting help from companies like Cloudflare to access many more low-latency routes that will reduce the ping for players.

Performance

Our product today is in the MVP stage. We're seeing great pre-alpha results from gamers in Western Canada, and we're gradually expanding both the geographical areas we cover as well as further boosting performance in the area it already works quite well for.

How can I help?

The best thing you can do is to download the product, if you play LoL on the NA, EU, LAN, or SING servers. Test it out, join our discord, and post your results (good or bad!) in feedback. This helps us understand how well our product is working, where we can improve, and any other feedback whether it is suggestions for new features, or marketing ideas or whatever, is very welcome!

How much does Arrive cost?

Arrive is free to use. We believe strongly in the Freemium model. Our core product is free forever and you can download Arrive today.

Thank you!

Thanks for being part of our journey! The most important thing for us is getting feedback. We're trying to understand for which users our product is most effective, how effective it is, and whether that benefit is valuable or not. We're trying to discover bugs. We're thinking about various new features and love to get ideas from the community. Please hit us up on Discord with any feedback!

Interview with Macrometa

2020-11-10T00:00:00.000Z

In a captivating exchange between Taric Mirza, the founder and CEO of Arrive, and Alan Evans, Principal Technologist of Macrometa, Taric shares his journey from a frustrated gamer grappling with lag in League of Legends to spearheading a revolutionary solution in Esports. His creation, Arrive, sprang from a blend of passion and necessity, aiming to banish the bane of lag that plagues gamers worldwide. Taric's story is a relatable one for any gamer who's ever faced the dreaded lag monster.

Key Insights from the Interview

Taric Mirza's Personal Experience: Faced with severe lag in League of Legends, Taric was driven to find a solution to this pervasive issue in gaming.
Creation of Arrive: Arrive is a startup focusing on improving the Esports gaming experience by tackling internet lag, starting with solutions for League of Legends and planning to expand to more games.
Macrometa's Role: Arrive collaborates with Macrometa, utilizing its Global Data Network (GDN) to manage their global infrastructure, ensuring low latency and efficient server management.
Arrive's Core Product: A client software that gamers install, which routes game traffic through the Arrive network to optimize internet routes and reduce lag.

Read the full article here:

How Arrive Conquers Lag And Accelerates Esports Traffic With Macrometa Global Data Network