As a network engineer and gamer since the dialup days, although ISP routing and configurations is not my realm of expertise, I can offer a few tidbits that I have learned over the years that is relevant to this topic that may or may not help someone else.
Wired vs Wireless
If possible always take an ethernet connection to your gaming computer as a priority. The amount of jitter from wireless alone can vary from 1-3ms and you also run into a much higher chance of packet loss occuring from interference. If you have to use wireless, try to use 5g over 2.4g as that spectrum is less crowded. If you have to use 2.4g, there are programs out there that can scan wireless channels neighbors are using around you. Find channels that you can set that is the least crowded betweeen 1-11.
Bufferbloat
This is a tough topic to explain but can have a drastic impact on your gaming performance especially if you have a small internet pipe or are sharing your connections with others in your household. Basically if your router connection is getting saturated (someone is downloading and maxing out your internet download/upload), the router then has to buffer that information (sometimes increasing latency into the 100+ ms). Some routers have a QoS feature that does improve this. I currently use PFSense and FQ_Codel as my way to mitigate although nowadays I am on 1gb/1gb FTTH. You can test out your bufferbloat at DSLReports speedtest at the following:
https://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
Also, Battlenonsense did a decent job of covering this specific scenario in a video that I will just link the video to get tips for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjJW_s5gQ9Y
ISP
There are various types of ISP choices out there and the technologies they use to connect with them. Those technologies also have different latency just through the first hop of a traceroute. Here is a short list of ping times for those technologies although a few I am just guessing at latencies:
FTTH - 1-2ms
Cable - 6-12ms
DSL - 20-40ms
4G Wireless hotspot - 30-100ms
5G Wireless hotspot - 10-20ms
ISDN - 60+ ms
Dialup - 150+ ms
Once you get past the first hop, you are now entering your ISP's network. Now to get to your destination, an ISP will route those packets and eventually handoff to a transit provider (L3/Cogent/ATT/Verizon/etc). The ISP or transit provider will then route those packets to the distant ends ISP or hosting provider. Now some ISP's have their own backbone or have bought transit providers so they can route further outside their network although they usually do not host the services you are connecting to on their own network. Most of the time, the routing that occurs after your ISP hands off the packet off its network is out of your ISP's control and is up to the transit provider and its network. As such, you will probably never be able to convince a transit provider and even your ISP to change your route. Sucks but that is the life of the internet today.
Another thing to look at is verifying your signal levels are good if you have Cable or DSL. I am not familiar with DSL myself, but with cable, you can look at your signal levels of your modem. Typically this is the 192.168.100.1 address. Both your downstream and upstream can cause issues if your signal is too hot or too weak. I would recommend checking out DSLReports forums for the ISP you use and signal levels that are recommended. If you are having issues, definitely contact your ISP to get a technician to try and fix it if your line is not within specs.
Game VPN Proxies
So one solution that may or may not work is trying some of the game VPN proxies such as Haste or WTFast. What these essentially do is your ISP will hand off traffic to these provider which may or may not have better routing to the game servers you are connecting to. I would try the various ones and see if you can improve your routing and therefore your ping that way.
One thing I would not do is sign up for a VPN like Nord VPN that redirects ALL traffic from your computer outside the internet. While those are good for general webrowing and everyday tasks, they introduce extra overhead, use CPU resources, and typically have a higher latency.
Windows Tuning
I always did some basic tuning for Windows and tweaks, but found a great youtube channel (FR33THY) that actually does an excellent job at tweaking your system. Now some of these I would do at your own risk and probably best if you did a fresh install. I recommend his Windows A-Z playlist that I linked below:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... UAHw99aGWW
With that said I would recommend only using this guide if you have a 2nd PC that you can use as a workstation or general use computer. Some features may break if you do other tasks on your computer other than gaming.
2 PC Setup
Relating to above, but I would recommend having a 2nd PC setup. Your game PC has minimal programs and peripherals installed aside from games. Your other PC is your everday items, programs, accessories. I would steer away from KVM for mouse/keyboard (they introduce to much delay), but there are programs out there where you can split audio between 2 PC's without much delay (Voicemeter Banana). By doing this, you can minimize programs that are accessing your CPU and RAM, minimize DPC latency, etc.
So just some food for thought for some people and hopefully something here helps someone out!
