Lagging:- unacceptable response times which become visible to the end-user.

Lagging has two major components; Network data vs. Game system environment.
The items below are classified using these colors.

There are some basic things you can do to minimize the impact of lag:

• * Reduce your screen resolution: This does not resolve true internet lag issues,
  but higher screen resolutions are more taxing on processors and may create an artificial lag.
  This will do nothing to help reduce true lag, but it can increase your framerate.
• * Eliminate the soundtrack: Playing the music from the CD-Rom will cause slower machines to go noticeably slower.
• * Reduce chat: Excessive "chatting" will cause a degradation in performance.
• * Play later at night or on the weekends: Avoiding "peak" internet times(1) will aid ping times.
• * Choose your server carefully: Find a server that is close geographically and does not typically fill to capacity.
• * Play games with "client prediction": The best way to get around lag is to have a
  software company do the work for you. Client prediction is technique where a server compensates for a players lag by predicting the player's movements. eg: QuakeWorld and Quake 2 both include client prediction.
• * Get a Good ISP: Get an ISP that is 3 hops or less from a major internet backbone.

(1) each locale (and or game) will have a different peak traffic time. As most
players are at work or school during the 8am-5pm hours, peak game usage may well
be evenings and weekends. Peak Internet times however, are local time, 8-5 when
commercial sites are most active. Your experience may vary significantly.

There are two TCP settings that can assist you in network lag, Sackopts and Full Duplex.
see this article for details

Thank you, jobeard, we really needed this. Sticky, perhaps?

Pretty good, what I don't get is this part:

What exactly do you mean?

thank you for this info.

really helpfull.

In other words, don't go with a Starlight Communications (example) who runs through Galactic Internet who get theirs from UniverseTelecommunications who get theirs from SuperISPS, etc.

I think that is what he means, anyway.

Is it wrong to say that if America was using majority fiber-optics rather then copper wires lag (internet and gaming) would be severely reduced?

yes, as the physical network is only one component to network latency.

I am going to say this one more time, This needs to be stickied+announced.

I see, so what you are saying is that lag can occur due to faults in the other layers. Would fiber make lag decrease at least a little though? I mean there is more bandwidth and higher transfer speeds right?

Right having a whole system of fibre optic wires would allow for higher bandwidth and transfer speeds i think this is because these wires are made with glass shards in them, which reflects the data (as light) at quicker speeds.

Thats why countries like Korea get faster internet speeds because there system is relatively new and so can be integrated quite easily. While the American and European systems are mainly copper wires and all streets would have to be dug up to relay the fibre optic wires so you know this would be costly for the ISP and Phone companies to do, Or maybe the Governments would fund this i don't know?

The way some people have thought around digging streets up is to lay the wires under the main roads and then build small hubs to connect the streets to the system.

Right having a whole system of fibre optic wires would allow for higher bandwidth and transfer speeds i think this is because these wires are made with glass shards in them, which reflects the data (as light) at quicker speeds.

Thats why countries like Korea get faster internet speeds because there system is relatively new and so can be integrated quite easily. While the American and European systems are mainly copper wires and all streets would have to be dug up to relay the fibre optic wires so you know this would be costly for the ISP and Phone companies to do, Or maybe the Governments would fund this i don't know.

The way some people have thought around digging streets up is to lay the wires under the main roads and then build small hubs to connect the streets to the system.

Sorry about second post having internet connection problems

You're right, I have heard of South Korea's military grade internet connection speeds. Clearly, they blow our speeds out of the water. Perhaps this is why internet gaming cafes are so popular over there. Also Japan has much faster internet speeds if not the fastest in the world perhaps. Wonder how they managed to reconstruct their network with fiber so quickly. Was their government quick to act on it. I also understand that both South Korea and Japan are much smaller countries so it's a little easier. Hell California alone is about the same size as Japan.

Not sure i think Japan do have the fastest Internet connections, but haven't Japan built a load of Skyscrapers so I'm guessing that while they built them they would have relayed the wires underneath the buildings. Also most electronic equipment from companies like Sony, Samsung, Hitachi that we have is made in either Japan or Korea so that sort of explains probably why they have fast internet connections because of there technology businesses being so strong in the International Markets

And just a bit of Geography if you don't know already Japan can only build on 20% of there land so that is why they would be building big apartment blocks and Skyscrapers.