Many gamers refer to any performance problem in an online game as "lag." But if your computer's frame rate is low, that's not the same as lag - lag, and low FPS are different issues with different causes.
This article was written because many gamers call any performance issue a "lag." Understanding what lag is and is not will help you identify and fix performance issues when they occur.
Low FPS is a computer problem.
Low Frames Per Second (FPS) appear when the entire game is slow. If your frame rate is low enough, playing the game may seem like watching a slideshow, as only a few different frames appear on the screen per second. In less extreme cases, the game will feel choppy and slow, the opposite of smooth.
Frame rate problems are not caused by network problems. If you have a low frame rate, that's not the game lagging; it's that your computer can't keep up with the game. Your hard drive may be too slow, causing the game to slow down as it is forced to read data from your hard drive. You may have too much junk software running in the background, competing for resources. You may need a faster graphics card, more RAM, or a better CPU.
In other words, a low FPS is a problem with the game's performance on your computer. It has nothing to do with your network connection.
The delay is a network problem.
The delay is not the result of a problem with your computer; it results from a problem with your network. If you are away from the game servers or in Europe playing on North American servers, your latency (often referred to as » ping « time) can be high. (Learn more about latency here.) It may result from problems with the game servers, but it is also likely that there is a network problem somewhere between your computer and the servers.
Lag displays very differently at low FPS. If your game is too late, your FPS may still be too high. If you are playing a multiplayer game, the game can be completely fluid, but other players can get stuck walking in place or teleporting. When you shoot someone in online FPS, you can always miss it because your latency is so high that they've long since drifted away when your shot hits their spot. The actions you take in an online game can noticeably happen later - latency is the time it takes for your computer to communicate with the server.
Lag often refers to the lag caused by constant high latency (also known as high pings). Still, you may also experience "lag spikes" where everyone else in the game seems to stop in place, followed by the characters they teleport or run to new locations as the game receives updates.
To improve lag, try a different server, use Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi, upgrade your network hardware or pay for a better package if you have a prolonged internet connection.
Low FPS and lag are sometimes linked.
Low FPS and lag sometimes appear at the same time, which complicates things. For example, if you are playing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and your character is standing in a major city with hundreds of other characters running on your screen, you can experience both low FPS and lag. The lag occurs because the server is struggling to keep up and slow down with so many things happening in one place at a time, while the low FPS results from your computer struggling to draw all those characters on your screen at once.
In this case, the low FPS and lag have the same cause, more people than the game can handle in one place simultaneously, which can confuse some players into thinking that they are the same. But they are not: a large number of players is causing performance problems on your computer (low FPS) and network problems (lag).
Why should you care?
This is not just an abstract argument that kids these days use the wrong words. By understanding the difference between lag and low FPS, you can identify problems and have a better chance of fixing them.
If you're experiencing low FPS, your computer hardware can't keep up (or you have too much junk software running in the background), and you can fix it by updating your computer's hardware (or lowering your game's graphical settings).
If you experience a delay, it is a network problem. You may need to wait for the situation to improve, switch to a closer server, or troubleshoot your local network.
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