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How Online Multiplayer Works
A plain-language look at the players, servers and messages that keep a shared online match in sync, and why connections sometimes feel off.
How Games Run
Online Play and Networking
How games talk over a network and why connections feel the way they do.
Dedicated Servers and Peer to Peer Play
Compare games hosted on a company's dedicated servers with games hosted by a player or shared directly between players, and the trade-offs of each.
How Skill Based Matchmaking Works
How games estimate player ability, group players of similar level into matches, and the trade-offs between fair games and fast queue times.
Lag Compensation and Hit Registration
How online games decide whether a shot landed when players see slightly different moments, and why hits sometimes seem unfair on one screen.
NAT Types and Why They Limit Connections
A plain explanation of how home routers and NAT affect who your console or PC can connect to, and what labels like open, moderate and strict generally mean.
Packet Loss and Jitter Explained
Learn how dropped and unevenly arriving data packets cause rubber banding, freezes and odd behavior in online games, and why average ping can hide them.
Tick Rate Explained
What tick rate means, how often a game server updates the world, and what higher or lower rates do and do not mean for responsiveness and fairness.
What Ping Really Measures
Ping is a round trip time between your device and a server. Learn what the number does and does not say about how a game connection will feel.
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