Any gamer worth their name knows this to be true – your Internet connection is a vital component in the winning formula. Three aspects of your Internet connection are especially important when it comes to gaming, and these are, upload speed, download speed, and ping rate. Different gaming systems have different requirements in terms of these three. However, if you have download and upload speeds of 3Mbps and 1Mbps respectively, and a ping rate of under 150ms, you will be covered for most of your online gaming needs. Ping rate, also referred to as lag rate, refers to the time when a message is sent back and forth across Internet points. For the best experience, the lag rate should be as low as humanly possible.

It is important to note that there are speeds for a single user. If you are multiple users on the same connection, you will need to multiply these numbers given above by the number of users so you can determine what would be the most appropriate speeds to have.

Listed below are the answers to the question, what mbps do I need for the best gaming experience? These are recommendations based on the current version of the gaming devices, and earlier versions should work well under the same recommendations.

XBox One

The best way to experience the XBox One is to have download and upload speeds of at least 3Mbps and 0.5Mbps respectively. The maximum allowable ping rate is 150milliseconds.

Playstation 4

The Playstation 4 official manual states that it requires broadband connection and doesn’t work with dial up Internet. As estimates, you’ll probably require download speeds of about 3Mbps, upload speeds of 1Mbps and a ping rate of under 150 milliseconds.

Nintendo Switch

While the Nintendo Switch manual doesn’t come with any recommended speeds, troubleshooting helps infer what those might be. For instance, a gamer will be asked if their download and upload speeds are 3Mbps and 1Mbps respectively, and if they answer yes, then it is decided that speed is not the issue. If the answer is no, then users are requested to upgrade their service. As such, these can be taken as the recommended speeds. The ping rate is not specified but could be taken as under 150milliseconds, as it is for most other games.

Nintendo Wii U

Just like the Switch, there are no explicit recommendations for speeds for the Wii. However, troubleshooting points to preferred speeds of 1.5Mbps for downloads and 1Mbps for upload.

Online gaming

It is difficult to put limits on online gaming speeds since the PCs in use vary and so do the games being played on the same. However, an educated guess puts the download speed recommendation at about 3 to 6Mbps and upload speeds of 0.75 to 1Mbps. A ping rate of 100 to 150 milliseconds would also work well.

If you are keen on online gaming, you might have noticed that wireless connections might not be the most reliable. This is because they are susceptible to more interruptions compared to hard-wired connections.