All of us who play online games have faced connection or ping issues at one point. There are loads of tutorials and how-to articles on the web that can help you resolve these connection issues while gaming.
However, in a lot of cases, these problems persist because the issue lies with your ISP and the routing of your internet connection. Some programs like ExitLag claim to improve your online gaming experience by optimizing your connection in real time. How does ExitLag do this? Let’s find out.
What Is ExitLag?
Essentially, ExitLag is akin to a VPN software, specifically for online games. While most VPNs reroute the internet connection for all internet-based applications on your computer, ExitLag does that only for specific games. At the time of writing, the software supports over 100 games, a lot of them being popular titles.
The service uses a proprietary algorithm, and naturally, you have to pay to use it after the three-day trial expires. Contrary to popular belief, the software is more adept at improving packet loss and jitter issues, rather than ping. This is because ping primarily depends on the distance between you and the game server.
ExitLag has seen a rise in popularity, mainly because of its endorsement by popular esports personalities such as FalleN, a CS:GO pro player.
Improving Game Performance
Beyond optimizing your internet connection, the service also doubles up as a game booster, to improve your game’s frames per second (FPS) and game performance. It achieves this by enabling options such as maximum processing priority for games, and disabling performance leeching background processes.
While advanced users can enable all this without having to use ExitLag, the service provides a simple menu that lists all these options in an on/off format, making it easy for the average user.
Currently, ExitLag is only available for Windows users and the monthly subscription costs $6.50. It also has semi-annual and quarterly plans for reduced monthly costs.
Download: ExitLag for Windows ($6.50 monthly subscription)
How Does ExitLag Work
As mentioned earlier, ExitLag is basically a VPN software. But one that only affects the connection between your computer and the game server. So, other programs like Spotify, and Chrome will remain unaffected, even though you may be using ExitLag to connect to a game server.
If you have an internet service provider (ISP) that uses bad routing, i.e. you experience packet loss and ping spikes when playing online games, ExitLag may come in handy. This is because after enabling the service, your computer will connect to the game’s servers using ExitLag’s own routes and servers. In most cases, this will be an improvement over the route that your ISP uses.
To better explain this, think of internet packets as cars and highways as routes. A highway with less traffic will aid the car in reaching from point A to point B faster, whereas a congested one will slow it down. Similarly, highly congested internet routes slow down packet transfer and can also result in packets being lost along the way, called packet loss.
ExitLag redirects your internet packets to a less congested route for more efficient data transfer.
While you may not see a dramatic improvement in your ping, packet loss issues will mostly likely be resolved after enabling the service.
Another major reason for the improvement in your connection to game servers is that ExitLag’s dedicated servers have less traffic compared to your ISP’s public servers. Through its real-time optimization feature, the service claims to make your connection use the best route possible when gaming.
To further improve stability, ExitLag claims to use what it calls a “Multipath Connection.” This basically means that internet packets are transported using multiple routes, so if one becomes too congested or unstable, it automatically switches to one of the other routes.
How to Use ExitLag
One of the main things the service has going for itself is its ease of use. A lot of the things that the service does can be done by an advanced user or someone who is familiar with home networks and how to configure them.
But most gamers don’t belong to any of these categories, and ExitLag provides them a smoother gaming experience with a few clicks.
Getting started with ExitLag is simple:
- Open the ExitLag download page in your web browser and click on Download ExitLag.
- After the setup file has finished downloading, run it.
- Choose a location for installing ExitLag and follow the steps on the installation wizard.
- After ExitLag has finished installing, you will get a prompt to restart your computer. Click on Restart Now if you don’t have any unsaved work you may doing.
- After restarting, run ExitLag using the desktop icon. Wait for the route analysis process to complete. This will happen every time you start the service.
- On the home screen of ExitLag, type the name of the game you want to optimize, and click on it from the search results.
- The game should appear under the Recent section. Click on it, and a new page will open that allows you to select the game region among other settings.
- Select the game region closest to your geographical location and click on Apply Routes.
- Minimize ExitLag and launch the game you just selected.
Do You Really Need ExitLag?
To answer this question right away: it depends. If you expect ExitLag to reduce your ping from 300ms to 60ms, then you’re on the road to disappointment. There’s little that can be done to combat such an exorbitant ping.
Additionally, if you live in a place with good internet infrastructure, chances are that you won’t notice any difference at all.
The software is most useful for places that have bad network infrastructure and as a result suffer from unstable internet connections.
If you live in such a place, then ExitLag will definitely help smoothen your online gaming experience by eliminating packet loss and jitter. The FPS Boost feature may also come in handy for users with a low-end gaming computer.