Elite Gamer puts you in control. The Dashboard displays game connection improvements, real-time connection quality, details from previous game sessions, and more. With the Real-Time Stats screen, you can see exactly what server you're connected to, the values of your network stats, and charts for the visual people out there. Let's breakdown some common stats you'll see on this screen!
PING
Ping refers to the network latency between a player's client and the game server. Ping is an average time in milliseconds (there are 1000 milliseconds in a second) it takes for data to travel from a player's device to the game server. The lower the player's ping or latency is, means less lag the player will experience.
High ping can cause a severe amount of lag; while any level of ping may cause lag, severe lag is usually caused by a ping of over 100ms. In games where timing is critical, such as first-person shooters and real-time strategy games, a low ping is always desirable. Low ping means smoother gameplay by allowing faster updates of game data between the players' device and the game server.
Analogy: You get in to start your car, put the key in the ignition, turn the key, and nothing happens at first, but after 10 seconds, your engine starts.
JITTER
Jitter measures the amount of change in latency during a connection. High jitter means a constantly changing latency measurement. During more prolonged periods of jitter, the game becomes unresponsive (e.g., your mouse feels sluggish).
Jitter can cause intermittent stopping and starting within a game and cause a person to win or lose if it occurs during an essential time of the game. Commands are sometimes received in batches causing the game to slow down to process the commands.
Analogy: You're driving your car, and it continually accelerates and decelerates on its own.
SPIKES
Spikes are short random increases in response time that cause the game to feel choppy (e.g., someone bumps your elbow). Spikes can be a component of jitter, but often spikes are massive jumps in ping. Unstable connections have more frequent and more extended periods of which there is high jitter.
You may have become accepting of the occasional fluctuation in gameplay. However, if that fluctuation of latency continues to occur over an extended period, you could be forced to give up playing the game until your connection becomes stable.
Analogy: While driving your car, your gas pedal is non-responsive randomly
PACKET LOSS
Packet loss is a measure of how many data packets that are being sent and received make it to their final destination.
This impacts your gaming experience because when you tell the game to do something, and it doesn't happen, you have to repeat the request, but it could be too late.
Analogy: While driving your car, you attempt to shift gears, the stick moves, but the shift didn't initiate, so you have to shift again.
OTHER
We've also included some information for the networking gurus out there like the Traceroute and the Data Log. The Traceroute is measuring the "hops" that your data is taking and providing you with locations (IP Addresses) and ping times. The Data Log is showing you what Elite Gamer's pathfinder is doing, common things to find there are engine status of the pathfinder, and what connections are being established or closed.