If you ever had the curiosity to hover the mouse over the bottom left where it says “Voice Connected”, you will notice that something called ping is displayed. It is a numerical value but what does ping mean in Discord?
Ping, in this particular case, means something else. You may have heard some of your friends say that they have a high ping in games or that they have lag. The information showed in Discord refers to this kind of ping. However, it does not explain what ping is.
What Ping Means in Networking
Answering what does ping mean in Discord requires us to look at what it represents in networking. Ping is considered a connectivity test. It measures the time it takes for a packet of information to be sent from your computer to a destination. In this case, the destination is a Discord server. Ping also accounts for the time it takes for you to receive a data packet from the Discord server. In most cases, this number is expressed in milliseconds. If you constantly see a value below 100ms, there should be nothing to worry about.
A high ping should raise some concerns. While ping matters a lot for gamers, in Discord, a high ping does not make the application unusable. It does have some negative effects that you should know about.
Having a High Ping in Discord
What does ping mean in Discord requires a bit of understanding of how it can affect the application. A high ping can cause you to get disconnected from the server. For this to happen, your ping needs to be above 1000ms or 1 second. If your ping is lower but still high or between 200ms and 500ms, you will notice delays in how Discord behaves.
When your ping is having constant spikes, more noticeable effects can be observed. You will notice that voice chat becomes interrupted. You can also notice someone’s voice go at a slower pace because your computer is waiting for a packet of data with audio segments that are delayed.
Should You Be Worried?
A high ping is not necessarily a reason for concern. Usually, a high ping can indicate a problem with your computer, ISP, or Discord server. When the problem that causes a high ping is with your computer, you will notice high ping in other applications and games as well. This should not be all that concerning as it can be fixed in several ways.
You should be concerned about high ping in Discord if there is a problem with your ISP or with the Discord server. To check if this is the case, you need to run a ping test to see if it is still high with other destinations or servers as well. If the ping test does not show problems with other destinations, you will need to dig a bit deeper. What does ping mean in discord if the ping test showed normal values is that there is a problem with the Discord server.