Display lag vs network lag in League explained with 3 tests
By Ryan Mercer Updated 11 min read
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On this page (8 sections)
In short: Display lag makes your entire screen feel sluggish even when walking straight, while network lag causes specific moments of rubber-banding or ability delays. Test by moving your mouse cursor across menus: if that feels slow, it's display lag.
Part of our guide on league of legends packet loss only at night
Most players blame their connection for delay that actually lives between the GPU and their eyes.
| Display lag range | 15-50ms depending on refresh rate |
|---|---|
| Network lag threshold | Noticeable above 60ms ping |
| Cursor test | Display lag if menu feels slow |
| Practice Tool test | Isolates display from network |
The short version
- Display lag affects every visual element including menus and cursors; network lag only disrupts champion movement and ability responses
- Test in Practice Tool with Ctrl+F showing stable FPS: if last-hitting still feels late, your display adds 20-40ms
- Network lag appears as ping spikes in the top-right corner and matches the timing of rubber-banding
- A 60Hz monitor adds at least 16ms; a 144Hz display cuts that to 7ms before panel response time
- GearUP's adaptive routing reduces network jitter when your ISP's path to Riot servers is congested
The differences at a glance
Display lag lives between your GPU and your eyes. It delays everything you see by the same amount: champion movement, ability casts, menu navigation, even your mouse cursor. The delay is constant and smooth, never spiking.
Network lag sits between your PC and Riot's servers. It delays only the information traveling back and forth: your champion's position, enemy movements, ability confirmations. Menus and cursors respond instantly because they render locally. The delay jumps around as your connection quality changes.
The symptom that separates them: display lag makes dragging your mouse across the client menus feel sluggish, while network lag leaves menus feeling instant but causes your champion to rubber-band or abilities to cast late. One affects your entire visual experience, the other only disrupts server-synced actions.
| Symptom | Display lag | Network lag |
|---|---|---|
| Menu responsiveness | Cursor feels delayed | Instant and smooth |
| Champion movement | Constant smooth delay | Rubber-banding or stuttering |
| Ability cast feedback | Visual delay on all spells | Some casts happen late |
| Consistency | Same delay every frame | Spikes during fights or at random |
| Ping indicator | No correlation | Matches ping number changes |
What display lag is and how it appears in LoL
Display lag is the sum of three delays. Your monitor's refresh rate sets the first: a 60Hz screen updates every 16.7ms, so a frame rendered just after one refresh waits nearly a full cycle. A 144Hz panel cuts that to 6.9ms. Panel response time adds another 1-10ms as pixels physically change color. Input polling and frame buffering contribute 1-5ms more. For the detail, see our notes on league of legends fps drop after update.
You notice it most when last-hitting minions. Your brain predicts when to click based on the health bar, but the frame showing that health is already 20-40ms old by the time you see it. You click, the game registers it instantly, but the minion dies before your attack launches because you were reacting to outdated visual information.
The feeling is smooth but consistently behind. Every action you take (moving between abilities with QWER, kiting backward, flashing a skillshot) happens after you intended it by the same fixed delay. Turning off V-Sync in video settings can reduce buffering by 8-16ms, though you may see screen tearing during fast camera pans.
Display lag compounds with network lag. If your monitor adds 30ms and your connection adds 50ms, the total delay between your keypress and seeing the result is 80ms, well past the threshold where most players feel unresponsive. Fixing the network component is usually cheaper than replacing the monitor. For the detail, see our notes on lol ping spikes.
What network lag is and its effects
Network lag is the round-trip time between your PC and Riot's game server. You send an input (say, casting Ezreal Q) and the server confirms it after your ping time in milliseconds. At 30ms ping, the confirmation returns in 30ms. At 100ms ping, you wait over three times longer, and the delay becomes visible.
The server runs the authoritative version of the game. When your client and the server disagree about where your champion is, the server wins and your screen snaps to match. That's rubber-banding. It happens when packets arrive late or out of order, usually because your route to the server is congested or one hop is dropping packets.
Ping spikes are the killer. A stable 70ms ping is playable; a ping that jumps from 40ms to 150ms every few seconds makes skillshots impossible to land. You see it in the top-right corner of the game screen: the number flashes orange or red when it spikes, and the timing matches the moment your champion stutters or an ability fails to cast. It helps to understand diagnosing high ping on kr server before going further.
Packet loss is worse than high ping. If one in every twenty packets never arrives, the server has to wait for a retransmission before confirming your action. A 1% packet loss rate causes more rubber-banding than a constant 80ms ping, because the delay is unpredictable. Tools like WinMTR or PingPlotter trace the route to Riot's servers and show which hop is dropping packets.
- Stable ping under 50ms: feels responsive, skillshots land where you aim
- Ping 50-80ms: minor delay, compensation becomes necessary for precise combos
- Ping over 100ms: abilities feel late, kiting and flashing become unreliable
- Ping spikes above 150ms: rubber-banding starts, champion position desyncs from input
3 specific tests to distinguish the two lags
Run these three tests in sequence. They isolate display lag from network lag by controlling one variable at a time. Start with the cursor test because it takes five seconds and rules out an entire category of delay.
- Cursor test in the client: Open the League client and go to Settings. Move your mouse cursor rapidly left and right across the sliders. If the cursor trails behind your hand movement or feels like it's dragging through syrup, your display lag exceeds 30ms. This test works because the client renders entirely on your PC with no server involved: network lag cannot affect it. A cursor that moves instantly means display lag is under 20ms, and network lag is the likely culprit for in-game delay.
- Practice Tool with stable FPS: Launch Practice Tool and enable the FPS counter with Ctrl+F. Lock your FPS to your monitor's refresh rate in video settings. Spawn a target dummy and practice last-hitting it at low health. If the dummy dies before your auto-attack visibly launches even though your timing felt correct, display lag is adding 20-40ms. Now check your ping in the top-right corner. If ping is under 40ms and stable but last-hitting still feels late, the display is the problem. If ping spikes above 60ms when you miss, network jitter is interfering.
- Ping test during a match: Play a normal game and watch the ping indicator during teamfights. Open Task Manager on a second screen or use Resource Monitor to check if another program is using bandwidth. If ping spikes above 80ms only when other devices are streaming or downloading, your local network is saturated. If ping spikes randomly with nothing else running, the issue is upstream: either your ISP's route to Riot is congested, or a hop in between is dropping packets. Run
ping riot.com -tin Command Prompt for two minutes and look for timeouts or >100ms responses.
How to fix display lag
Start with the settings you already have. Turn off V-Sync in League's video options: it adds one to two frames of input lag by buffering rendered frames. Set the game to fullscreen rather than borderless windowed mode. Borderless adds 5-10ms because Windows Desktop Window Manager forces an extra compositing step. We cover effects of packet loss in its own article.
Lower your graphics settings if FPS dips below your monitor's refresh rate. Display lag increases when the GPU cannot deliver frames fast enough. Drop shadows, environment quality, and character detail to Medium. Disable anti-aliasing. The goal is stable FPS that matches your refresh rate: 60 FPS for a 60Hz monitor, 144 FPS for 144Hz.
Enable Game Mode in Windows settings. It prioritizes GPU and CPU resources for the active game and disables some background tasks. The improvement is small, usually 2-5ms, but it stacks with other fixes. Disable overlays from Discord, GeForce Experience, or Xbox Game Bar: they inject rendering hooks that add a frame of latency.
If display lag persists above 30ms after settings changes, the monitor itself is slow. TN and IPS panels marketed for gaming typically add 15-25ms total. VA panels and older 60Hz displays can add 40-50ms. Replacing a 60Hz monitor with a 144Hz model cuts the refresh-rate component from 16.7ms to 6.9ms, then faster response times drop panel lag further. That's a $150-300 fix versus free settings adjustments. We cover server status disconnecting me in its own article.
How to fix network lag
Close bandwidth-heavy programs before queueing. Chrome with twenty tabs, Windows Update downloading in the background, or someone streaming Netflix on your network all add latency and packet loss. Open Resource Monitor, go to the Network tab, and sort by Total bytes/sec to find the culprits. End any process using more than 1 Mbps that you don't need.
Plug your PC into the router with an Ethernet cable if you're on Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi adds 5-30ms of jitter because the signal has to compete with other devices and nearby networks. Packet loss on Wi-Fi is common during peak hours when your neighbors are also online. A $10 Cat6 cable eliminates that variable.
Reboot your router and modem if ping has been high for days. ISPs sometimes leave stale routes in place that add extra hops. Power-cycle both devices, wait two minutes, and run a ping test to google.com and riot.com. Compare the results. If ping to Riot is 20ms higher than to Google, your ISP's peering with Riot's network is poor.
GearUP reroutes your game traffic through optimized paths when the default route is congested. It does not fake lower ping: it finds a different physical path between your ISP and Riot's data center. The adaptive routing checks latency every few seconds and switches paths if a better one appears. The free trial on PC measures the improvement before you commit. If your tests show ping spikes during fights or packet loss warnings, the tool targets exactly that problem.
- ISP congestion: GearUP's alternate routes bypass the congested hop your ISP chose
- Wi-Fi jitter: a wired connection is faster and free, fix that first
- Background apps: close them manually, GearUP does not manage local bandwidth
- Router firmware: update it from the admin page if ping is unstable even on Ethernet
Questions people still ask
Can high FPS cause display lag in League?
No. Higher FPS reduces display lag by delivering fresher frames to the monitor. The confusion comes from uncapped FPS causing frame time variance, which creates micro-stutter that feels like lag but is actually inconsistent frame pacing. Cap FPS to your monitor's refresh rate or use G-Sync or FreeSync to smooth it out.
Does a gaming monitor eliminate display lag entirely?
No monitor has zero lag. A 144Hz gaming monitor with a 1ms response time still adds around 8-10ms total between the GPU output and the image reaching your eyes. That is low enough that most players cannot perceive it, but it is not zero. The improvement over a 60Hz office monitor is substantial: cutting 30-40ms to under 10ms.
Why does my ping spike only during teamfights?
Teamfights generate more packets per second as the game syncs ten champions casting abilities simultaneously. If your router or a hop upstream cannot handle the burst, latency spikes. Another cause: your GPU usage jumps during particle-heavy fights, and if background programs are still running, Windows may throttle network priority to keep the game rendering.
Will reducing graphics settings fix network lag?
No. Graphics settings affect only display lag by changing how fast the GPU renders frames. Network lag depends on your connection to Riot's servers. If lowering settings makes the game feel more responsive, the improvement came from higher FPS reducing display lag, not from any change to your ping.
Can a VPN reduce ping to League servers?
Sometimes. A VPN or game traffic optimizer like GearUP can reduce ping if your ISP's default route to Riot is inefficient: say, routing you through three extra cities instead of a direct path. It cannot reduce ping below the physical speed-of-light limit between your location and the server. If you are 2000 km from the server, your ping floor is around 20ms no matter what.
Ready to try it? It stabilizes your route to Riot servers when the tests confirm network jitter is causing your delays
Try GearUP on League