Run the test above for at least 60 seconds. Here is what each
number means for this game specifically.
Red lines (packet loss)
Loss is what makes hits register late or not at all. With destruction in play it also causes visual disagreement about geometry - you take cover behind a wall that, on the server, is already gone.
Jitter (stability)
Jitter makes enemy movement arrive unevenly, which is especially punishing here because so much movement is vertical and fast. Keep it under the tick interval if you want consistent tracking.
Ping (latency)
Under 40 ms is comfortable. Above 80 ms, close-range trades and the timing of a cashout contest start going against you regardless of aim.
What you see in game, and which number on this page explains it.
THE FINALS asks more of a connection than a comparable shooter for a reason that has nothing to do with player count: the arena itself is destructible. The server is not only reconciling where players are but a world that is changing shape, and that state has to reach you as well. It arrives in bursts, because buildings come down in bursts, and those bursts land on top of the steady stream of player updates rather than instead of it.
A connection with headroom absorbs that without complaint. A saturated one shows it exactly when a fight gets interesting, which is why players describe the game as fine until something explodes. That is also the strongest argument for measuring loss rather than throughput: the peak is short and a bandwidth test will never see it.
The second thing worth knowing is why your in-game ping and this chart can legitimately disagree. Embark runs the game on cloud infrastructure and routes its UDP game traffic through Quilkin, its own open-source proxy, which sits between your client and the game server. That is a deliberate design choice and normally invisible, but it means your path to the game is not the path this test measures to a nearby measurement server. A moderate gap between the two numbers is expected and is not a fault.
What does not change is the loss figure. Packets dropped on your own line are dropped regardless of which route they were going to take afterwards, so red lines here remain yours to fix even when the ping numbers differ.
If the chart above shows packet loss or high jitter, work through
these in order.
Why is my in-game ping higher than this test?
Embark routes game traffic through its own UDP proxy, Quilkin, on cloud infrastructure. Your route to the game server therefore differs from your route to a nearby measurement server, and a moderate difference is expected.
What tick rate does THE FINALS run at?
60Hz is widely reported but Embark has not confirmed it. We send 60 packets per second and label the figure as an estimate rather than a fact.
Does destruction make lag worse?
It adds traffic in bursts, because the server has to tell you about a world that is changing shape. A connection with headroom absorbs that; a saturated one shows it as spikes.
Why do my shots register late?
Late registration is latency; missing registration is loss. The chart above separates the two - a steady high line against red vertical lines.