Online gaming can let you play with friends locally or all over the world, but performance can be a variable. For Apex Legends, when you join a faraway friend’s party, there is a good chance that your game performance will go down substantially, and your lag will spike at the worst of times. That said, there is a way to fix this issue: playing on the same server that is the best median for all of you. Let’s dig into how to choose the best server for you and your squad.
Choosing a Data Center
In the main menu, before you even enter the lobby, there are a few options at the bottom of the screen: an option to exit the game, another to choose a data center, and settings for Accessibility. You will want to click on Data Center and have your teammates do the same.
Choosing by Ping
A list will pop up, organizing all of the servers by “ping.” The lower the ping, the better your performance will be. The issue is that the best server for you will not be the best server for your friends if they don’t live near you. The best thing to do is to figure out the server that brings all of your pings the closest together and the closest to 0 you can get while doing that.
For example, if you are from New York and your friend is from Dallas, you want to join a server located in the middle of those two points, such as Iowa or South Carolina — whichever has the ping that is closest together, and closest to your preferred range.
The server will lag a little more than your home server, but neither player will be forced into the extreme of playing on the other player’s home server. Join in the middle and play to win.
