How to Fix Lag
Try these first — they're free and solve the problem for most people.
01 Switch to wired Ethernet
1. Connect your PC to the router with an Ethernet cable 2. Open Windows Settings > Network & Internet > WiFi 3. Turn off WiFi entirely to prevent Windows from splitting traffic 4. Launch GG Strive and check a few online matches 5. Compare rollback frame count to WiFi baseline
Eliminates WiFi jitter — the #1 cause of elevated rollback frames on otherwise decent connections. Most impactful single change.
02 Change your preferred region in network settings
1. From the main menu, go to Network Settings 2. Change your region to match the opponents you want to play against (Asia for JP/KR players, US East for North America) 3. The game matches P2P — the region setting filters your opponent pool to players in that region 4. Playing in the 'wrong' region means long-distance P2P connections
Lowers average match ping by matching you with geographically closer opponents. Can reduce rollback frames from 8+ to 2-3 on cross-region connections.
General network tips (not Guilty Gear -Strive--specific)
03 Check your rollback frame count to diagnose your connection
1. Go to Training Mode in GG Strive 2. Pause and navigate to Network settings 3. Look for the delay/rollback frame display 4. Alternatively, after an online match ends, the match results screen shows average rollback frames 5. 0-2 frames = excellent. 3-4 frames = good. 5+ frames = your connection has issues worth investigating.
Diagnoses whether lag is from your connection, your opponent's, or both. Essential baseline before trying fixes.
04 Close all bandwidth-heavy applications before queuing
1. Pause or cancel any active downloads in Steam 2. Close browser tabs streaming video (YouTube, Twitch) 3. Disable OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive auto-sync 4. On Windows: open Task Manager > Performance > Ethernet to confirm bandwidth usage near zero 5. Then queue for a match and check if rollback frames decrease
Eliminates jitter spikes from bandwidth bursts. Fighting game rollback is sensitive to even brief jitter events that other game genres tolerate.
05 Flush DNS if lobbies fail to load or matchmaking is stuck
1. Press Win+X, select 'Windows Terminal (Admin)' or 'Command Prompt (Admin)' 2. Run: ipconfig /flushdns 3. Run: netsh winsock reset 4. Restart your PC 5. Launch GG Strive — lobby should load correctly
Fixes lobby connection failures from stale DNS records pointing to old AWS endpoints. GG Strive had server migration issues in 2023; this resolves residual DNS cache problems.
06 Enable QoS on your router for UDP game traffic
Access router admin panel, enable QoS, and prioritize UDP traffic or the GGST-Win64-Shipping.exe application. This ensures game UDP packets are processed before other traffic on your connection.
Reduces jitter during household bandwidth contention (streaming, downloads by other devices).
Still lagging? The problem is likely your ISP's routing to the game servers.
PingAim detects Guilty Gear -Strive- automatically
No manual config. PingAim identifies Guilty Gear -Strive- by process name and routes it through your fastest connection using a kernel-level WFP driver.