It is becoming more and more common to use current fiber optic connections to play over the Internet with our friends or with unknown people.These connections offer us a high speed of data transfer and, in addition, a very low latency that allows us to play online practically in real time, even if we are hundreds of kilometers away from the other players.However, if we really want the connection to work well and have the lowest possible latency, we need to know how to configure our router for gaming, and this is what we are going to explain in this article.The essential factors that we need if we are going to play online and do not want to have problems or disadvantages are, on the one hand, having a fast connection (any FTTH connection, even the lowest current 300 Mbps, would not give us speed problems since playing online does not need a very high speed) and, in addition, it has to be stable so as not to have cuts in the connection that could lead to the expulsion of the game and have a latency as low as possible so as not to give an advantage to other users with lower ping.The speed of the Internet connection is only important when downloading games from the Internet, which can easily take up more than 25GB, and even game updates are also large.In any case, speed, stability and latency are not the only things that we must take into account when playing over the Internet, but it is also necessary to have a good router, be it a gaming router or a high-end router, that it has hardware capable of processing the packets that we send and receive while we play, and also that it optimizes and prioritizes this traffic.The routers of the operators, although they can be used to play, at a hardware and software level are very limited, so we will not be able to enjoy 100% of our fiber connection and we will surely be at a disadvantage or have problems playing .Operator routers have always been characterized by having a very poor Wi-Fi network, with little coverage and also low speed.In addition, when it comes to games, the operators' routers have the problem of bufferbloat, not being able to configure a QoS to prioritize games, and a very limited processor that prevents everything from flowing normally.One of the best gaming routers is the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX11000, the manufacturer's top-of-the-line router today.This router has simultaneous tri-band Wi-Fi AX11000 (up to 1148Mbps on 2.4GHz, and up to 4.804Mbps on each 5GHz band).An important aspect of this router is that it has four Gigabit Ethernet ports for LAN, one 2.5GbE port for LAN/WAN, and one dedicated Gigabit Ethernet port for WAN.At the hardware level it is the best you can buy today, but what stands out above all is its software, and thanks to ASUSWRT Rog, we will have a large number of advanced configuration options, and not only that, but also You will have many functionalities to optimize the games on your local network to the maximum.If we are looking for a good gaming router to replace our operator's, we need to find a model that is compatible with current standards (such as Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, MU-MIMO, etc.), as well as having high-end hardware. (Dual Core or Quad Core processor, plenty of RAM), advanced security measures, Gigabit Ethernet ports and, of course, good firmware optimized for gaming, further reducing connection latency and, furthermore, with functions such as QoS or packet prioritization.Another highly recommended router is the ASUS RT-AX89X, a top-of-the-line router from the manufacturer with simultaneous dual band and WiFi 6 with AX6000 (up to 1148Mbps in 2.4GHz, and up to 4,804Mbps in the 5GHz band), a total of 8 ports Gigabit Ethernet for the LAN, one Gigabit Ethernet port for the Internet WAN, and two 10G ports that allow it to be configured for the LAN/WAN.The most important thing about this router is that it has top-of-the-range hardware, with a Quad-Core processor at 2.2GHz speed and 1GB of RAM, in addition, the Asuswrt firmware is specifically optimized for online games, incorporating a game menu to activate all the functionalities of prioritization and optimization of the traffic oriented specifically to games.This router, having WiFi 6 with 160Mhz channel width, will provide us with great wireless performance, in addition, we must bear in mind that the latest consoles such as the Sony PS5 have WiFi 6 to make the most of the wireless network.Another very important feature is the incorporation of support for WPA3-Personal with protected administration frames, this means that we will have the best possible security in the wireless network.Finally, another highly recommended high-end router is the ASUS RT-AX86U, this model is one of the best value for money, and it also has all the features of top-of-the-range routers to optimize online gaming to the maximum.This router has WiFi 6 with simultaneous dual band AX5400, four Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN with priority on the LAN1 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port for the Internet WAN and one 2.5G Multigigabit port for the LAN/WAN.This model is highly recommended so that you can make the most of your Internet connection and enjoy the best user experience when playing.The consoles, just like computers, can be connected to the Internet through an Ethernet network cable or Wi-Fi, depending on the availability of each user. In addition, the latest generation of consoles is compatible with the most modern protocols, such as the Wi-Fi AC in the 5 GHz band, which would allow much higher speeds to be achieved than with the 2.4 GHz network. The most important thing about the 5GHz band is that it is less congested and we will have less jitter in the connection, because the 2.4GHz band is very crowded.However, a cable connection is not the same as a Wi-Fi connection.Another highly recommended router if you need to play is the NETGEAR Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700, a router with a firmware specifically oriented to gaming DumaOS, this router if you are going to play online games intensively, we are sure you will love it, because it has a complete Dashboard where you will find the real-time status of all connections.If we are going to play online, something essential, whether on a console or on a PC, is that we are connected by cable to the router.Wireless connections always have higher latency than wired connections, as well as being more unstable and potentially affected by interference.If we want the connection to be stable, have low latency and be able to fully enjoy the online game, then it is vital to be connected by cable to our router, a cable that, in order to take advantage of the Gigabit Ethernet standard and for everything to work perfectly, should be of category 6 or higher.In 2022, the Wi-Fi 6E standard has been officially launched by all manufacturers of professional Wi-Fi routers and Wi-Fi access points.This new standard brings us the new 6GHz band so that it can be used both by WiFi routers or APs and by wireless clients, in this way, we will have at our disposal a new frequency band whose main characteristics are the following:With this new frequency band we will be able to connect our desktop or laptop computer via WiFi, and we will achieve high data transfer rates via WiFi, in addition, we will have very low latency because we will not have interference from other neighbors.This technology is very new and not yet widely adopted, ideal for getting the best possible performance in terms of speed and latency.If you have to use WiFi to play because you don't have a network cable in every room, then use this new 6GHz band because it will work much better than the current 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands.In the event that other neighbors are also going to use this new frequency band, you should know that you will have more channels available so as not to have interference with them, in addition, you should know that the 6GHz band attenuates as fast as the 5GHz band, so you shouldn't have interference problems with neighbors that are too far away.Currently there are few routers on the market that support this technology, but little by little the manufacturers will launch their solutions.If you want to have a gaming router with this Wi-Fi 6E technology, you should buy the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000.The ASUS ZenWiFi Pro ET12 Mesh WiFi system also has 6GHz, but we do not have as many gaming options as the ASUS ROG range router.Bufferbloat is one of the most serious problems faced by many FTTH fiber optic users, especially those who have contracted the highest modalities, and that very few media talk about.All routers have a small buffer where they store packets in real time so that they can be processed as soon as possible as the hardware allows.Some vendors think that the larger this buffer is, the more packets can be stored without denying and the better the network will perform.Mistake.A very large buffer in the routers generates an excessive increase in the latency of the connection since, when using FiFo things (first in first out), if this buffer gets a very large queue, then we will get a very high latency. long, reaching to make VoIP and online games unusable.A high-end router will have hardware powerful enough to smoothly move requests for an online game without having to store packets in this buffer and, furthermore, thanks to QoS, this type of traffic will always be prioritized so that it comes out with the highest possible priority and keep our latency as low as possible thanks to the Anti-Bufferbloat system included in the firmware.Unlike what we saw when we explained how to configure a router to surf the Internet, when playing online it is important to have our router correctly configured since there are some options, especially in high-end routers, routers gaming and free firmware such as DD-WRT or OpenWRT, specially designed to prioritize traffic.Another highly recommended router for online gaming is the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AC5300, a really interesting router for its hardware and for its complete firmware with Asuswrt ROG, in addition, it has ports specifically configured to give priority to the devices that connect to it Therefore, just by connecting your gaming equipment to one of these ports, all connections will automatically be prioritized.The first thing we must do is configure our router to be sure that no one connects to it without permission (and can consume bandwidth) and that all the devices we are using are protected within the router.To do this, we will enter the router configuration (remember, entering the router IP in the browser and logging in with our username and password), and we will make sure that the Wi-Fi is configured with a secure key and with WPA2-AES encryption .In addition, we must verify that UPnP is disabled (for security) and that the firewall is enabled, although configured in a slightly restrictive mode.After this basic security configuration, we are going to see the most important options to optimize our router for gaming.If we are using a high-end router or a gaming router like the ones we have recommended, within the configuration panel we will find a series of options that can help us optimize the speed and performance of the games.The first of these options will be QoS.Although in all routers we can find a QoS section, the truth is that most low-end routers, such as those offered by operators, are totally useless, do not work and are useless.If our router is high-end, we will be able to configure the QoS so that it always gives priority to a certain type of traffic, and in addition to VoIP, Streaming and downloads, we will have an option called "gaming" that will allow us to always give priority to the traffic of the games over everything else.The ASUS RT-AX88U is another of the recommended routers for gaming, although it does not have firmware specifically for this use, it does have utilities inside to make the most of the Internet connection.Some of the features are advanced adaptive QoS, bandwidth limiter and many other configuration options.In addition to activating the QoS to give priority to the games, if we are going to play from a video console to the Internet we must enter the IP, or the MAC, of ​​the console in the DMZ.The DMZ allows us to place said device outside the router as such, forgetting about having to open or close ports and having direct access to the Internet and it will allow us to achieve NAT1 in the connection tests by not having to pass the routing.If what we want is to play online from the PC, for security reasons we do not recommend placing it in the DMZ, but, although it may be a bit more laborious, it is better to open the ports that the game needs in the router by hand and not have problems .A good experience when playing online not only depends on our router, but we must also take into account that our PC must be optimized and ready to play.The better our hardware (CPU, RAM, GPU), the more FPS we will get in the game and therefore, in addition to better graphics quality, the game will be more stable.In addition, we must also take into account that there may be applications on our computer, or on another computer connected to the network (such as torrent download clients) that can consume bandwidth and, therefore, increase latency and problems when playing on-line.We must make sure that these applications are closed and nothing is consuming bandwidth while we play.If our connection is slow, even if we have other people connected to the network watching Netflix or YouTube, we may have problems playing online, and in this case we can only solve it by contracting a higher speed.