Optus Game Path courts PC gamers with low lag promise

Joseph Hanlon - Editorial Director

Last updated 02 October 2020

he's a rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone

Optus today announced a new add-on for NBN plans that it claims can reduce in-game lag by 30% on average.

Game Path will be available from next week, October 6, as a $10 per month bolt-on option for fixed-line Optus NBN plans.

Lag refers to high latency in an internet connection, which is the time taken for information to be sent between your device and internet servers. High latency can be a big problem for Australian gamers given the geographic distance from overseas game servers. This is compounded by the way that network traffic is routed along the way. It’s not uncommon for the information you send and receive to ‘hop’ numerous network locations along the way.

Game Path is designed to monitor performance and identify the fastest route between the PC and gaming servers. Optus says it achieves this by accessing hundreds of points of presence (PoP) across the world and using machine learning to identify the fastest path for the connection. Reducing the number of hops and finding the fastest PoPs will go a long way to achieve lower latency.

The Game Path software is a Windows 10 application, so will only be of benefit to gamers playing on Windows machines. Optus says the software has a database of over 1500 online games that it will work with, and that adding new games can be added to the list in less than a day after gamers request the addition.

This announcement follows a similar product launch called Game Optimiser from Telstra in mid-September. For the same $10 per month, Telstra NBN customers can access similar traffic routing. However, the difference with Game Optimiser is that the software is installed in the Telstra NBN Smart Modem, so the benefit can be shared with any device on the network, including gaming consoles.

Joseph Hanlon

Editorial Director | X | LinkedIn

Joe Hanlon has been immersed in mobile phones, plans and the internet for over a decade, having written for publications like CNET, Techradar, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. He steers the editorial ship and makes sure that we are always serving up the most useful guides and recommendations. If you ever bump into Joe on the street, don't be afraid to ask for a phone recommendation. It's embarrassing how much he enjoys talking about this stuff. He also loves listening to podcasts, so feel free to email Joe with recommendations.

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