Does DNS Actually Affect Your Ping?

Short answer: no — not the ping that matters in a match. Switching from your ISP's default DNS to Cloudflare or Google will not make headshots register faster or lower the number your game shows during a firefight. What DNS does affect is how quickly your device finds a server's address in the first place — the handshake that happens before the game even starts sending gameplay traffic. Understanding that distinction saves you from chasing the wrong fix when your ping looks fine on paper but a match still feels laggy.

Why DNS Doesn't Touch In-Game Ping

Every domain name (like matchmaking.valorant.com) has to be translated into an IP address before your device can talk to it. That translation is a DNS lookup, and it typically takes somewhere between 5ms and 100ms depending on the resolver, whether the answer is cached, and how far away the resolver's server is. Here's the part that matters: this lookup happens once, at the moment you connect — not on every packet during gameplay. After the lookup resolves, your game or console holds onto that IP address and talks directly to the server (or the nearest edge node) for the rest of the session. The 20-30ms of ping you see in an FPS lobby is round-trip time over that direct connection; DNS is not in that loop at all. A slow DNS resolver can make a menu screen feel sluggish for a fraction of a second. It cannot make your bullets land later.

Where DNS Actually Does Matter

None of this means DNS is irrelevant to your gaming experience — it just affects different moments than people assume:

Server browser and lobby loads. Games that query dozens of regional endpoints to populate a server list (older shooters, some MMO launchers) do many DNS lookups in quick succession. A slow resolver adds visible delay here, even though it never touches actual gameplay.
CDN selection for downloads and patches. Game clients and platforms like Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation Network use DNS-based routing to pick which content delivery network (CDN) node serves your download. A resolver that returns a geographically distant or less optimal CDN address can genuinely slow down patch downloads — this is one of the few places DNS choice measurably changes speed, not just lookup time.
Initial matchmaking and authentication endpoints. Logging in, authenticating, and getting handed off to a match server all involve DNS lookups before the low-latency game connection is established. A resolver with high lookup latency or frequent timeouts can make "connecting to match" screens drag on, especially on flaky mobile or public Wi-Fi networks.

In short: DNS affects the on-ramp, not the highway. If your actual gameplay ping is high, the cause lives somewhere else — see our guide on what causes high ping for the real culprits.

Comparing Popular DNS Providers

Lookup latency depends heavily on your location and ISP, but these are the general characteristics of the most commonly recommended options:

DNS Provider	Address	Typical Lookup Latency	Notes
Cloudflare	1.1.1.1 / 1.0.0.1	Low, often under 10ms to the nearest edge	Large anycast network with edge nodes in most major cities; privacy-focused, no query logging
Google Public DNS	8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4	Low, comparable to Cloudflare in most regions	Very reliable uptime and broad caching; some regions route through fewer edge nodes
Quad9	9.9.9.9 / 149.112.112.112	Low to moderate	Blocks known malicious domains by default; smaller edge footprint than Cloudflare or Google in some countries
ISP Default	Varies by provider	Varies widely — can be fastest or slowest option	Often physically closest to you, which can mean low latency, but quality varies a lot between providers

The honest takeaway from this table: for most people in most locations, the difference between these options is a handful of milliseconds on a lookup that happens once per connection. That is not nothing, but it is not going to fix a 100ms ping problem either.

How to Change DNS on Windows

Open Settings and go to Network & Internet.
Click your active connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet), then Edit next to DNS server assignment.
Switch from Automatic to Manual, and turn on IPv4.
Enter your preferred DNS as the primary (for example, 1.1.1.1) and a secondary (for example, 1.0.0.1), then click Save.
Flush the DNS cache by opening Command Prompt and running ipconfig /flushdns so the change takes effect immediately.

How to Change DNS on macOS

Open System Settings and select Network.
Choose your active connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet) and click Details.
Select the DNS tab.
Click the plus button and add your preferred DNS addresses (for example, 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1).
Click OK, then Apply. Flush the cache from Terminal with sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder.

How to Change DNS on Your Router

Changing DNS at the router applies it to every device on your network at once, which is more convenient than configuring each console, PC, and phone individually.

Find your router's IP address (commonly 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) and log into its admin panel through a browser.
Look for a section labeled WAN Setup, Internet Setup, or DNS Settings — location varies by manufacturer.
Switch DNS from automatic (usually your ISP's servers) to manual, and enter your chosen primary and secondary addresses.
Save the settings and reboot the router so all connected devices pick up the new configuration.

Some ISP-provided modems in bridge/router combo mode lock DNS settings. If the option isn't available at the router level, you can still set custom DNS per device instead.

How to Measure the Real Difference

Don't take anyone's word for which resolver is faster in your location — including this article's. You can measure it directly:

Time a lookup with nslookup (Windows) or dig (macOS/Linux). Run nslookup google.com 1.1.1.1 and note the response time, then repeat against 8.8.8.8, 9.9.9.9, and your ISP's resolver. On Mac or Linux, dig google.com @1.1.1.1 shows a "Query time" field directly in the output. Run each test three or four times, since the first query to any resolver is often slower due to an empty cache.
Test your actual gameplay ping separately. DNS timing tells you nothing about in-game latency, so don't extrapolate one from the other. Use our ping test to check real round-trip latency to nearby endpoints before and after switching DNS — if gameplay ping doesn't move, that confirms DNS was never the bottleneck.
Watch connection and lobby load times, not ping numbers. If your goal is faster matchmaking or server browser loads, time those screens with a stopwatch before and after the DNS change — that is where any real improvement will show up.

If your gameplay ping is genuinely unstable rather than just occasionally high, DNS is not the fix — check our guide on how to fix ping spikes for causes that actually live inside the gameplay connection.

The Bottom Line

Changing your DNS server is a low-risk, low-effort tweak worth doing once — it can shave time off connecting to lobbies and downloading updates, and providers like Cloudflare and Quad9 add privacy benefits your ISP's default resolver doesn't offer. Just don't expect it to move your in-game ping number. If a match feels laggy, the fix is almost always somewhere else: server selection, your Wi-Fi vs Ethernet setup, network congestion, or your route to the game server itself.