Estimate latency needs for online gaming.
What a player feels is not raw ping. Jitter adds unpredictability that the client must buffer against, and the server's tick rate adds an average of half a tick interval before your input is processed — 7.8 ms on a 64 Hz server. Comparing measured ping with the speed-of-light minimum for the distance separates unavoidable physics from fixable routing and queueing overhead.
Effective latency budget
Theoretical min = 2 x distance km / 200 km per ms; effective latency = ping + jitter + (1000 / tick rate) / 2; overhead = ping - theoretical min
Because real paths are not straight lines and every hop adds queueing and processing. A route with two or three intermediate networks typically adds 10-30 ms beyond the geographic minimum, which is what the overhead figure captures.
Yes, measurably. Moving from 20 Hz to 64 Hz cuts average server-side delay from 25 ms to under 8 ms, and 128 Hz halves it again. It is why competitive communities argue about tick rate as much as about ping.
Often, yes. A stable 70 ms connection plays more predictably than one averaging 40 ms with 40 ms of jitter, because the client cannot interpolate reliably when arrival times vary. Reducing jitter usually means eliminating wifi or a congested uplink.