Why Is My PS5 Lagging With Good Internet? [FIXED!]

We’ve all been there. Doing the research, investing in a good internet connection, getting ready to frag-out online, then lagging badly as soon as the action starts.

You want to frag but all you get is lag.

You get frustrated, your buddies laugh sarcastically because they don’t believe the lag excuse, and you’re extra annoyed because you already upgraded your internet connection and this isn’t supposed to be happening anymore…

You’ve come to the right place, because I’ve had all of these same issues in the past, too.

Going back as far as PS2 and online PC gaming before that, I’ve dealt with all sorts of lag issues so I’ve put together a wealth of knowledge on how to fix all of them.

This guide is based on fixes that have worked for me in the past, along with researching additional bugs and fixes for PS5 lag issues.

Keep in mind, that if you have a different Playstation other than PS5, or a different console altogether, or you’re dealing with lag on a PC or laptop, some of these fixes will still be applicable. You’ll just have to adapt the instructions a bit. For example, some of the menus or settings might be phrased differently, but in general, most of the fixes for lag will work broadly across different devices and systems.

I hope this resource saves you a ton of time so that you can get back to gaming at full speed – with no excuses – so you can make your buddies regret laughing when you blamed your latency.

Step 0: Make SURE Your Internet is Good

The title of this article assumes that you have good internet, but “good internet” doesn’t necessarily mean that your internet connection isn’t causing the problem here.

You could have a great internet connection, but it might not be connecting to your PlayStation 5 properly. This is a case where you could have good internet, but your PlayStation 5 is still lagging due to a connection issue.

So, unless you’re 100% certain without a single drop of doubt that your internet connection is not the problem, I highly recommend checking out the following page to troubleshoot PS5 internet connection issues. Here’s a quick rundown, though:

• Run an Internet Speed Test, Check UP and DOWN Speeds
• Restart Your Router
• Connect Via Ethernet if You Can, Otherwise, Improve Your WiFi Signal
• Check For Other Devices Interfering

WiFi connections, even in this age, are still quite fickle. Bluetooth can interfere with WiFi, and other devices having WiFi turned on can also interfere. This can be more than enough to cause interruptions on your PS5, so try turning the WiFi off on your cellphone and other nearby devices, and try turning off Bluetooth. If this helps, you know that the problem is due to a bad WiFi connection between your router and PS5.

Summary: When you’re lagging in a game, the first thing to check is the internet connection. You might be paying for a good connection, and your cable/internet company might be telling you that you have a good connection, but that isn’t always the case.

Moving forward in this guide, we’ll assume your connection is all good, and now we’ll troubleshoot everything else that could be causing your PS5 to lag.

PS5 Lagging With Good Internet? # Possible Causes

You’ve held up your hand and solemnly sworn that it’s not your internet connection causing the lag issue, so let’s look at other possible causes for lag on PlayStation 5, and some things you can try to fix this problem.

Reduce Your Graphics Settings

Your Playstation 5 is a very powerful machine, but it doesn’t have infinite processing power. By playing around with the settings, you might be able to give yourself a smoother gameplay experience.

Typically, when it comes to graphics settings for games, you can imagine a see-saw and one side is a higher resolution/better graphic settings in general, and the other side is a better framerate. It’s about finding the balance that works for you. If you’re playing on an old TV or monitor, you might not even be able to see anything above 30 frames per second, so in that case it makes sense to de-prioritize the FPS (frames per second), and instead go for a higher resolution or better graphical settings. And vice-versa applies if you’re using a monitor that isn’t able to display higher resolutions.

However, if lag is an issue you’re dealing with, then you’ll want to lower your Playstation 5’s graphic settings by trying out PERFORMANCE MODE. This might not even be the primary cause of your lag, but it’ll still help and it’s worth changing these around, at least to troubleshoot and rule it out.

Free Up Storage Space

A completely packed harddrive can contribute to poor performance and lag on your PlayStation 5. This isn’t unique to PS5, either. Any device with a hard drive could see a performance improvement when the hard drive isn’t filled with files.

You have two options if your PS5 is running out of storage space:

1. Add more storage
2. Delete stuff from your current storage

There’s really not all that much more to dive into here. If you have games or media on your PS5 that you can part with for the time being, delete them. If you can’t free up any space, you can buy additional storage for your PS5 and they’ve made it pretty easy to upgrade this yourself.

We’ll cover the upgrade process more in-depth in a future guide. For now, just keep it simple and delete some stuff, give your storage drive some breathing room and this should help with performance and contribute to improving the lagginess that’s hampering your gaming sessions.

Close Background Apps

Here’s another really quick fix to try.

If you’ve got background apps open on your PS5, try closing them. Restart your system, and make sure the only thing using up any resources is the game you’re trying to play.

Background apps don’t tend to use a ton of processing power, especially when they’re essentially just sleeping in the background, but every little bit helps on the quest to zero lag.

Update Your PlayStation 5

If your PS5 system software isn’t up to date, this could potentially cause some issues. It’s good to keep your software updated for a number of reasons, especially since you’ll have limited functionality without updating your firmware when new versions arrive.

It’s easy, so if you haven’t got your PS5 up to date, give this a try…

Rebuild Your Playstation 5 Database

What happens when you rebuild your PS5 database? It’s kind of like defragmenting a hard drive, for any of the boomers who remember that sort of thing from back in the day.

• To rebuild your PS5’s database, simply PRESS and HOLD the POWER button for 7 seconds. This will launch your console in SAFE MODE.
• Follow the prompts on screen and select REBUILD DATABASE.

Voila, it’s that simple.

This process will cause your PlayStation 5 to basically re-index the locations of all the files on your storage, which optimizes things and makes it faster for the system to access these files, which should help with performance to some degree. It’s not the sure-fire fix for a laggy PS5, but every little bit can help and that’s what we’re aiming for.

Reinstall Your Game

Listen, I’ll level with you. This isn’t going to be the most impactful thing on this list to try, but I’ve heard from people who said this fixed their lag issues, so I would be remiss if I didn’t pass that along.

We’re getting into “last resort” territory here, but reinstalling your game is still easier than the next two things I’m going to recommend trying, so bear with me. Is it bear with me or bare with me? It’s got to be bear, right? Bare with me would be an odd thing to say. Anyways, here’s how to install whichever PS5 game is giving you lag, if this seems to happen with one game in particular.

If most games are causing lag, this probably won’t help unless it allows you to free up some storage space, in which case it’s helping because of the extra space. At the very end of this page, we’ll go into more detail about how to identify WHAT is causing the lag, and not just how to fix it.

To reinstall a PS5 game, you simply need to delete the game from your system and then download it again from the “My Collection” menu.

• Step 1: Delete The Game: Delete your PS5 game by going to the HOME menu, pressing OPTIONS, and then selecting DELETE.
• Step 2: Re-Installing a PS5 Game: You can reinstall a PS5 game by going to the GAME LIBRARY menu, go to MY COLLECTION and finding the game that you want to download and install.

Last Resort 1: Reset to Factory Settings/Defaults

It’s never fun to have to reset to factory settings, but sometimes that’s all that is left to try.

Before you do this, make absolutely sure that the problem isn’t related to your internet connection. It’s usually the internet connection! We didn’t go into a ton of details about fixing lag when it IS caused by your connection, since that’s not the purpose of this article, and if you’re here – we’re assuming you’ve confident it’s not your internet connection that is the cause of LAG on your PlayStation 5.

So, with that final warning out of the way, here’s how to reset your PlayStation 5 to factory settings…

• From your PS5’s dashboard, go to SETTINGS.
• Select SYSTEM and then SYSTEM SOFTWARE.
• Select RESET OPTIONS.

You’ll see 3 choices to choose from. “Clear learning dictionary” just gets rid of text-predictions (when suggestions pop-up as you type in text, based on things you’ve typed in previously). The second option is “Restory default settings” whcih will just reset any settings that you’ve cahnged on your console. Finally, the option called RESET THE CONSOLE is what we’re looking for.

1. In your console’s dashboard, navigate to the Settings menu.
2. Open the “System” section and select “System software.”
3. Select “Reset options” and choose what you want to do with the data on your PS5:
   • “Clear learning dictionary” will delete all terms that you have personally entered into your PS5, which are stored to help the device predict what you’re searching for. This is not a factory reset — clearing the dictionary will not affect saved game data, apps, or personal information.
   • “Restore default settings” will simply revert any changes you’ve made in the settings on the PS5. Like the option above, this is not a factory reset — the rest of your data on the device will remain intact.
   • “Reset the console” will delete everything from your PS5 and restore it to its initial state. This is the factory reset option you’re looking for.

Last Resort 2: Contact Sony’s PlayStation Support

You can always try reaching out to Sony’s support. This can be hit or miss, but they might be able to point you in the right direction when nothing else is working. Check into your system’s warranty, too, depending on when you purchased it.

I know, this isn’t the answer you want to hear, because reaching out to support for big companies can be a nightmare but we’re getting to the point where there isn’t much else to try, and they may be aware of some new bugs/glitches that could be causing issues, or they might have some inside tips to help point you in the right direction, at least.

Is Your Playstation 5 Still Lagging With a Good Internet Connection? Here’s What’s Next…

I can imagine it’s pretty frustrating if you’ve gone through everything mentioned on this page and you’re still having lag issues with your Playstation 5. What I’m about to suggest might have you seeing red if you’re already kind of annoyed, but bear with me…

Check your internet connection again!

If all of the above things are in check, then it’s *probably* your internet connection causing these problems.

It’s possible to get good scores on your internet speed tests and still have issues with lag, so a few speed tests don’t necessarily mean your connection isn’t the problem.

What could happen is that it’s just an intermittent issue that doesn’t show up in the few moments that it takes to run a speed test. If you lag only now and then, it’s unlikely this connection disruption will show up at the exact moment that you’re running the speed test.

So, double-check for any other wireless devices (including Bluetooth) that could be interfering, and try isolating it.

If you use Bluetooth headphones, for instance, see if the lag is happening any less often, or if it’s not as bad, when you don’t have the headphones connected or powered on at all.

Try turning off Bluetooth and WiFi on your cellphone while gaming on your PS5, and see if that helps.

If you have a Smart TV with an always-on WiFi connection, it could be doing things in the background that are causing a hiccup in your internet connection, so try that as well.

The fix to WiFi connection issues causing lag on PlayStation 5 is simply to use a wired ethernet connection. That’s not always practical, especially if you need to run a long cable. Since a relatively long ethernet cable is pretty affordable these days, it’s not a bad idea to buy a cable that’s long enough to reach from your router to your PS5 just as a temporary thing to try.

If this fixes the lag issues, then you know the problems were caused by the wireless connection for one reason or another, and this gives you a chance to further try to troubleshoot and fix the problem, or just run the ethernet cable and be done with it.

Additional Troubleshooting for a PS5 That Lags With Good Internet

It can be helpful to determine if it’s every game that lags for you, or just some games. Try some differnt games and see what happens.

More importantly, try playing some offline games and see if they lag the same as online games. If your single player, offline (or mostly offline) games aren’t lagging, and your online games are lagging, guess what? It’s probably the internet connection. I tried to warn you!

Another way that you can narrow things down is by comparing the performance between big, top-tier AAA games and small, simple indie games. If your more resource-demanding games tend to lag, and less graphically-intensive games run perfectly, that could hint that you’re having some system performance issues, but it doesn’t necessarily rule out the internet connection since a massive multiplayer game is going to be sending and receiving a lot more data than a simple multiplayer platformer, for instance.

Do you notice a different in lag at different times of day? Right after the typical work/school hours and into the evenings tend to be the busiest times for internet use, so if you’re in an apartment building or anywhere else that’s going to have a lot of internet traffic during peak hours, this could also be a problem. In that case, there’s not a whole lot you can do without switching internet service providers and even that isn’t guaranteed to fix the problem.

Does it run better during non-peak hours? If so, you might just have to try to schedule your day around that. Do some other stuff during the peak hours, and get your gaming time in early in the morning and later in the evening.

Coming soon: How to Fix a Laggy Internet Connection on PlayStation 5

If you made it all the way to the end and your lag still isn’t fixed after trying everything… First of all, that’s rough, so accept my empathy. Secondly, please… please… I beg you, please make sure it’s not your internet connection, a poor WiFi signal, an unstable connection, etc.