What DNS actually does
DNS, the Domain Name System, is the internet's phone book. When anything on your network wants to reach a service, it usually starts with a name: a launcher checking for updates, a store page loading, a game's login service. Names are for humans and configuration files; data itself travels between numerical IP addresses. DNS resolution is the translation step: your device asks a resolver "what address belongs to this name?", gets a number back, and only then opens the actual connection to that address.
Three details of that process matter for everything that follows. First, resolution happens before a connection, not during it, it is the introduction, not the conversation. Second, answers are cached: your device and your router remember recent lookups, so the translation usually happens once per service, not once per click, and certainly not once per packet. Third, your resolver is normally assigned automatically by your internet provider, which is why "changing DNS" simply means pointing your device or router at a different resolver, typically a large public one, such as the public resolvers run by Google and Cloudflare, instead of your provider's.
Why changing DNS cannot lower your in-game ping
Follow a match from start to finish and watch where DNS is, and is not. When you queue, the game's matchmaking service decides which server will host you and hands your game client that server's address directly. Your client then opens a connection to that address, and for the entire match, gameplay data flows between your device and that address, packet after packet, thousands of times. At no point in that exchange does anything stop to look up a name. DNS was involved, if at all, back at login and matchmaking, the lobby door, not the road.
Ping, meanwhile, is the travel time on the road: your device to the server and back, governed by distance, route and congestion. Changing which phone book you consulted at the door cannot shorten the road, reroute it, or clear its traffic. This is why controlled before-and-after tests of "gaming DNS" changes show in-game ping unchanged, and why the improvement stories attached to DNS swaps dissolve under measurement: players change DNS at the same time as something else changed, a different server, a quieter hour, a restarted router, and credit the wrong fix.
There is one narrow edge case, worth stating for completeness. If a game's services resolve several candidate addresses and your resolver returns a poorly-chosen one, an overloaded login or matchmaking endpoint, for instance, a better resolver can occasionally change which front door you enter through. That affects logging in and getting matched, not the ping inside the match itself. It is real, rare, and nothing like the across-the-board ping cuts advertised for DNS changes.
What changing DNS genuinely can improve
None of this makes DNS pointless. It makes it specific. Changing resolvers is a real fix for a recognisable set of problems:
- Slow first loads. If websites, launchers and stores hesitate before anything starts loading, then load quickly once they start, lookups are likely the slow part. A sluggish ISP resolver adds that pause to every new name; a responsive public resolver can remove it, which is why a DNS change can honestly make a PC feel faster without touching game ping at all.
- Failing lookups and resolver outages. ISP resolvers occasionally fail or return wrong answers, producing "site can't be reached" errors while the connection itself is fine. A different resolver routes around that failure entirely. If your connection "dies" in a way that only affects reaching new services while existing connections (including a match in progress) carry on, a resolver fault is a prime suspect.
- Stale or manipulated answers. Some provider resolvers redirect failed lookups to advertising or search pages, or cache answers past their sensible life. Public resolvers run by Google and Cloudflare are generally operated as neutral infrastructure; switching removes that interference layer.
- Consistency across devices. Setting DNS at the router gives every device in the home the same resolver behaviour, instead of each device inheriting whatever it was told.
Equally honestly: if your provider's resolver is healthy, none of this applies. Millions of players are on ISP DNS that works perfectly well, and for them changing DNS changes nothing measurable in any direction. That is the correct default expectation, a tool for specific symptoms, not a ritual.
How to change DNS: router, PC and consoles
The change itself is small and fully reversible, note your current settings (usually "automatic") before you start, so you can return in seconds. Choose one level to change at:
On your router (whole home)
Sign in to your router's administration page, find the internet/WAN or DHCP settings, and replace the automatic DNS option with the resolver addresses of your chosen public provider, as published by that provider. Every device that joins your network then uses it. This is the tidiest option for households and the one that covers consoles automatically.
On Windows (one device)
In the network adapter settings for your active connection, reached through the Settings app's network section or the classic adapter options, open the Internet Protocol Version 4 properties and switch DNS from automatic to manual, entering your chosen resolver addresses. Your other devices are unaffected, which makes this the cleanest way to test before committing the whole house.
On PlayStation and Xbox (one console)
Both consoles expose DNS inside their network setup: when configuring the connection, choose custom/manual settings and you will reach primary and secondary DNS fields alongside the IP options. Our platform guides walk the console network settings in context, optimising your PlayStation connection and improving Xbox connection stability both cover where these fields sit within each system's setup flow. Remember what you are fixing by changing them: lookup behaviour, not match ping.
Whichever level you pick, providers are a short, well-known list. The public resolvers operated by Google and Cloudflare are the ones most often used; both publish their addresses and policies openly. We deliberately do not rank them: any honest difference between major resolvers is measured in lookup milliseconds under particular conditions, not in gaming outcomes, and a "best gaming DNS" league table would be inventing precision that does not exist.
How to test whether changing DNS changed anything
Test the thing DNS actually does, and separately confirm the thing it does not. For lookups, compare before and after on the symptoms that motivated you: time how long your launcher or a set of familiar websites take to begin loading from a cold start, several times each way, and check whether lookup failures have stopped. For the game itself, run the disciplined ping baseline from our guide to testing your ping before playing, same game, same region, same hour, three readings, middle value, with the old DNS and the new.
Expect the second test to show no change, and treat that as the method working, not failing. If your in-game ping "improves" dramatically after a DNS swap, the honest explanation is almost always a confound: a different server, a different hour, the router restart you did along the way. Players who understand this stop re-rolling their settings every bad evening and start measuring the variables that actually move ping, which are the subject of most of the other guides in this section.
The myths, taken one at a time
- "DNS makes the internet faster." It can make starting connections faster when lookups were slow. It does not change bandwidth, and it does not change the speed of anything already connected.
- "DNS changes your route to the server." It does not. Routing is decided by networks after the connection exists; DNS only supplied the destination address. Our explainer on how game routing works covers the machinery DNS is so often confused with.
- "This DNS is optimised for gaming." There is no gaming-specific work for a resolver to optimise. The phrase markets ordinary public resolvers to players.
- "Changing DNS fixes packet loss." Loss happens on the road between you and the server, after DNS has finished. Different problem, different guide.
- "Everyone should change DNS just in case." With a healthy ISP resolver there is no "in case" benefit to collect, only new settings to remember you changed when something else breaks later.
If not DNS, what does change the road?
Players reach for DNS because they sense, correctly, that the journey to the server matters and their provider's defaults might not be ideal. The instinct is right; the tool is wrong. The journey itself, which networks your packets cross, where congestion sits, how direct the path is, is routing, and routing is what a game routing tool such as GearUP Booster actually works on: it carries your game traffic over its own network instead of accepting your provider's default path, for the games and servers you select. Where a DNS change swaps the phone book, a routing tool swaps the road.
Keep the two in their lanes and the whole topic clarifies. Lookup problems, resolver outages, slow first loads: DNS territory, fixed at the router or device in minutes, free. In-game ping, route congestion, a bad path to a specific game's servers: routing territory, addressed by region choice first and, where the route is the proven problem, by a routing tool, tested with the same before-and-after discipline this guide applied to DNS. GearUP offers a free trial, and trial terms vary, so a routing test on your own connection costs nothing but the honesty to measure it properly.
Frequently asked questions
Will changing DNS lower my ping in games?+
No. Games connect to a server address handed to them by matchmaking, and match traffic flows directly between your device and that address without further name lookups. DNS finishes before the match starts, so it cannot affect the travel time during it. Measure before and after if you want to see this for yourself, the numbers will agree.
Is it safe to change my DNS settings?+
Yes, with ordinary care. The change is a standard, documented setting on routers, PCs and consoles, and it is fully reversible, note the original (usually "automatic") setting first. Use a resolver operated by an organisation you trust, since that operator can see which names your network looks up; the major public resolvers publish their data-handling policies for exactly this reason.
Which DNS is best for gaming?+
There is no gaming-specific category for a resolver to be best at. The public resolvers run by Google and Cloudflare are the common choices because they are fast, neutral and reliable as lookup services. Choose one if you have lookup symptoms to fix; expect no effect on in-game ping from any of them.
Should I change DNS on my router or on each device?+
Router-level is tidier for a household: one change covers consoles, PCs and phones, including devices with limited settings. Device-level is better for testing, since it affects only that machine and is quicker to reverse. Many players test on one device first, then move the change to the router only if it genuinely fixed a lookup problem.
My games drop when my ISP has DNS problems. Will a public resolver prevent that?+
It prevents the lookup failures themselves: new services, logins and stores keep working when your provider's resolver fails. A match already in progress typically survives a resolver outage anyway, because it no longer needs lookups, which is itself a neat demonstration of where DNS sits in the chain.
DNS deserves neither the hype nor the dismissal it gets online. It is a small, honest piece of infrastructure with a small, honest job: translating names before connections begin. Fix it when lookups are your problem, leave it alone when they are not, and spend your troubleshooting effort on distance, route and loss, the things your ping is actually made of.
