What internet speed do you actually need for online gaming?

How much speed you need for gaming is less than you think for the game itself, and more than you think for everything around it. If you are weighing up whether to upgrade your plan on the assumption it will fix your lag, this guide will save you time and money. It separates the two things people confuse: bandwidth, which is how much data your connection can move, and latency, which is how quickly it responds. Gameplay needs very little of the first and a lot of the second.  

The sections below cover how much speed different types of gaming actually use, why a faster plan often will not lower your ping, and how to match an nbn tier to the way you play so you neither overpay nor under-buy. 

Online gaming barely touches your bandwidth 

The game itself uses far less data than almost anything else you do online. Online multiplayer sends small, frequent packets of player position and game-state data rather than a heavy stream, so most titles run comfortably on only a few Mbps. Superloop's own plan information lists online gaming as supported from the NBN 50 (50/17 Mbps typical evening speed) tier upward, and competitive shooters, MOBAs and sports games sit at the lighter end of that range. That speed might not accommodate more users and devices connected at the same time, though. So, your overall usage needs to be assessed.

Only two things on that list need real speed: cloud gaming, where your screen is streamed back as live video, and downloads. Everything else is light, which is why download speed is so rarely the reason a game feels bad if you don’t have multiple devices and other users fighting for your bandwidth at the same time. But when is that ever the case? 

Latency, not speed, decides your gaming experience 

Latency is the metric that actually determines how a game feels, and it is not the same thing as speed. Measured as ping in milliseconds, latency is how long a packet takes to travel to the game server and back. It decides whether your shots register, your abilities fire on time and your connection holds under pressure. A faster plan does not lower it, because ping is set by the routing path and network architecture between you and the server, not by how many Mbps you are paying for. 

For online play, under 20 ms is excellent, 20 to 40 ms is good, 40 to 60 ms is playable, and over 60 ms is where competitive games start to suffer. For comparison, independently measured ACCC data recorded Superloop's peak-hour latency at 8.5 ms (ACCC Measuring Broadband Australia, Report 33, June 2026, data collected March 2026), comfortably inside the excellent range with headroom to spare. 

This is why moving from a 500 Mbps plan to a 1000 Mbps plan rarely changes your ping. If your lag is caused by distance to the server, an inefficient routing path or peak-hour congestion, more bandwidth does nothing. The fix for those is a better-routed network or a connection-type change, covered in our companion guide, how to reduce lag on nbn. 

When speed actually matters for gamers 

Speed matters for four things, and none of them is the moment-to-moment gameplay. Match your plan to whichever of these describes you. 

• Downloading games and patches. Modern titles run well past 100 GB and updates can be tens of gigabytes, so this is where a fast plan pays for itself. A 100 GB download takes roughly a couple of hours on NBN 100 (95/17 Mbps typical evening speed) but under half an hour on NBN 500 (500/40 Mbps typical evening speed). 

• Cloud gaming. On GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming or PlayStation Plus Premium your game is rendered in a data centre and streamed to you as live video, so you genuinely need bandwidth: around 25 Mbps for a stable 1080p stream, and 35 to 45 Mbps for higher resolutions and frame rates. Even then, low and stable latency matters more than raw speed. 

• Live streaming. Broadcasting to Twitch or YouTube while you play leans on upload, not download. A 1080p 60fps stream needs roughly 6 to 8 Mbps of upload running at the same time as your game, which is where nbn's lower upload speeds can become the limit. Our streaming guide covers the bitrate detail. 

• A busy household. This is the one most gamers underestimate. Your game competes with everyone else: 4K streams, video calls and other downloads. On a shared connection, a higher tier gives each activity room so your game is not starved during peak hours. 

Match your nbn speed tier to how you actually game 

Pick the tier that fits the heaviest thing you do, not the game itself. For most solo and console gamers that is NBN 500 (500/40 Mbps typical evening speed); for busy households, frequent big downloads or cloud gaming it is NBN 1000 (860/85 Mbps typical evening speed); and only streamers, multi-gamer households and 4K cloud-gaming setups genuinely benefit from the gigabit tiers. 

When upgrading your plan will reduce lag, and when it won't 

Upgrading your plan reduces lag only when the lag is caused by your household running out of bandwidth at peak, not when it is caused by ping. If your evening lag comes from several people streaming and downloading while you play, a higher tier gives everyone room and the lag eases. If your ping is high because of the routing path, your connection type or congestion on your provider's network, a faster plan changes nothing; you will simply download games faster while still lagging. 

Before you upgrade, run one simple test: play at an off-peak time, such as mid-morning. If the lag disappears, it is contention, and more speed or a tidier home network will help. If the lag is the same at 3 am as at 8 pm, it is latency, and the answer is a better-routed network rather than a bigger number on your bill. A network that holds its speed through the evening, as the busy-hour figure above shows, is doing the part that actually protects your game from your household. 

It is also worth knowing which providers perform when it counts. Superloop holds the TechRadar 2026 Australian PC Award for Best nbn Provider for Gaming, alongside Finder's nbn Provider of the Year 2026 and the WhistleOut 2026 Internet Customer Satisfaction - Internet Speed. In 2025, Superloop was the winner of the first-ever WhistleOut Internet Customer Satisfaction Award 2025. 

Next step 

Not sure which tier fits your setup? Check your address for connection type and eligibility, then choose the nbn plan that matches how you actually game, rather than the biggest number.