Latency is a natural enemy of every online gamer, but it can affect any user regardless of the activity they perform. Windows includes built-in tools to measure latency, but a dedicated application makes the process much easier. That's where NetworkLatencyView comes in, another gem in Nirsoft's extensive collection.
When establishing communications, we unfortunately cannot break the laws of physics. The wonderful Grace Hopper explained this in her historic lecture on nanoseconds, and even the most powerful armed forces in the world cannot escape latency. However, technical issues or configuration errors (both local and from the provider) also reduce the speed of our links... and destroy our sanity.
How do we detect these problems? The combination of ping and tracert is very popular in Windows environments, but that enables analysis of one connection at a time. How about extending the process to all new connections on the machine? That's the job of NetworkLatencyView, another tool from the tireless Nirsoft.
NetworkLatencyView: Track the Latency of Your Connections
One of the most interesting details about NetworkLatencyView is that it carries an external dependency. This is not common among Nirsoft projects, but the application needs a module to capture packets. The most common and compatible recommendation is WinPcap, which still works well despite its retirement.
Once WinPcap is installed, NetworkLatencyView will let you choose its option in the configuration menu, select the correct interface, and enable promiscuous mode. The NetworkLatencyView window will start filling with data about each new connection, source and destination IP address, hosts, destination country (whenever it can be resolved), the average latency, and the last ten readings.
NetworkLatencyView also supports high-resolution latency logging, so it can show readings down to thousandths of a millisecond. If you think that's not relevant, the option to disable it is inside the Options menu. As always, Nirsoft provides a wide range of logging parameters, and except for the WinPcap detail, NetworkLatencyView is fully portable. Download a copy!
Official site and download: Click here
