packet loss vs. lag... what exactly is the difference???

[zskillz]

I play a lot of online games, and i know for a fact that I can have a low ping and still have mad lag... i've been told that this is because of packet loss, but i really have no idea exactly what the hell that means... could anyone shed some light on this one for me??
thanks
-Z

[OuTpaTienT]

Simply put computers communicate over the internet by sending/receiving "packets" of information. And when you're connected to another computer over the net, be it a web site or gaming server or whatever, you are not connected directly to that computer...but instead a chain (or network) of computers is relaying your packets back and forth. If any one of those computers along the line is not performing as it should (it might be overloaded, or just slow) then it can start to just lose packets, hence the term "packet loss".

The two end computers keep track of what packets are sent and which ones they should be receiving, so when a packet comes up missing it has to be re-requested or just ignored. Technically I am pretty clueless to whats going on, but in a layman's nutshell, that's about it.