Unplayable Ping & Packet Loss

Folks, have been playing WT for a long time. Have never experienced this type of slowness/freezing of play. Last two weeks I started to notice ping & packet loss that makes the game unplayable. I have uninstalled WT client, made sure PC has most current updates. Still no resolution to issue. I don’t even have to play to tell it is going to be bad by the fact when I log into game and you get the spinning circle that has the incrementing time displaying while you wait to join game and that spinning circle will actually freeze at 5 seconds and then start at 12 seconds and then freeze again. (this is just example - could be different intervals but seems to happen each time I log on) My PC doesn’t seem to be having issues other than this application. I have great ISP up & down speeds. One thing I question is I perform a trace route to war thunder site and I do get a time out on one hop(10 hops total). I have no choice in this so I don’t know how I can work around this or even if this is a problem to my issue. Am working with ISP to getter better understanding of how this works and when I asked ISP tech to run trace route they did not get the time out that I am getting. Any suggestions of how I better isolate this issue or other options to try to check off other boxes? Thank you.

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tracing warhunder.com is basically useless since that URL/IP is just the website and not really used in the game (except for the news / patchnotes). it may be useful to catch some general network / connection issues but that’s pretty much it

you need the IP address of the actual game server to get some useful / informative tracing results. there are several game servers in every server cluster (sometimes in different cities, counties or even countries (in the same region) on different server hosts / providers) so it may be kinda difficult and/or time-consuming to find the specific server (or serverS) you got problems connection to.

also time-outs in pings / traces may indicate problems but more often than not they are neglectable (especially when the hops afterwards and the ‘final destination’ can be reached without issues). some ‘routers’ on the way may just be configured to not respond to ICMP packets (pings / traces) at all (security reasons etc), low priorities or high workload… big changes / raises in the latencies between hops (and the follow-ups) are more concerning (imho)

anyway… no matter what - like i said, first you need the IP of the actual game server (or servers) to be able to investigate the issue further (as there doesn’t seem to be a general network issue from i can see in your trace - though i’m not a network engineer / specialist by any means)

Thank you for the feedback. Where does one find the actual IP address of one of the game servers? I found this but it said that it might be old info and even if it current how would I determine which one?

US: 185.106.204.3, 207.244.116.1, 207.244.116.2, 207.244.116.3, 207.244.116.4

FYI - Tried the 185 and the last 207 and both failed so I don’t think these are current or valid.

You say no issue but obviously I have the time out in the trace route displayed above. Isn’t that a network issue?

I have been dealing with this problem for more than a month. Both my ISP and Gaijin support thinks everything is fine. @Dafosik helped me get this info so you can grab match IP as well with this.

Thank you for feedback. However, not sure how it helps if you are still having issue. I will try it as you have piqued my curiosity. I am getting something new happening. In the top left corner of my WT screen. Upon initial load / startup of game I am getting text that displays quickly and disappears but says canceling in yellow type. This next to the number of online players and battles data. Not sure what it is but assume it can’t be good.

Jimmy93155 - so I tried your steps. Got lost on step 8 but found IP information I think.

When I try to tracert the 81.xx it times out after the 20th hop or so. Could you share the NA WT server ip if your process works for you?

It was the same for me with time outs. I’ve sent it like that to my ISP. And I’m playing on EU so I can’t help with NA. So far I have no luck with fixing it and it only got worse today.

problem is on Gaijin side or their ISP, you just have to wait until more people start complaining and they will fix it in few months, it was like that before

in the past (maybe one and a half year ago) i had problem with one EU server, same problem now, they said its problem on my side, i contacted my ISP, they said everything is fine and it was fine on my side and my ISP side
the old forum, there was one good post where some guy explained what IPs are yours and your ISP and what is Gaijin and their ISP etc when testing the connection and yes, they had the problem and not me

For more than a month, Im playing on Russian servers and everything is fine, 0% packet loss and good ping, usually 60-80ms, sometimes in some battles around 90ms (im in east Europe so i have good ping, not sure how it is on the west when playing on Russian servers, but its better to have high ping than high packet loss), but yeah, problem is on our side… when playing on EU servers, in few battles everything is fine and then if i get the bad EU server, there is packet loss and its unplayable

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Note that ping and tracert applies only to authentication servers. Game servers actually use UDP due to the near real time nature of multiplayer games.

TCP/IP is only good if you’re playing on a local network where the IP part does not really matter.

What happens is that the network gets bottle necked and the data carriers “switches” traffic to accommodate traffic influx that crosses operating thresholds and sometimes, it crosses the threshold multiple times and thus causing a “switch to and fro” . This switching chokes the UDP flow and causes a freeze frame like sensation in game.

The reduction of hops between client and server is the only known physical solution, unless breakthrough technology gets implemented in game engine.

This is almost too technical for players who are having trouble to consume as it gets way up there, where it doesn’t need to be where this is mere diagnosing.

No-one’s even checked if they’re on WIFI, or if they’ve even turned off and on thier router yet ;)

(Edit - Also dang, the advice from support is to even tracert warthunder.com … That’s so bad lol.
https://support.gaijin.net/hc/en-us/articles/200071171-How-to-troubleshoot-your-connection )

Apologies for the language.

I’ve been working on these things for over a decade now. And I’m not even an authority when it comes to these things.

I’m just throwing it out there what I have discovered over the past 6 months of “fixing my own problem”.

I’m an ex-network tech myself, and I don’t even put out anything like this when explaining things to players because it’s just confusing.

i have solve that issue by reducing the size of my paquet on my network adaptor “jumbo paquet” was over 8096 i have reduce to 2048 this way i receive more paquet. the position of player is more precise and no lost paquet at all.the ping is little higher but my plane is no more push to the ground by the server every time i’m acting again other player trying to correct every player position in space. and paquet lost is now at 0%

Changing MTU and other settings is unwise… It should just work without needing you to change things such as that unless your ISP actually gives you those.

Did you make the adjustment in Win10?

Are you able to make adjustment just for WT (aces.exe) or does it have to be for everything else?

If I did the same, other games might get affected.

win 11. i did that under / network adaptor / Jumbo paquet or other param/ did change of 1 param at time and test it. i’m push less often but still happening.

I’m just resigned to this being “the way it is” now. I went from no problems at all for months to the last 1-2 getting progressively worse. I realize this is a hard problem to solve and there are many variables, some out of Gaijin’s control. But the net (ha ha) effect is that high latency to the point of packet loss means it’s no longer possible to fully enjoy the game.
I mean in Air Arcade your shots are way off but by highly variable amounts, you get random movements of your vehicle and your opponents, sometimes flying you into the ground… well at that point why bother?
I absolutely love this game when it works but it’s become incredibly frustrating most matches.

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it’s actually worse for me… I lose complete control and the game freezes for like half a second and it makes the aircraft uncontrollable. Add Gaijin’s control mechanics and it tends to turn the plane upside down and go into a dive. Not good if you’re terrain masking.

I have played the game since 2013 and have never had packet loss issues until now. whats up with this nonsense. Every game i try to play ends up in getting disconnected now. The game is unplayable at this point and it needs to be addressed.

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Unplayable is the key word, have had this ping/pl problem for a couple months and I’m done. I’ve tried most of the usual things you do in these instances, except for direct ethernet connection in lieu of WiFi (currently dont have the option for wired innanet). Learned some things from this thread (for however much good it may do) : Ping & Packet Loss Troubleshooting Guide - Crashes, Connection, Update Problems & Advice - War Thunder - Official Forum