War Thunder Packet Loss: What is It and How to Fix It?
Take a closer look at our confirmed solutions
6 min. read
Updated on
Share this article
Improve this guide
Read our disclosure page to find out how can you help Windows Report sustain the editorial team Read more
Key notes
- War Thunder is a free-to-play, cross-platform military MMO game played by millions of people.
- It gained a lot of traction and is one of the most-played games on Steam.
- While playing War Thunder, some unwanted phenomena might occur, like high ping, latency, jitter, and packet loss.
- Thus, you can utilize clever VPN tools that are capable of increasing Internet stability and speed.
War Thunder is a free-to-play, cross-platform military MMO game. It gained a lot of traction and is one of the most-played games on Steam. You can fly warplanes, drive tanks, and wreak havoc on your enemies.
You can play this game entirely for free, making it even more appealing for players worldwide.
Therefore, it’s easy to see why it’s so popular and why sometimes the game servers get overcrowded.
As a result, some unwanted phenomena might occur in the form of high ping/latency, jitter, and packet loss.
Usually, you can’t tell the difference, but take our word on this: packet loss is one of the worst things you could encounter in live-action games.
What is packet loss?
To put it briefly, whenever you send or receive data online, some packets might never reach their destination. We refer to this as packet loss. Now, packet loss can take two forms:
- Outbound packet loss – affects data flow that goes from your PC toward the destination servers
- Inbound packet loss – traffic that comes from the destination server toward your PC
Whenever this happens, you might notice some quite familiar yet annoying behavior. Namely, Rubberbanding, high latency/ping, connection timeouts, or game crash.
If you still have no idea what we’re talking about, picture this: you’re shooting at an enemy vehicle, but it seems it’s not taking damage. Suddenly, the vehicle is out of sight, and you’ve missed your chance to pulverize it.
Hence, there are more players who experience game issues on War Thunder and these are as follows:
- War Thunder high packet loss
- War Thunder high ping and packet loss
- War Thunder low ping high packet loss
- War Thunder operation timed out
- War Thunder is not loading
- War Thunder connection to server lost
That’s what packet loss implies regarding your game and what you should first know about this connection issue.
So, does using a VPN improve packet loss? Sometimes, when your ISP throttles your bandwidth and/or leaks packets, you can use a VPN to reduce packet loss and improve ping.
You may also wonder if using a VPN improves your ping. You can improve your War Thunder in-game ping by using a VPN. Here are our best VPNs to improve ping and gameplay.
Why is my packet loss so high in War Thunder?
There are many reasons you might experience packet loss in War Thunder. For instance, you might leak packets if you have an old, chewed-up, flaky Ethernet cable between you and your router.
More so, if there are many users on your network, you might experience network congestion. This, in turn, leads to packet loss.
The good news is that packet loss rarely occurs because of you. If you have never had this issue, chances are slim that you’re what’s causing it to begin with. Therefore, network congestion is still our usual suspect in this case.
However, sometimes, your ISP might throttle your bandwidth to minimize costs. Or the War Thunder server might take a massive blow from all the simultaneous connections.
All of these can be the cause of your packet loss situation.
How can I fix packet loss on War Thunder?
1. Use a VPN
- Download ExpressVPN to your PC.
- Install it on your system.
- Launch it and log into your account.
- Connect to the server of your choice.
- Launch War Thunder and check if you’re still leaking packets.
A VPN often helps with packet loss, and ExpressVPN is an excellent all-around VPN tool from Kape Technologies. It can help you protect your privacy and secure your connection.
Plus, it can unblock geo-restricted content, and reduce packet loss with its high-speed servers. It also has 24/7 live chat support.
ExpressVPN
Leaking packets in War Thunder? This software can lend you a helping hand.However, it’s worth mentioning that using a VPN won’t work 100% in all cases. In order for this fix to work, the packet leak must occur on your ISP’s side of the connection.
Thus, if you or the game server leak packets, using a VPN connection won’t work.
2. Troubleshoot your connection manually
- Use our guide on packet loss to run a complete ping/packet loss test
- Locate the hops where the ping spikes
- Depending on your findings, take appropriate actions
You might notice high ping/packet leaks in the following locations:
- Your home network
- ISP’s network
- The servers of the network distribution company
- War Thunder game servers
Therefore, you can try one of our suggestions below to fix packet loss in War Thunder:
- Check if the devices on your network function properly (cables, PCs, routers)
- Talk to your ISP about the issue
- Ask your ISP to talk to the network distribution company
- Contact the War Thunder support team if the issue is on their side
War Thunder server ping & packet loss test
Testing your packet loss or high ping levels on your game is quite intuitive. The step-by-step process goes like this:
- Connect to your VPN using another server location.
- Go online and see if your Internet connection is improved.
- If it works, it means that your ISP may throttle your network.
- In case it doesn’t work, the cause can be your cables or router distance.
Many players are wondering how to fix War Thunder packet loss. So you can utilize ExpressVPN, but only if you’re sure that your ISP leaks the packets or troubleshoots your connection.
It’s not exactly challenging to fix packet loss in War Thunder if you know where to start and understand what packet loss is.
There are a lot of causes for leaking packets, and as a result, there are also a lot of potential fixes.
You can check out the best VPNs for gamers that can improve your ping. Visit the Gaming hub to discover more reviews and guides.
However, remember that packet loss usually comes and goes, and the best way to tackle it is to wait it out. If you notice a pattern or the issue doesn’t fix itself after a while, you can step in and try some of our suggested fixes.
Remember always to keep your game updated; otherwise, you’ll run into the incompatible server version error.
