What Is Packet Loss in Gaming & How To Fix It?
Let's say you want to send a package to a friend of yours who lives in another country. You trust that the postal service will take care of it. The postal service places your package, along with several other packages, in the delivery truck. The driver hits a speed bump and, the back door accidentally opens. As the door opens, your package gets thrown out on the road without the driver even realizing it. Your package will now fail to reach its destination. This whole scenario that you just experienced can be called "Package Loss". One can only imagine how frustrating this must be.
What is Packet Loss
This example of "Package Loss" is made to help you get a better understanding of the term "Packet Loss". Just as packages are sent over the delivery network, packets are sent on the internet, and just like the delivery service example, packets can be lost over the internet.
Let's say you are in an important zoom meeting. A person is talking to you and, all of a sudden, the video of that person starts becoming choppy and, bits and pieces of that video start getting removed. The person who is trying to talk to you is sending packets of information from their computer to your computer over the internet. In this scenario, these packets are not reaching your computer. When a packet of data or information fails to reach its destination, this is called packet loss. It is most frustrating for competitive gamers
What is Packet Loss in Gaming
Lag, poor performance of a video game and high packet loss completes the package of a competitive gamer’s worst nightmare. These problems can be frustrating also for casual gamers. It completely ruins the experience of the game and makes the game unenjoyable, and in some cases completely unplayable. Bullet not registering. Here are the most common high packet loss issues that online gamers have to face.
Random Teleportation
You might have also experienced this while gaming. Let's say you are playing Rainbow Six Siege and you see an enemy coming up the stairs on the camera. You know that you can easily kill that enemy by peeking into the hallway because the enemy will be facing their back towards you. You start moving, see the enemy, aim at their head, and shoot. Your enemy does not die, rather you teleport back to where you started to move. The complete information of you moving out in the hallway got lost and you just experienced packet loss.
Hit Registration
Although packet loss is most commonly observed with random teleportation, you can also experience packet loss in terms of bullet registration issues. Sometimes the packet of information of a bullet might not reach its destination, which is the server, and leave the enemy undamaged but this is very unnoticeable because you don't just shoot one bullet, you shoot a full mag if you have to.
Choppy Communication
The second most common way that gamers experience packet loss is during communication. During an online match, communication is very important and you need to provide your teammates all the necessary information, especially in a competitive environment. If you have packet loss, the voice of your teammates will sound choppy and, you won't be able to hear complete sentences.
What Causes Packet Loss
Packet loss can be the result of several different causes. An accurate diagnosis of the source of packet loss is important for effective fixes. Here are some of the things that may cause packet loss:
High Traffic: If a lot of users are connected to a network connection, there is a high chance that packets for some of these users might be lost. For example, if more than 10 members of your house are connected to a single Wi-Fi router, and all of them are jamming their packets of information, the bandwidth might not be able to accommodate all the packets and cause a delay and even a loss in packets.
Outdated Hardware: Old hardware can also be the source of packet loss. If your internet service provider installed a router several years ago, that router might not be able to support current speeds and might cause a loss of packets.
Corrupt Software: It's not always the hardware that may be the cause of packet loss. Sometimes your game files might be corrupted, or there might be a problem in your operating system. This, however, is less common.
Bad Internet Connection/ISP Hardware: The Company that you are receiving internet services from might have faulty optical fiber connecting to your home. Or their servers/hardware might be outdated and cause packet loss.
How to Fix Packet Loss
Here are some of the fixes that you can try. These may help fix the issues with packet loss you are having.
Better Internet Connection: One of the basic fixes that you can do is upgrade your ISP with a better one with a good reputation of providing reliable and stable internet connection. Not that a faster and more stable internet connection does not always mean that you will be free of packet loss.
Switching to Ethernet: It is common knowledge among gamers that a wired connection is better than a wireless connection for gaming. This is also true for packet loss. Wireless connections are more prone to packet loss.
Software and Hardware Update: If you are Wi-Fi routers older than 6 or 7 years, then it is time to get a new one that is compatible with the current speeds. We recommend getting a gaming Wi-Fi router for better latency. Updating your game files and making sure that your operating system is up to date is also worth a shot.
WTFast
WTFast is the one-stop solution for all your network-related problems. If you are stressed out, trying to figure out a solution to high packet loss that is making your favorite game unplayable, then you should give WTFast a try. WTFast is a Gamer's Private Network (GPN) that not only reduces the packet loss you are having but also lowers your latency to as low as possible and connects you to a more stable connection.
