Why games suffer from packet loss more than anything else
An online game sends a stream of small UDP updates, tens of times a second: where you are, where you aimed, when you fired. The server does the same in return. None of it is resent when it goes missing, because by the time a replacement arrived it would describe a moment that has already passed. So a lost packet is a lost moment. Your character stutters back to where the server last heard from you, a shot that looked like a hit does not register, or an opponent jumps across the screen.
This packet loss test for gaming uses the same shape of traffic: UDP packets every 20 milliseconds, which is the rate of a 50-tick update, with no retransmission. It measures the loss, ping and jitter a game would experience on your connection, up to the nearest Cloudflare edge.
How much packet loss is too much for gaming
Jitter matters almost as much as loss. A game can compensate for a steady high ping by predicting movement, but it cannot predict a ping that swings between 20 and 90 milliseconds. Most games show a "network" or "net graph" overlay in their settings; if it reports loss during a match and this test is clean, the loss is on the route to that particular server rather than on your line.
| Result | Fast shooters | Other online games |
|---|---|---|
| Loss under 0.5%, jitter under 5 ms | Great | Great |
| Loss 0.5 to 1% | Occasional hitches | Fine |
| Loss 1 to 3% | Rubber-banding, missed shots | Noticeable |
| Loss over 3% | Unplayable in ranked | Frustrating |
| Ping over 80 ms | Disadvantaged | Fine up to about 150 ms |
Fixing packet loss before a match
- Play on a cable. The biggest single improvement for most players. Consoles and PCs on wifi pick up loss from neighbours' networks and household interference.
- Pause downloads everywhere. Game updates, cloud saves and other people's streams all compete for the same line. On consoles, check the downloads queue before you play.
- Restart the router. Routers that have been on for weeks can struggle with the number of connections a game and a household open.
- Pick the nearest region. Loss and ping both grow with distance. If your game allows a region choice, use the closest one.
- Think twice about "gaming" VPNs. They can route around a single bad link, but they add their own hop. Test with and without; see does a VPN fix packet loss.
Console-specific settings (NAT type, DNS, Ethernet adapters) are in packet loss on PS5 and Xbox.