Dota 2 High Ping and Packet Loss: How to Test and Fix Them

Show ping and packet loss in Dota 2

Dota 2 has a built-in display for your connection. The setting is called Display Network Information, and the game describes it as “Display FPS, ping & packet-loss in-game”. You find it in the advanced options, or you turn it on in the console:

• dota_hud_netgraph 1 shows FPS, ping, packet loss and kbps on the HUD.
• dota_ping prints your latency information into the console once.

Ping is the time in milliseconds a message needs to the server and back. Loss is the share of packets that never arrive, split into in (server to you) and out (you to server). For most players, even a few percent of loss feels worse than a high but steady ping. All network commands are in the Console Commands Lookup Tool.

What is a good ping for Dota 2?

There is no official table for this, and Valve does not publish one. Here is how the numbers feel in Dota 2 to us. A steady ping matters more than a low one: 80 ms that never moves beats 30 ms that jumps to 200 in every fight.

Axe had 300 ping once. He pressed Berserker's Call, made a sandwich, ate it, and then the enemies came. Still worked.

Pick the right Dota 2 regions

The biggest lever is where you play. In the matchmaking region selection, Dota 2 shows your ping to every region and has a Refresh Pings button. The game’s own advice: “Select up to three matchmaking regions. Select only the regions closest to you for the best experience.”

Play Dota›Select Matchmaking Regions›Refresh Pings›Up to 3 closest regions

• Fewer, closer regions mean a lower ping. More regions can find a match faster, but you may land on a far server.
• Region: Auto lets the game pick the best region based on your location. Fine as a start, but check the pings yourself.

Test your connection on Windows

To fix packet loss you need to know where it starts: in your home (Wi-Fi, router) or further out (your provider). Windows has the tools built in. Open the Command Prompt (Windows key → type cmd) and run these:

1. Find your router: ipconfig shows it as “Default Gateway”, often something like 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1.
2. Test your home network: ping -n 100 192.168.0.1 (use your router’s address). At the end, Windows shows how many packets were lost. Loss here means Wi-Fi or home network.
3. Test the internet: ping -n 100 8.8.8.8 pings a public server on the internet. Loss here but not at the router points to your provider.
4. Find the exact spot: pathping 8.8.8.8 sends 100 queries to every station on the way and shows the loss per hop. According to Microsoft, loss on a link means congestion. A single router that drops pings to itself is no problem if the stations after it are fine.

In the game, net_print_sdr_ping_times prints your ping to Valve’s relay locations and the route the game picked.

Fix high ping and packet loss

• Use a cable. Steam Support says wireless and powerline connections “can cause intermittent failures due to interference” and suggests testing with a direct wired connection.
• Restart modem and router. Also from Steam Support: it is worth rebooting your modem and router “before trying anything else”.
• Stop downloads while you play. Steam warns that downloading during gameplay “can severely impact game performance”. Turn it off, and limit the download speed if others share your line:

Steam›Settings›Downloads›Allow downloads during gameplay: off

• Check the other devices. Video streams, cloud uploads and game updates on other devices fill your line. A full line queues your packets, and queues mean delay.
• Router features as a test: Steam Support suggests temporarily turning off QoS, UPnP and stateful packet inspection on the router to see if one of them is the problem.
• Only bad in the evening? Steam Support notes your provider may be shaping the line at busy times. Then contact your provider with your pathping results.

Save dota_hud_netgraph 1 in your autoexec.cfg and you always see your connection. The Autoexec.cfg Generator Tool builds the file.

How Valve routes your Dota 2 connection

Your Dota 2 traffic usually does not go straight to the game server. It runs through Valve’s own relay network, the Steam Datagram Relay. Valve calls it a “virtual private gaming network”: the game checks the relay locations and picks the route with the lowest latency, and other players never see your IP address. When Valve presented the relay network in 2019 (then used by Dota and CS:GO), it published how much it helped:

You cannot pick the relay yourself, and you do not need to. What you control is the region, your line at home and what else uses it. If your router or firewall is strict, Steam lists the ports it needs, among them UDP 27000–27250 for game traffic.

FAQ