Packet loss Rocket League: How to fix it?

by Vlad Constantinescu

VPN Expert & Privacy Advocate

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Rocket League is essentially football with cars. You’re on a field, you control a car, there’s a huge ball in the middle and two goals. You have to use your mad driving skills to push the ball into the opponent’s goal.

It might sound simple because it is. But the truth is that Rocket League can take months, or years to master. You can perform boosts, twists, turns, and even drive on the arena’s walls.

If you’re the lone-wolf type of player who enjoys playing solo, then this article won’t help you much. However, if you’re a social gamer and like to share the joy of gaming with your peers, you might relate to the following sections.

Have you ever heard of rubberbanding? How about experiencing ball jitters? Has it ever happened that you drive the ball all the way through your opponent’s goal, only for it to disappear and spawn itself in a whole different area of the arena?

If you answered yes to some or all of the questions above, you might be suffering from packet loss. Or high ping. Or both.

What causes packet loss in Rocket League?

Packet loss can have a huge number of reasons. To put it shortly, even if you have poor Ethernet cables you can trigger packet loss. That’s how wide the range of culprits is.

We’ve explained everything you need to know about packet loss and how to fix it in a comprehensive guide. Although most of the time packet loss seems to come and go by itself without any apparent reason or fix, sometimes you might be able to fix it.

Rocket League packet loss fix

1. Use a VPN

1. Download Private Internet Access
2. Install it on your PC
3. Launch it
4. Connect to the server of your choice
5. Check if the packet loss issue still persists

Using a VPN might not always work, especially if the issue is on either end of the connection (i.e. you or the server you connect to). However, if you suspect that your ISP is throttling your connection or just doesn’t do a great job with routing, a VPN such as PIA can be of help.

Private Internet Access

Experiencing packet loss in Rocket League? PIA could help you fix it.

To make sure, you can run a ping test on google.com and see if there’s any packet loss. If there’s no packet loss there, it means that there’s a problem with Psyonix’s servers. Thus, using a VPN won’t fix your problem.

2. Troubleshoot your connection

1. Run a packet loss test as we’ve described in our guide
2. Note the hop with the largest ping
3. Troubleshoot the affected node as needed

In our guide, we’ve explained how to run some simple tests using Windows’ built-in tools. Depending on the tests’ results, the packet loss issue might be present in 4 different locations within your connection:

• you (your PC, router)
• your ISP
• the network distributor
• the server you want to connect to

According to the location you’ve managed to isolate, there are different courses of action. You can either:

• try to solve it on your side by checking if your PC, router, and cables are alright
• call your ISP if the issue seems to be on the hops that correspond to their network
• contact Psyonix if the last hop is the one that triggers the packet loss

There’s no magic fix to packet loss

Unfortunately, there’s no guaranteed way to get rid of packet loss. Mostly because what causes it can range from a bad wire to an overloaded network. Therefore, you might want to log off for a while and check again later if the problem’s still there.

More often than not, packet loss disappears as swiftly as it appears and you won’t even notice it. However, if you’re sure it has something to do with your ISP (and not with you, your hardware, or the Rocket League servers), you might consider using a VPN.

A VPN such as PIA can help you improve your gameplay by reducing ping and packet loss incidence greatly. However, remember that not even a VPN will fix all of your connection issues magically.