Hey there xfr0stix,

Thanks for getting in touch - I'm happy to shed some light on this subject.

After taking a look at your screenshot, when you see all that red show up in a trace, it's only natural to think something is wrong. However, as long as this packet loss doesn't carry through to the destination, it's not something to worry about, which is the case with the data shown in this screenshot.

This sort of packet loss indicates that (ex. Hop #1,2, and 6) is "de-prioritizing" or dropping ICMP Time Exceeded responses. This behavior affects only the returning information and does not affect forwarded packets.

In short, based on your screenshot I do not see any issues with your network connection (during the time frame shown in the screenshot).

If you're interested, here are a couple of articles that can explain this concept a bit more:

Interpreting Latency and Packet Loss

One Poorly Responding Router

That said in troubleshooting the issues you are experiencing while gaming I suggest tracing directly to the game server you are connecting to.

In order to find the exact IP address of your game server, you could try this:

1. Close all other applications, leaving only your game running
2. Run Command Prompt as Administrator and use the netstat -b command. Copy/paste the output to a text editor (i.e. notepad)
2. Then, run the command a second time after closing down your game.
3. Cross-reference your results. The address that displays in the first result, but not the second, **should** be your game server.

An easier way to get this IP could also be to contact your game's support team and ask for the IP of your server. Community forums for the game are also a great place to search for this information.

Once you've nailed down the IP you're connected to, try out a trace! If you don't get a response (100% loss), then you'd just need to adjust your packet type and port number settings accordingly by creating a New Named Configuration . Nmap is a great tool we use frequently to help find open ports/protocols for servers.

**Here's a Youtube Video which talks a little more about isolating the problem.**

For more details about interpreting results for gaming, you can check out these articles:

Interpreting Graphs - Gaming

Beat Game Lag

I hope that helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Thanks,
-TJ