Xbox One gaming is an addictive pastime that can provide hours of entertainment, allowing you to play alone, with friends, or with gamers around the globe.
Frustratingly, your gaming session can be quickly ruined if you find yourself dealing with packet loss.
If you are experiencing high packet loss, Xbox gaming can quickly go from exciting to infuriating, with your gaming session crashing or lagging.
There are a few ways of fixing high packet loss, which may be a result of network issues, pre-existing errors, or other connectivity problems.
Simple techniques, like avoiding gaming during peak times, restarting the router, doing a hard reset on your Xbox One, clearing your Mac address, or using a VPN are some things you can do to improve your packet loss and regain control of your gaming.
Using a VPN is a simple way you can ensure a more stable connection and fix packet loss.
In a Hurry? Here’s How to Fix Xbox One High Packet Loss
What Is High Packet Loss on Xbox One?
If you are accessing streaming content or playing online games using Xbox One consoles, there is always a lot going on behind the scenes.
Using your Xbox console, data bundles (also called packets) are constantly being exchanged with the servers you access. If data does not make it to the destination server, this is referred to as packet loss.
Packet loss can be identified by:
High ping
Latency issues (network jittering)
Connection timeouts
Network connection crashing
What Is the Reason Behind Xbox One High Packet Loss?
The main reason for high packet loss is network congestion. Network congestion occurs when the network is not able to handle all of the traffic, which leads it to start losing data to attempt to keep the network from going under.
The next most common reasons for packet loss on Xbox are improper configuration or server-side leaks.
Finally, packet loss can be a fault on the user’s end, which could be a problem with poor signal, network interference, or incorrect cables, which can cause data packets to be dropped between your game server and Xbox One console.
So, whether it’s network congestion, improper configuration, server-side leaks, poor signal, or any other cause, there is usually a way to help fix the problem of high packet loss.
How to Check for Packet Loss on Xbox One
There are a lot of ways to test for packet loss. If you want to check for packet loss on your console, follow these steps:
- Press the Xbox button to turn on your Xbox One.
2. Pick Profile and System tab.
3. Open the user Settings > Network settings.
4. Click on the Network settings.
5. In the menu on the right, pick Detailed Network Statistics to test network speed.
6. Wait as the test is being performed, evaluating your latency, packet loss, and upload and download speeds.
What is Optimal Packet Loss on Xbox One?
Although packet loss occurs on almost every network, there is a range of loss, some of which is bearable. So, even though no amount of loss is good, there is actually such a thing as good packet loss. Here are the standards:
Good Packet Loss is less than 1%
Moderate Packet Loss between 1-2.5% is considered acceptable
High packet loss (significantly negative packet loss) is packet loss upwards of 10%
If you see that you are in the realm of high packet loss, you will want to keep reading for tips on fixing Xbox One packet loss issues for your gaming purposes.
How to Fix High Packet Loss on Xbox One
Here are some of the common ways to fix packet loss:
Use a VPN
Using a VPN to fix high packet loss is a simple and effective technique. Follow these steps:
- Download ExpressVPN to your PC and install it.
- Launch ExpressVPN and sign in to your VPN account.
- Connect to one of the VPN servers.
- Connect your Xbox One so your traffic is routed through your PC.
- See if you are still experiencing packet loss.
Use a wired connection:
It is a given that using a wired internet connection will be faster than a wireless connection. If you connect your Xbox One manually to your Ethernet cable, this will give you a much better speed.
Restart your router:
While it may seem like it is too simple to be effective, restarting your router is a pretty effective way to resolve connectivity issues. When you start your router again, issues may have been resolved.
Avoid peak server times:
If you are gaming during peak session times, you are likely to experience packet loss. While it may be difficult to decide to stay offline during peak times when servers are crowded, avoiding peak session times is a simple way to guarantee a more smooth gaming experience.
Disconnect your Xbox:
Manually disconnecting Xbox One from the home network can be a simple way to resolve high packet loss since it allows your Xbox to reboot without issues that may exist on your connection. If this manual disconnection does not work, you can try to do a hard reset.
3 Best VPNs to Fix High Packet Loss
As we said in our previous tip, using a VPN is one common way to improve high packet loss. Here are the VPNs that proved most effective at decreasing packet loss:
1. ExpressVPN
If you are looking to use a VPN to improve your speeds and avoid gaming lag and high packet loss, ExpressVPN is a great choice.
ExpressVPN also has great online privacy and security to protect users from online threats. ExpressVPN’s encryption will also ensure that you avoid ISP throttling since your ISP won’t be able to detect that you are accessing game servers at all.
If you need further assistance, you can contact technical support, which is available 24/7 via live chat.
- 5 simultaneous devices
- Strong encryption
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Live chat support
- Pricier VPN
2. NordVPN
If you are playing games on your Xbox and trying to avoid high packet loss and connection timeouts, NordVPN is a great option.
NordVPN has over 5,200 servers in more than 60 countries and has military-grade encryption for hiding your gaming traffic entirely to avoid ISP throttling and keep data traffic safe.
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- 24./7 live-chat service
- Double VPN
- 6 simultaneous devices
- Desktop app inconsistent
3. Surfshark
To avoid high packet loss, Xbox gamers on a tight budget will appreciate this VPN.
Surfshark is an affordable VPN that will help users unblock servers in over 65 countries around the world, offering good speed and online encryption to help reduce loss.
- Helps improve speeds
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Affordable
- Unlimited device connections
- Slower speeds at times
You may also like:
FAQs
In order to fix packet loss, you will have to figure out the weak link in your network that is causing this packet loss.
Conclusion
If packet loss occurs while you are gaming on your Xbox One, there are some ways to fix this, one of which is a VPN. Our go-to VPN to help ensure the best gaming experience on Xbox is ExpressVPN.