How to Fix Call of Duty Warzone 2 Network Lag and Packet Loss?

Network lag and packet loss in Call of Duty: Warzone 2 can often be due to your network connection, which a third-party service might be inhibiting, or even the use of network resources by background applications.

Before you start to troubleshoot the issue, we recommend checking the server status to see if the game servers are facing an issue which could result in a bad connection. You can usually do this by checking out the official Twitter handler of the game. 

In addition, check your internet speed to ensure is not causing a bottleneck. In the case that it is, you will have to reach out to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to resolve the issue. If the servers are running fine while you experience connectivity issues on your usual internet speed, try the methods below to resolve the problem. 

1. Turn Off On-Demand Texture Streaming

On-Demand Texture Streaming is a feature in Call of Duty: MW/WZ 2 that allows the game to use your internet connection while you are in-game to download high-quality textures which improves the fidelity of the game. 

Since this feature uses your internet connection as you play the game, this can adversely affect your gaming experience and cause you to experience connection jitters or even constant high ping in some cases. 

Therefore, to resolve the problem, you will have to turn off the feature in your game settings. Follow the instructions down below to do this:

1. Start by opening Call of Duty Warzone 2 on your computer. 
2. Open the Settings menu by clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner.

   

3. After that, navigate to the Graphics > Quality menu.
4. Once you are there, scroll down and locate On-Demand Texture Streaming.

   

5. Turn it off by press the toggle button in front of it.
6. With that done, apply the settings and see if that reduces lag for you in-game.

2. Use a Wired Connection

Using a wireless connection is often more convenient and easier. However, when it comes to reliability, wired connections are the way to go. This is because wired connections use a dedicated physical cable that encounters no real interference when transmitting your data. 

In the case of a wireless connection, the transmission can often be affected by interference from other devices and appliances in your home which degrades your network performance and can result in latency issues most of the time. 

As such, if you are using a laptop to play Call of Duty Warzone 2, or using a wireless adapter on your PC, we recommend switching to a dedicated ethernet cable and using the LAN port on your respective device to connect to the internet. Once you do that, see if the problem goes away. In case it persists, move to the next method below.

3. Disable Third-Party VPN

Third-Party VPN services are pretty common these days and usually, they offer routing optimizations that can improve your latency in some cases, not to mention the online protection when you are browsing the internet.

However, VPN services usually degrade your network performance as they connect through an extra server to route your traffic. This can result in higher latency along with packet loss when you are playing any multiplayer game. 

Therefore, if you use a third-party VPN service, we recommend disabling it to see if that fixes the lagging issue in Warzone 2. In case you have added a VPN connection to your network settings on Windows, follow the instructions below to remove it:

1. Open the Settings app by pressing the Windows key + I on your keyboard.

   

2. Navigate to Network & Internet > VPN in the Settings app.

   

3. Click on the down arrow next to your VPN connection to reveal additional options.
4. Finally, click the Remove button to remove the VPN connection.

   

5. With that done, play Warzone 2 again to see if the issue is gone.

4. Stop Background Downloads

The network resources on your computer are limited. When you are playing a game, you need most of the network resources freely available to ensure a smooth gameplay experience.

However, background applications on your computer can often use your system resources to download updates and more. In addition, if you are downloading something in the background intentionally, you need to stop the download when you are playing so that it doesn’t affect your connection to the game servers. 

In such a scenario, you can use the Task Manager to find out the applications that are using your network resources and then stop them. Follow the instructions below to do this:

1. Open the Task Manager by right-clicking on the Start Menu icon and choosing Task Manager from the menu that appears.

   

2. Click on the Network option to sort the list of applications by network usage in the Task Manager window.

   

3. Stop the applications using your network resources by using the End task option. 

5. Change DNS Server

A Domain Name System (DNS) server is used to translate domain names to their respective IP address. Changing your DNS server can often result in faster load times and in some cases, improve network performance in games. This is because the connection to the game server is improved which can reduce jitter or packet loss in most cases.

Changing your DNS server is pretty easy. You can use either Google or Cloudflare’s public DNS server to replace the DNS server of your internet service provider. Follow the instructions below to do this:

1. Open the Settings app by pressing the Windows key + I on your keyboard.

   

2. After that, navigate to Network & Internet > Advanced Network Settings > More network adapter options.

   

3. Once you are there, right-click on your Ethernet adapter and choose Properties from the drop-down menu.
4. Then, double-click on the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) option.

   

5. Select the Use the following DNS server addresses option and provide one of the following addresses. 

   Google: 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
   Cloudflare: 1.1.1.1 1.0.0.1

   

6. With that done, click OK.
7. Open the game again and see if the network lag has been fixed.

Hopefully one of these tricks helped to solve your issues in the game!