Escape from Tarkov lag and desync: causes and fixes

In Escape from Tarkov, "lag" usually means desync: you die behind a wall, a player appears from nowhere, doors open late. Some of that is your connection and some is the server. Here's how to tell them apart, how to pick datacenters, and what NoSpike can and can't route.

Desync and lag are not the same

Lag is your connection: a high ping, or one that jumps, or data that never arrives. Desync is the gap between what your game shows and what the server has decided, and it grows with everyone's delay: yours, the other player's, and the time the server itself takes. In a raid with many players, a busy server adds its share no matter how good your connection is.

So the useful question isn't "is it lag?" but "how much of it is mine?" That part you can measure and shrink.

Pick your datacenters

Battlestate's launcher lets you choose which datacenters the game may match you into: open the game servers list for matching in the launcher's settings, before the game starts. It pings every datacenter and shows the result. Tick the ones close to you with low ping, and untick the far ones. A shorter queue in a far datacenter costs you in every fight of the raid.

Datacenters that show "timed out" in that list aren't necessarily down; the launcher's ping just didn't get an answer. Judge them by your raids, not only by that list.

See your real ping in a raid

Tarkov writes each raid's server and its measured round trip into its own log files, in the game's Logs folder (the files with network-connection in their name). They're the most honest figure there is: the game's own, for the raid you just played.

• High in every raid: distance, or a long road from your provider to the datacenters you've ticked.
• Good in some raids, bad in others: different servers. Check which datacenters you have ticked.
• Fine, then sudden rubberbanding: queueing on the way, often on your own line or Wi-Fi. What causes ping spikes shows how to find where.

What helps

1. Tick only close datacenters. The cheapest fix there is.
2. Use a cable. Wi-Fi's jitter adds to desync in every fight. Wi-Fi or Ethernet explains.
3. Keep the line quiet during raids: uploads, streams, downloads.
4. Change the route when your round trip to a close datacenter is higher than distance explains.

Where NoSpike fits

NoSpike's Tarkov entry is a beta, and Tarkov is a hard game to route. The game names its raid server at the very moment it connects to it, so NoSpike can only route a raid whose server it already knew. That list is built from Battlestate's registered address blocks, the datacenters' own hosts, and the servers players' apps report; a server that isn't on it yet costs one unrouted raid.

NoSpike follows the raid's own server. On one it routes, it measures your route and the routes through its relays to that server and uses a relay only when it's faster. On one it doesn't, the app shows your own ping to that server and says "Match not routed", never another server's figures. And if your own route to a datacenter is already as good as it gets, NoSpike leaves it alone.