Overwatch seems to be the only multiplayer game I own that has issues with connection/server lag. It comes and goes randomly; for a week or two I’ll be getting basically none, and then one day I’ll start getting lag that makes the game borderline unplayable. It’s not an issue with my internet or anything, it seems to just be this game.
Does anyone else have this problem? Some people I ask ingame say they get random lag too.
First make sure you are connecting to your native server. If you are PC you can track this by checking the NetGraph during any match of Overwatch by pressing Ctrl + Shift + N and checking for the airport code next to the listed IP address.
| CODE | Datacenter Location |
| LAX1 | US West - Los Angeles |
| ORD1 | US Central - Chicago |
| GRB1 | Brazil 2 - Rio De Janiero |
| SYD2 | Australia 3 - Sydney |
| GTK1 | Japan 2 - Tokyo |
| GSG1 | Signapore 2 - Signapore |
| TPE1 | Taiwan - Taiwan |
| ICN1 | South Korea - Seoul |
| CDG1 | France - Versalles |
| AMS1 | Netherlands - Amsterdam |
| MES1 | Bahrain - Manama |
If you are on a different server there can be a few reasons. First, if you are trying to play the game during low peak hours for your local region or if you are an exceptionally high or low skill level (Bronze or Grand Masters), you can sometimes be paired into a match in a datacenter that is more farther away from your own. Lately, Blizzard is working to minimize the impact this happens, but it will happen in order to deliver a match within a reasonable wait. It is not possible to directly select a specific datacenter to play on.
The other reason you could be connecting to a more distant data center, or if you are connecting to your geographically closest server but still having lag, is because there is a connection issue between you and that data center. This can be caused by a wide variety of factors including how your IPS is routing your data, hardware issues, or cable breaks in the greater world wide web. To troubleshoot this, the best procedure will be a WinMTR test.
Remember to test by using custom game lobbies and point to the server you think you should be connecting to and compare it to the server the matchmaker is putting you in.
What if I am on console?
It’s not practical to try and operate a WinMTR test on console unfortunately. Usually in this case, there is a tool called the Looking Glass Test but it does not provide all possible data centers and doesn’t exactly create the same connection as connecting to Blizzard’s game servers.