Run the test above for at least 60 seconds. Here is what each
number means for this game specifically.
Red lines (packet loss)
Loss is what produces the classic War Thunder ghost shell: you fire, the server never receives the shot or receives it with a stale turret position, and the round is resolved somewhere you were not aiming. It also causes aircraft to snap between positions during a turn fight.
Jitter (aim and lead)
Air battles are pure lead prediction. Uneven packet arrival makes the target's model move in steps rather than smoothly, and you cannot lead a target that teleports. Jitter matters more here than in most ground matches.
Ping (latency)
Under 60 ms is comfortable for ground realistic battles. Above 100 ms, close-range tank duels start resolving against you, because the server sees your opponent's shot land before it has heard about your movement.
What you see in game, and which number on this page explains it.
War Thunder occupies an unusual position among the games on this site: it is simultaneously very sensitive to network quality and almost impossible to diagnose from the inside. Gaijin removed the ping and packet loss indicator from the interface years ago and has not restored it. Repeated requests in the official forum for the actual server tick rate have gone unanswered as well, so neither the current state of your connection nor the rate you are being measured against is available to you in game.
That leaves external measurement as the only practical option, and it changes how you should use this page. Rather than running a test and then playing, leave the chart running in a second window during a battle. Red lines that appear at the same moment as a ghost shell are the answer; a clean chart during the same battle is also an answer, and it points at the server or at the game's own synchronisation.
The tick rate question matters more here than in most titles because of what the game asks of it. Ground realistic battles are decided by first shots at close range, and air battles are pure lead prediction against a target whose position you are extrapolating. Both fail badly when position updates arrive unevenly. Community estimates cluster around 30 to 40 updates per second; we send 30 and say plainly that the figure is an estimate, because Gaijin has never published one.
One setting is worth checking before anything else: War Thunder lets you enable and disable server regions in the options. Leaving distant regions ticked to shorten queue times is by far the most common cause of an otherwise inexplicable ping, and it is a two-click fix that no amount of router tuning replaces.
If the chart above shows packet loss or high jitter, work through
these in order.
Why can I not see my ping in War Thunder any more?
Gaijin removed the ping and packet loss indicator from the interface and has not restored it. There is no supported way to read your connection quality from inside the game, which is why an external test is the practical option.
What is War Thunder's server tick rate?
Gaijin has never published it, and requests in the official forum have not been answered. Community estimates land around 30-40Hz. This test sends 30 packets per second and labels that figure as an estimate rather than a fact.
Why do my shells pass through enemy tanks?
Usually because the server resolved the shot against a position that was already out of date - a lost or late packet carrying either your turret position or the target's movement. Red lines on this chart during a battle confirm it.
Does high ping cause the shell disappearing bug?
High ping widens the window in which positions are stale, so it makes the effect more frequent. Packet loss causes it outright, which is why the loss figure matters more than the ping number here.