AdGuard might be introducing delays during your online gaming sessions.
AdGuard might be introducing delays during your online gaming sessions.
On my OpenWRT router I set up AdGuard Home and used Cloudflare's DNS 1.1.1.1 to bypass certain site blocks. It’s functioning well—ads disappear from apps and websites—but when trying to launch Steam, it keeps refusing with a "Retry connection" prompt. I found a Reddit discussion and realized no site is blocked, as shown in the image. By tweaking a few queries Steam uses, I resolved the issue. Now I experience lag during intense gameplay like Dota 2, with ping around 40-60 ms and no packet loss. Even though I see normal ping/packet stats, the game feels delayed during fast actions like combos. The problem seems unrelated to my ISP, as the issue persists with another phone hotspot from the same provider. Before AdGuard, everything worked fine. If you know what caused this, any advice would be appreciated. I’m okay uninstalling AdGuard but prefer LAN-wide ad blocking.
I believed AdGuard handled DNS requests via its own servers. Or are you relying solely on its filters? The Dashboard should show a response time. What information does it contain? These are services—what filter categories are active? How many blocked requests does AdGuard report at the Dashboard level? This seems to point to a deeper problem. A cellular connection isn’t ideal for latency-sensitive tasks. If the other device has a stronger signal or better network, it will work better. Are you connected via cable or wireless? With wireless, interference from nearby networks adds delay. Consider turning off AdGuard to test performance.
Well, I understand cellular wireless might not be the best choice for this situation, but it's the most affordable option a small family can manage (at least for us). Both setups actually work well. I connected the OpenWRT router to a USB cable, using a Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini. I tested it with my daily driver phone (Xiaomi Redmi Note 8) on 2.4 GHz wireless tethering. In practice, there wasn't a big difference—thanks to limited congestion around my home, which only has one Wi-Fi network. I've been tethering it with my daily driver for years and consistently get around 50-60 ms while gaming. I'll try it again. This might be the reason for delays, but it doesn't show up clearly in latency or packet loss metrics, nor does the nearly 200 ms response time.
DNS shouldn't affect game latency. It's hard to see why an active session would need DNS checks or why small delays matter if they don't. More likely, it's a mobile network problem. Even if it's been smooth before, peak times can cause issues. The tower might be near its limit, and a single heavy user could overload it, increasing latency. Also, is the device planning an update during gameplay?
Agreed, the internet tends to deteriorate around noon to evening hours. It’s possible Valve’s servers got overloaded either because I played during a major event or due to my own usage timing. I reset my OpenWRT to the default settings without AdGuard, as I’ve noticed several reliability problems with it. I’m planning to check again later. Sometimes switching DNS providers—like from Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1—while the ISP has poor latency improves performance, or vice versa. I’m puzzled as to why this happens and would appreciate any insights.
It might be that Cloudflare's DNS has more region-specific entries than your ISP, which helps it locate servers nearer you. I don't recall how that works, but generally ISP DNS servers aren't very well managed. I used a small ISP that relied on Google DNS to simplify things. [Note] You mentioned ISP has lower latency, but in reality they might have closer servers, while Cloudflare could offer better overall performance.