Steam Networking P2P Issues Plague Gamers in Israel and Middle East

A significant networking issue has emerged affecting Steam-based P2P gaming for players in Israel and potentially other Middle Eastern countries, with reports indicating ping times have doubled to unplayable levels since mid-March. The issue, which appears to be related to Steam's SDR (Steam Datagram Relay) service, has left gamers frustrated and searching for workarounds.

The Problem: Doubling Ping Times

According to reports from Israeli gamers, starting around March 13, 2023, P2P connections between players in Israel began experiencing severe latency issues. When playing PC-to-PC games with other Israeli players, ping times have jumped to approximately 120ms, making many games unplayable. In contrast, connections between Israeli players and European players remain normal at 60-80ms.

"We are currently don't know what we can do with this issue since nothing we have done have helped and 120ms is too high for it to be playable in any P2P game," wrote boazazulay, who reported the issue on Valve's GameNetworkingSockets GitHub repository.

Notably, the issue doesn't affect all types of connections. When Israeli players connect to console players (PC-to-PS5), ping times remain excellent at 5-10ms. Additionally, games that don't use Steam Networking, such as Tekken 8, don't exhibit these problems.

Regional Scope and Technical Details

The issue appears to be region-specific, affecting all Israeli players across multiple ISPs. Community testing has ruled out local network issues, suggesting the problem lies with Steam's infrastructure.

"We have a few dozens in our community with several ISPs, we have of course attempted speaking to our ISPs and port forwarding and we have found no network issues on their part," boazazulay explained.

Reports suggest the problem may extend beyond Israel, with anecdotal evidence from Egypt and China indicating similar issues. Chinese players, for example, have reported that Steam Networking fails to establish direct P2P connections in games like Warhammer: Vermintide 2, forcing all traffic through Steam's relay servers.

The technical root appears to be related to how Steam handles P2P connections in recent updates. "I suspect this may be caused by Steam's recent update to the new 'Steam Networking APIs'. Although connections routed through Steam relays offer better privacy and security, this has also led to a significant increase in network latency," noted Kagamine-Rinrin.

Workarounds Discovered

Affected gamers have discovered two temporary workarounds to restore proper P2P connectivity:

1. DLL File Method: Copying steamwebrtc64.dll from the Steam installation directory into the game's folder (in Binaries, Binaries/Win64, or Binaries_dx12 subfolders) appears to restore direct P2P connections. This must be done by both players in the match.

2. Older Steam Client: Using an older Steam client from January 2023 also resolves the issue, as it appears to use STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) to establish direct connections, while newer clients don't attempt this.

The DLL method has been confirmed working in multiple games including Deep Rock Galactic, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, and Far Far West. "Although the '3999' error code may disappear, the connection will still route through SDR (Steam Datagram Relay) and show that the peer has not shared their IP. Only when both users copy the file does true P2P connectivity resume," explained compami.

Valve's Response and Next Steps

Valve developer bgilmore acknowledged the issue, stating: "Thanks @boazazulay and @Kagamine-Rinrin for the info on specific circumstances where you're experiencing issues. We can use this to coordinate with partners using SDR to investigate why e.g. 'Share IP Address' isn't being honored."

However, no official fix has been implemented yet. The issue remains open on GitHub, with continued discussion and testing from affected users.

The broader implications of this issue highlight the challenges of regional network infrastructure and how changes in core networking services can have significant impacts on user experiences. For gamers in affected regions, the situation has rendered many P2P games unplayable, forcing them to either rely on workarounds or switch to different games and platforms.

As online gaming continues to grow, the importance of robust, low-latency networking infrastructure becomes increasingly critical. This issue serves as a reminder that even small changes in core services can have disproportionate effects on user experiences in specific regions.