Sons of the Forest FAQ — Ping, Servers, Network

Yes. PingAim uses a WFP (Windows Filtering Platform) kernel driver to route SonsOfTheForest.exe traffic through your best available network interface. Sons of the Forest uses VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) at user-mode level — not kernel-level anti-cheat like EasyAntiCheat — so WFP is fully compatible and safe. PingAim attaches to the game process and routes UDP traffic through whichever connection you assign: your phone's 5G hotspot, a second WiFi adapter, or your wired Ethernet, depending on which reaches the host or server fastest.

Rubber-banding in Sons of the Forest has three possible causes: (1) Your ping to the host or server is high — this is the most common cause in cross-country friend sessions. (2) The host's internet upload is too slow to serve all connected players — even if your own connection is fast, the host's upstream is the bottleneck everyone shares. (3) The host's PC is struggling with performance in dense areas with lots of structures or enemies — this is server-side lag and cannot be fixed with network optimization. Use Task Manager's Resource Monitor to check if SonsOfTheForest.exe is sending and receiving data normally before blaming your connection.

Yes, significantly. In the default P2P mode, the host's machine runs the entire game world — AI, physics, crafting, saving — and streams game state to every guest. The host needs sufficient CPU, RAM, and upload speed. For 4 players, you want at least 5-10 Mbps upload on the host. If the host is in a different country from most guests, everyone's ping is set by the geographic distance to that player's home, not to a data center. As a guest, you cannot fix host-side performance or bandwidth issues — but you can improve your own routing path to the host with a tool like PingAim.

Up to 8 players simultaneously. The default friend-invite mode uses Steam P2P networking. With 8 players, the host's upload requirement grows proportionally — more players means more game state to transmit. Performance degrades noticeably on larger player counts if the host's hardware or internet is below recommended specs.

Yes, since Patch 07. Endnight added a free dedicated server tool (Steam App ID 2465200) that can run on Windows or Linux. Community hosting providers like Shockbyte, Nitrado, Survival Servers, and DatHost offer Sons of the Forest dedicated server plans. There are no official Endnight-operated game servers — you either rent from a provider or self-host. Dedicated servers eliminate the host-performance bottleneck of P2P sessions and allow the world to persist when all players are offline.

Both, depending on how you play. The default co-op mode is P2P via Steam — one player hosts, others connect to them through Steam networking. Since Patch 07, dedicated servers are also available for persistent worlds. On dedicated servers, the server's IP is used directly and the game behaves more like a traditional client-server game. PingAim helps in both cases by routing your outgoing traffic through a faster interface.