VPNs and their uses for gaming?

N

ninjabubbles3

Active Member
So recently while watching a pro LoL stream, he stated that you should always use a VPN while you play, commenting on how another player was getting ping spikes.

What exactly is a VPN? As far as I know, its kind of like a proxy server, to bypass blocked sites, and protect your security.

And how is this useful for gaming? I get ping spikes and really slow unusable internet in the evening, when everyone on my block is watching Netflix or doing other stuff. Because of this, I can only play till maybe 6ish.
 
Seems like a misnomer for information.

A VPN just makes a secure tunnel for your traffic to another destination. If you're having ping spikes outward on hops to all of your destinations, encapsulating data within that same spiky connection isn't going to change anything.

There are situations where piping through a VPN can be useful if you have particularly bad WAN routing. When I had Time Warner I got better latency to Canada when going through a Dallas VPS than using the TWC routing all of the way there. Dallas is where ALL of our data was trunked to first, even when trying to go north, and then it went to some other bullcrap cities all along the east coast. The routing from the VPS subnet went straight to Chicago then Toronto, and had a more direct path.

Think of it like a highway. You can take an alternative route to avoid a traffic jam on the highway, but if the road to your house is always full of traffic then that's what you have to manage.
 
When playing games the only upside to having a VPN is not getting DDoS'd. Which means you can't get booted offline, but your lag will increase as beers stated..
 
That doesn't make any sense C4C. As Beers stated in second sentence, the VPN tunnel is only setting up secure transmission from one endpoint to another. You can still loose your connection to the game server.

Getting DDoS's is implying that a network of other PCs on the internet are trying to attack your system with a DoS attack. People don't do that. They would attack the server, not the client. A VPN on your client PC wouldn't protect the server from the network traffic generated from the DDoS.
 
beers said:
Seems like a misnomer for information.

A VPN just makes a secure tunnel for your traffic to another destination. If you're having ping spikes outward on hops to all of your destinations, encapsulating data within that same spiky connection isn't going to change anything.

There are situations where piping through a VPN can be useful if you have particularly bad WAN routing. When I had Time Warner I got better latency to Canada when going through a Dallas VPS than using the TWC routing all of the way there. Dallas is where ALL of our data was trunked to first, even when trying to go north, and then it went to some other bullcrap cities all along the east coast. The routing from the VPS subnet went straight to Chicago then Toronto, and had a more direct path.

Think of it like a highway. You can take an alternative route to avoid a traffic jam on the highway, but if the road to your house is always full of traffic then that's what you have to manage.
Click to expand...

I still have TWC, so would using a VPN help for LoL especially? My problem isnt just on LoL though, and it happens to everyone in the house, so Im guessing it wont help?
 
salvage-this said:
That doesn't make any sense C4C. As Beers stated in second sentence, the VPN tunnel is only setting up secure transmission from one endpoint to another. You can still loose your connection to the game server.

Getting DDoS's is implying that a network of other PCs on the internet are trying to attack your system with a DoS attack. People don't do that. They would attack the server, not the client. A VPN on your client PC wouldn't protect the server from the network traffic generated from the DDoS.
Click to expand...

I used to be a member of the call of duty community and I can tell you that you can DDoS'd a single person.

What I meant by the VPN, is that you connect through another server meaning your personal IP isn't accessible to the other gamers. This would mean that if they did try to attack you, they'd be attacking a VPN server instead.
 
C4C said:
I used to be a member of the call of duty community and I can tell you that you can DDoS'd a single person.

What I meant by the VPN, is that you connect through another server meaning your personal IP isn't accessible to the other gamers. This would mean that if they did try to attack you, they'd be attacking a VPN server instead.
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Still means that your internet would go down, wouldnt it? If VPN server goes offline, then you have to connect through your regular network, and then they DDoS that. Unless Im completely misunderstanding everything
 
Generally, no it will not help. Instead of packets going from your home to the game server via your ISP, it goes from your home, to the VPN server, then to the game server. Most likely you would notice decreased performance, slower download/upload speeds, and higher pings.
 
Geoff said:
Generally, no it will not help. Instead of packets going from your home to the game server via your ISP, it goes from your home, to the VPN server, then to the game server. Most likely you would notice decreased performance, slower download/upload speeds, and higher pings.
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Alright, thank you!

Also, what about WTFast? Some people say it helps. Whats the difference between it and a VPN?
 
The only pro I can see for a service like that, is if normally you need to take several hops to get to the game server, versus a shorter distance to the "gaming VPN" server, assuming the VPN server is a short hop from the game server.

Generally though, it's not worth it, you are limited by the quality connection you have from your ISP.
 
I do have a good connection 95% of the time, its just the 5% that makes me hate TWC with a passion.

I believe part of the problem, was hat my computer had been downloading Windows 10 updates, and that was taking up a bunch of my bandwidth. I disabled them, and hopeffully, it will be better now.
 
I have no idea what WTFast is, and I can't be bothered to look. But almost definitely, it closes other programs using a lot of bandwith to give more to games. You can do this yourself.

As said above, no software will make your internet faster.
 
PCunicorn said:
I have no idea what WTFast is, and I can't be bothered to look. But almost definitely, it closes other programs using a lot of bandwith to give more to games. You can do this yourself.

As said above, no software will make your internet faster.
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I believe it's a VPN service catered to gamers.
 
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