Yes! VPN does indeed help when it comes to gaming but not always,
It's effective if the server is on another country but not so much if the server is local.
There are also cases where it helps even if the server is local but not always.
In the picture above the green metric is the metric with VPN and the red metric is the one without.
WTFAST is a G.P.N. 'gaming' private network, LAWL. it's a VPN but app based.
It is exactly what it says on that graph, I do suffer packet loss without VPN and smoother gameplay with VPN. I have tried it with other online games as well such Diablo IV, League of Legends(PH), and Dota 2, the results vary.
What's a VPN? simply put, a private network in the internet. It has features such as security but we will mainly focus on its effects when it comes to online gaming.
Describing VPN in simpler terms.
If you are going on a trip, taking a taxi would be the fastest way, you won't have to deal with the hassle of riding multiple vehicles with their own routes just to get to your destination. The TAXI trip is what a VPN is in simpler terms.
This is what a typical connection looks like, actually this is the best case scenario of what a connection between you and the server looks like.
- You = means you, your computer, your router, your modem.
- Your ISP = your connection to the terminal and then to the ISP's datacenters.
- Internet Exchange = a sort of mediator from different ISPs. In The Philippines we have PHOPENIX but there are other private ones as well.
- Server's ISP = well like your ISP, the server has it's own as well.
- Server = Like You, but bigger.
And now the reality:
This is what it really is, If the game server caters to a region then most likely the server is situated in another country. In my case South East Asia (SEA), the servers would most likely be situated in Singapore or Hongkong. Hence it probably won't just need pass a single internet exchange but more likely a lot of them.
As you might have seen in the image above a VPN would set their network to take as less jump as possible to achieve the best performance possible.
This is what we call. Routing. (That's also the reason we call 'those' devices as routers).
There are two types of routing, Dynamic Routing and Static Routing.
Dynamic Routing is messier but otherwise the better choice because if one route fails other routes can be used.
Static Routing is cleaner and preconfigured to be the most optimal, but as you might expect there's only one route and if something goes wrong it's all over.
Yes, I have experience disconnection using WTFAST/VPN. and when it goes down, it really goes down, forcing you to restart and choose a new route.
So why am I recommending WTFAST(www.wtfast.com). a GPN. well. you can use it for free. they give members with no subscription 1(ONE) hour per day to use their services.
Pretty Neat. so if you wanna try it out on some games and test if VPN really helps go ahead.
OK. my personal experiences using WTFAST.
let's start with our current favorite game. DIABLO 4.
On the bottom left side of the screen you can see Latency FIVE HUNDRED FUCKING NINETY FIVE miliseconds of latency. this is without WTFAST enabled. I would like to point you that at the WTFAST window you can clearly see trial time left 58 minutes on the top right.
So why do I have 595ms of latency.
First I checked Task Manager's Resource Monitor while DIABLO IV is running.
Here in the network settings you can see that the Remote Address is 137.221.104.122, That is the server I am currently connected to.
Using an IP lookup site such as whatismyip.com reveals that the server is blizzard's and it's in the Amsterdam... In Netherlands. So Me, In the Philippines, is connecting to a server in Europe. LIKE WTH BLIZZARD where's the Asia servers?
Here is an image with WTFAST enabled. ONE HUNDRED MILISECOND. 0.1 second of lag. holy shit. it's like night and day. and yes, it's still connecting to the server in Amsterdam.
Next we have is Dota 2.
at the top right of the screen is the latency indicator. without wtfast my latency is only 28ms.
with WTFAST it jumps to 41ms.
no surprise here because my ISP and the Dota SEA servers(we have servers in The Philippines) are well optimized.
League of Legends(PH)
there are times where the servers are really good, but most of the time it's shit for me. issues such as packet loss ruins the experience for me. on times that the servers are really good I get 20ms, on times it's really bad it goes to 80ms with packet loss. using WTFAST gives me 50ms of latency without packet loss.
And that's pretty much it.
It works, it helps.
but not in all cases.
I still want to remind people that having VPN is having another thing that might go wrong, if something happens to the VPN connection, consider your game disconnected.
That's that from me.
Cheers~. Diablo IV 200ms or less is fun~. But I do hope I connect to an Asia server instead of one in Europe in the future.
Weeww! This is so informative. I am not a gamer but appreciate how your experiences could help others. Happy Gaming!
hello pinkchic!~ thank you for the kind words. 😊
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Glad VPN can help. Really weird that you're connecting to EU servers. Would think there would be closer ones for you.
yeah it does and I am thinking of subscribing. Even now I am still connected to the server in Netherlands. without VPN ping is 250ms +/- . I guess this is okay.
Cheers 😊
This was super informative 👀
My college program is supposed to be computer studies but I never really knew what VPN actually did >u< I just knew it's used to connect to other servers and didn't think more to it. I'm a simpleton and the taxi analogy helped a lot :>
the information I gave is only useful in regards to gaming.
VPN has some other use case such as it literally being a 'virtual' Local Area Network(LAN). allowing functions such as public folder sharing in a local network that is normally only available in a 'physical' LAN setups. you can also play LAN games of the good old days due to this reason.
another feature would be anonymity by masking your real IP address behind a VPN so you won't be tracked by other more savvy online users.
I'm glad to have helped. 😊
Oooooh!
I think I remember using one to play in the Minecraft server my friend set up! Hamachi!
yes. 😊