My brother keeps insisting me that my ping with my VPN is fake and that it’s impossible to lower it with VPN, but my ping does get lowered with VPN despite what he is saying.
The real answer is “it depends”. It depends on the route your ISP takes from your computer to the server, and the route the VPN takes from your computer to the server. It’s possible to get lower ping using a VPN, but it is by no means assured.
It depends. In practicality, VPNs actually add overhead as you’re wrapping up Layer 3 data inside Layer 3 data, so the overall packet payload is reduced (lowered throughput). However, it may be possible your ISP has a poor link (peer) to say 1.1.1.1 and you see pings of 50+ms. The link to your VPN server may be fast and you get say 15ms to it. VPN network has a faster link to 1.1.1.1 than your ISP at 5ms. You’d see ~20ms to 1.1.1.1 vs. the 50+ just on your ISP.
I use this trick myself to link two virtual servers together; I know the link via my VPN server is faster to both servers than the servers are to each other, shaving about 60ms RTT off traffic.
Domestically? Unlikely.
To other countries? Potentially.
I used to shave 20 - 30ms off my ping to a US server with a VPN.
Well, you can use ‘traceroute’ or similar to get a reasonable estimate on the average ping.
Think of it this way. Your VPN is tunneling your internet traffic to where ever the VPN host is. Then you at relying on their internet service to handle your traffic and send it back to you. It al depends on where you are VPNing into. In terms of a traceroute it’s just a few more hops so it shouldn’t matter but it all depends on your host. You are on your hosts network and their internet problems are now yours.
My work VPN almost increases the network throughout. I stopped using NordVPN, Verizon and then my Spectrum Business after I saw substantial decreases when using work specific products.
The answer to this is supposed to be no or depends at very best. So your brother isn’t wrong.
Think of it this way, it’s like filtering coffee. You have the coffee + the container. In between, you have the filter. Usually this would be you (the client), your data (coffee) and mug (game servers). In between, the ISP and their relay servers (filter). Now if you add more filters in between, the coffee stream gets slower. That’s what a VPN is. It’s another layer of passage data takes before getting to its destination.
To this, most people avoid running a VPN to game unless some other situation requires it (like ISP throttling, network filtered, etc). That being said, if your ISP or home router filter setting is to be tampering with game traffic, a VPN will bring the true potential out since your ISP can’t decipher the VPNed data to ID and throttle.
Another is that the VPN server is located closer to game servers and thus, displays a lower ping. That ping number isn’t actually representing truth since your inputs, your packets don’t change location wise physically regardless of what the VPN tells the game. The data still has to travel from you to game servers, you are still the original source of that data. So what you end up with is a good ping heavy input lag gameplay.
Yes. Tested with windscribe today in rainbow six siege. I chose vpn server with <5% load.
This is definitely the right answer. Going from your home to a VPN server and then from there to wherever you are ultimately headed will use a different route than just going through your ISP, it can sometimes be lower or sometimes higher latency… Just “depends”
, but it is by no means as
BTW, lower ping doesn’t always mean smooth gameplay. It’s just one factor. There are multiple layers in the data protocol, ping is at the very lowest. So, yes we want to have a good ping…but a good ping alone doesn’t guarantee a smooth gameplay. (tcp/ip protocol, network protocol wiki it if you want to learn more about it)
This is incomplete in the first part and wrong on the third part.
The network distance from ISP → VPN → Server could very well be shorter than ISP → Server depending on peering between the involved networks which would result in a lower ping to the server via VPN.
Second, the calculated ping between game client and server would account for the total RTT between the two including the hop to the VPN network, I am not sure where you are getting that it wouldn’t be true.
I play Siege too and If I want to play WEU servers I get less jitter and better stability with Amsterdam - Bicycle (I’m based in the UK).
Typically though VPNs don’t often lower your ping if a game has decent hop routing. But as we know nothing is perfect so it’s best to test around etc.
You don’t go from your home to a VPN, you’d still go to your home to your isp then to a VPN. Your VPN doesn’t magically replace your ISP.
So what you’re saying is my answer of “it depends” is accurate. Gotcha.
Also, ping is not “at the very lowest” level of the network stack. The physical layer cares not how long your datagram takes to arrive.
Also also, not all games use tcp (in fact it’s fairly common in multiplayer games to reimplement some parts of tcp, but not all of them, over udp because some kinds of data can be lossy with no issues).
A couple good reasons off the top of my head:
-
It adds an extra step for your network traffic. Normally your computer goes to your modem, then to wherever you are going on the internet. With a VPN, it goes from your computer, to your modem, to the VPN, then wherever else you’re going. Your VPN may have servers that respond faster to whatever you are testing your speed against, but it still goes back to your ISP, then you in reality.
-
Any good VPN is encrypting traffic between you and wherever you’re going. This would add additional overhead and make your connection slower.
Might be, but VPN usually slows down network response as a whole. It’s meant to be a encryption tunnel for the data going through it. So its never a first choice when you want raw responsiveness and speed. (Again, this assumes his ISP isn’t filtering anything)
Goes without saying that every packet you emit hits your ISP and travels in their network for “a while” but having the VPN in there means the route must go through the VPN node, and so it’s a different route than the ISP would offer you. Whether that increases or decreases the latency to your final destination is down to “factors”, it could, or it could not.
No, I meant it’s not accurate.
Technically you are correct. There is a possibility however. Since the VPN traffic is encapsulated in an encrypted channel, the ISP has no way of inspecting the type of traffic is being sent, which can circumvent traffic shaping policies they may have in place to deprioritize and slow down traffic they don’t consider as time sensitive.