PC EU. Does using VPN really lowers your ping?

Mariusghost84 · August 2020

Is there anyone out there in Europe using a VPN that actually works and makes a visible difference?

Jayman1000 · August 2020

It depends if your own ISP is a bad one. If they are artificially creating congestion for connections to certain places that can give higher ping, but that congestion will disappear with a VPN because your ISP dont know your destination (except if that destination in itself happens to be the VPN server you connect to of course but obviously that's rarely the destination when using a vpn.).

It may also be that your ISP is bad quality if they inadvertently use terribly ineffective/congested routing to the destinations servers.

MJallday · August 2020

By its very nature a VPN will increase your ping - Instead of going

Pc - router - ISP - destination (via several cabs and hops obviously not listed)
It will now go

PC - router - ISP - VPN - destination

And ofmcourse that is assuming your VPN provider and ISP have the same connection to the destination , which invariably they won’t (may also be quicker - it depends)

On top of that it is also encrypting traffic

All being equal you’ll add at least one hop. But things are never equal

So the answer is “it depends”

Reaper_00 · August 2020

It also depends on the type of VPN you are using. Normal VPNs that are meant for privacy/security in most cases slow down your connection to the game server unless your ISP is really bad and routes your traffic the worst way possible.

Dedicated gaming VPNs can make a difference, however, as they are designed to route your traffic more efficiently between you and the game server by minimising the number of hops involved to get your traffic to and from the game server often by using their own dedicated network with faster connections that have been optimised for gaming traffic.

Note, this won't help with the lag people are experiencing in places like Cyrodiil, as that is down to the game server and not the network/internet.

Mariusghost84 · August 2020

Thanks for the insight guys. "it depends" is basically the anwser. I think i just have to try it out for myself. Can anyone recommand a "gamer VPN" ? I just want to see if i can get my 90-110 ping further down

Darkstorne · August 2020

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

Thanks for the insight guys. "it depends" is basically the anwser. I think i just have to try it out for myself. Can anyone recommand a "gamer VPN" ? I just want to see if i can get my 90-110 ping further down

I'm also really curious about this. I know 80-150 is considered "good" ping in this game, but it's also frustrated me that in any other MMO it would be considered awful. I get 25-30 ping in WoW, and 30-40 in SWTOR and GW2. So seeing ESO be 80 at its absolute best is a bit of a joke.

Reaper_00 · August 2020

WTFast, ExitLag and BattlePing are the most popular gaming VPNs.

WTFast is easy to use and has a free trial for 7 days, although i think you still need to enter payment details to activate the trial. BattlePing has a free trial but will disconnect you every 20 minutes during the trial. I've never used ExitLag myself, but is supports ESO and has a 3 day free trail that doesn't need payment details.

technohic · August 2020

If you like numbers, I have found they can lower ping; but ping is not really going to tell you actual speed of heavy bandwidth traffic. It exists to verify connectivity and is quite small. Actual gameplay has a lot more constant stream if data. You are adding an extra hop that has to process a lot more each hop than ping.

That said; your ISP could be doing needless hops on it's own so at that point, you might be able to cut those out, but there is the possibility that you take the same needless hops to get to the VPN to begin with.

Now for some speculation on what I think as I have been using Exitlag. I got lower ping rate and I like to use the settings that prioritize the game, but I'm not sure it helps. I ran it last night and I played my stamdk, and I was getting desyncs every time I leaped. I'm actually curious now to go into primetime without it and see, even with higher ping; if I experience less desyncs and rubber banding. Just out of curiosity. Chances are, the game is just screwed up

SathuDuwa · August 2020

Using a VPN lowers my ping from ~380ms to ~190ms because my ISP (Singtel) routes the packets from Singapore to EU via USA.

Sarannah · August 2020

VPN is just an extra hop your data has to go through, and it lowers your security. You are now also at risk of two companies being compromised by hackers/security issues, instead of just one. ISP+VPN vs ISP. So it doubles the risk of your data getting out. Not to mention if the VPN itself is reliable.

Kadoin · August 2020

Seriously doubt it will decrease lag, specifically if you are in Cyro. That lag is not really connection-dependent and seems more of a client-server model problem.