24 replies to this topic

[FatYak]

Ok, so, i thought i would share some info on VPN's if you from Aus and thinking about one. I have a good to garbage connection (optus) and have a lot of jitter issues and packet loss at times, so i thought i would start investigating VPN's

So far i have looked at WTFast, Pingzapper, Astril.

WTFast
WTFast turns out, is not compatible with MWO (just like shinvector said in the other thread) However, they have contacted me and let me know that a new version of WTFast is undergoing internal testing that will be compatible with MWO. They have several servers in Australia and Montreal, the UI for the program also shows a lot of info in terms of jitter, number of ping spikes and a bunch of other stuff and compares them with and without WTFast, so you can really see the effect that it does (or in this case doesn't) have. WTFast gor back to me on the 22/1/15 and said

Quote

MWO is not supported by our current version of WTFast. We do have another version that we are working on that does support it however we are still internally testing and I am not sure when this build will be released in a beta or a full release for the public

.
Pingzapper
Pingzapper recently added a server in Sydney, they have servers in NA but not Canada itself. I am im having some issues connecting to it, and their software keeps routing me through Hong Kong. I have a support ticket in with them to find out what's going on. It doesn't have a GUI like WTFast so its hard to tell if it has much of a difference. PIngzapper got back to me on the 25/1/15 and said

Quote

We tried to support Mechwarrior online previously, however it does not support going through proxy servers, hence we did not manage it to add it to our games list"

Astril
Astril has been interesting. The client is easy to install but it has virtualy no support for nubs like myself, so their was a lot of trial and error for me. They have a pretty good wiki on how each feature works but it is time consuming and would be easier if you know something about networking (i knowz nuthing!). They have several servers in Australia and Canada. I bought a short subscription to them last night and played a few games and my ping was back in the 270's which i have not seen for a long time (usually suit 290-330 +100 in jitter ) There seamed to be a lot less ping spiking. It doesn't have the GUI that shows the information that WTFast has so i cant really tell how much of a difference, there really is, but the lower ping is encouraging

StrongVPN
StrongVPN a few day ago. They have a servers in Australia and Canada. I had issues getting the client to to work and their customer service was garbage, after several attempts at getting support I had my money refunded and uninstalled

My gaming machine is offline (MB warranty claim) so i was using my old laptop which doesnt even meet minimum specs for MWO, even with a FPS of 14-18 i was still getting 2-4 kill matches and 600 odd damage with streak boats.

I'll look forward to getting my real machine back and having a better look at things

Any suggestion of other VPNS would be great, i like experimenting....especially when beer is involved......

Edited by Verapamil, 25 January 2015 - 01:05 AM.

[FatYak]

Forgot to add, i tried StrongVPN a few day ago. They have a server in australia and canada. I had issues getting the client to to work and their customer service was garbage, so i had my money refunded and uninstalled

[Silchas Ruin79]

Interesting thread, but not sure if the small gain is worth the effort.
I love the game but stopped playing a few months ago because the high ping in Aus just makes it to hard to be competitive.
Might give it another shot soon see how its changed. Pity the player base isn't large enough to warrant a server over here

[FatYak]

Silchas Ruin79, on 23 January 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

Interesting thread, but not sure if the small gain is worth the effort.
I love the game but stopped playing a few months ago because the high ping in Aus just makes it to hard to be competitive.
Might give it another shot soon see how its changed. Pity the player base isn't large enough to warrant a server over here

Yeah, i agree, server would be nice. Its not so much the high ping that gets me, its the jitter making shots dissappear into the eather - multiple alphas etc just no registering, and when you look at your ping you find your umping up to the 4-500's and back to 330 over a second or so

It will be interesting to see how it works with warthunder. Always seem to have a 5-10% packet loss there, but it does not seem to effect my ability to kill things. Driving in a stright line can be a real issue though =D.

[El Bandito]

Does Australia have so little gaming population? I am surprised that there is no Oceanic server in League of Legends.

[FatYak]

El Bandito, on 23 January 2015 - 07:18 PM, said:

Does Australia have so little gaming population? I am surprised that there is no Oceanic server in League of Legends.

PC Gaming pretty much died here when consoles came out.

[Insects]

El Bandito, on 23 January 2015 - 07:18 PM, said:

Does Australia have so little gaming population? I am surprised that there is no Oceanic server in League of Legends.

Australia is only 23 million population, another 4.5 million if you include NZ.
Pretty isolated from Asia in network terms plus language divide means there is little gaming interaction with the Asia region.

Edited by joelmuzz, 23 January 2015 - 08:55 PM.

[Ace Selin]

LoL. I live in Aus, have Optus ADSL2 and live 6.5km from exchange so get max 2mbps download, ping 270 ish and have no problem playing this game. When I play hard I get 2-6 kills and 600-700 damage on average an I do this often.
So OP your problem lies elsewhere I think

[FatYak]

Ace Selin, on 23 January 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

LoL. I live in Aus, have Optus ADSL2 and live 6.5km from exchange so get max 2mbps download, ping 270 ish and have no problem playing this game. When I play hard I get 2-6 kills and 600-700 damage on average an I do this often.
So OP your problem lies elsewhere I think

And your advice is what exactly?

Tell me O'great one, where the problem may else lie?

[Devil Fox]

El Bandito, on 23 January 2015 - 07:18 PM, said:

Does Australia have so little gaming population? I am surprised that there is no Oceanic server in League of Legends.

joelmuzz, on 23 January 2015 - 08:55 PM, said:

Australia is only 23 million population, another 4.5 million if you include NZ.
Pretty isolated from Asia in network terms plus language divide means there is little gaming interaction with the Asia region.

It's also the cost of maintaining the servers in Australia. Australian ISP are very, very controlling over data flow and control, and very pedantic about it. I think an example was Wild Star, they investigated it all and found the hassle, contracts, stipulations, etc associated with a local server was too horrendous, problematic, and very limited to be worth the effort.

[FatYak]

Apostal Sinclair, on 23 January 2015 - 09:51 PM, said:

It's also the cost of maintaining the servers in Australia. Australian ISP are very, very controlling over data flow and control, and very pedantic about it. I think an example was Wild Star, they investigated it all and found the hassle, contracts, stipulations, etc associated with a local server was too horrendous, problematic, and very limited to be worth the effort.

That's a good point, there's very little competition in ISP's here, and even then they all pretty much rent the infrastructure of one telco

[The Wakelord]

El Bandito, on 23 January 2015 - 07:18 PM, said:

Does Australia have so little gaming population? I am surprised that there is no Oceanic server in League of Legends.

There is My mate just posted yesterday that he moved from the US to Oceanic server.

[El Bandito]

The Wakelord, on 23 January 2015 - 10:02 PM, said:

There is My mate just posted yesterday that he moved from the US to Oceanic server.

You are right, Riot seems to have opened the Oceanic server Beta just now. Talk about coincidence.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 January 2015 - 10:47 PM.

[FatYak]

Pingzapper has got back to me about the Sydney Server and MWO i mentioned earlier. They said that MWO is not compitible with all of their proxy servers and therefore not fully supported

And yet they have people who use it on MWO, go figure!

[Eboli]

Canberra - my ping is a consistent 239-250.

Going through Transact - Grapevine - IInet service lines.

You cannot avoid a ping of at least 230 IMHO. Ping is going to happen over distance and how many connections. VPNs may not really help depending on what you have to go through.

Cheers!
Eboli

[EGG]

Verapamil, on 23 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

PC Gaming pretty much died here when consoles came out.

Actually according to the steam download stats, we download more PC games via just that platform than everyone except US, Russia, Canada, UK, France, Brazil & Germany. Not bad when our population is the size of Florida + Oregon and our internet speeds are generally a joke.

http://store.steampo.../stats/content/

[FatYak]

Eboli, on 25 January 2015 - 04:15 AM, said:

Canberra - my ping is a consistent 239-250.

Going through Transact - Grapevine - IInet service lines.

You cannot avoid a ping of at least 230 IMHO. Ping is going to happen over distance and how many connections. VPNs may not really help depending on what you have to go through.

Cheers!
Eboli

Thanks Eboli, but im not after a reduction in ping, im after stable ping that does not fluctuate between 300 and 500 like i have at the moment.

EGG, on 25 January 2015 - 08:46 AM, said:

Actually according to the steam download stats, we download more PC games via just that platform than everyone except US, Russia, Canada, UK, France, Brazil & Germany. Not bad when our population is the size of Florida + Oregon and our internet speeds are generally a joke.

http://store.steampo.../stats/content/

That doesn't surprise me seeing PC gaming has been so poorly supported by retail outlets for the last decad

Steam is the new black in PC gaming!

[Errinovar]

Disclosure: Until recently I was using 100mbps fiber, I just upgraded to 1gbps fiber though it made absolutely 0 impact on MWO.

I play from Japan, so I'm a bit closer than Australia. Before PGI moved servers I would get about 180-200 ping without VPN, but for some reason I get routed to the new server across the Atlantic so I immediately shot up to 320+ ping. I use strong VPN and I get pings in the 190-200. Funny thing, doing speed tests to Montreal without VPN on speedtest.net I get a ping of about 140, but something about PGI's server doubles the ping.

I personally would recommend StrongVPN, I had no problems setting it up and always had excellent customer support. YMMV.

[Macster16]

Live in Melbourne with Internode ADSL2+. Not far from the exchange getting about 11mb down/800k up. My ping stays a consistent 260-290, rarely bobbing above 300.

Wonder if the NBN will improve things at all? My dad lives in Gungahlin in Canberra and he's hooked up onto the NBN. When I was there for Xmas, I wanted to test it out so badly but couldn't since he's on such a limited plan as he barely uses the internet.

[FatYak]

Errinovar, on 26 January 2015 - 02:08 AM, said:

Disclosure: Until recently I was using 100mbps fiber, I just upgraded to 1gbps fiber though it made absolutely 0 impact on MWO.

I play from Japan, so I'm a bit closer than Australia. Before PGI moved servers I would get about 180-200 ping without VPN, but for some reason I get routed to the new server across the Atlantic so I immediately shot up to 320+ ping. I use strong VPN and I get pings in the 190-200. Funny thing, doing speed tests to Montreal without VPN on speedtest.net I get a ping of about 140, but something about PGI's server doubles the ping.

I personally would recommend StrongVPN, I had no problems setting it up and always had excellent customer support. YMMV.

Thanks errinovar

I might give strong VPN another go when i have the time, maybe my experience with them was abnormal?

Macster16, on 26 January 2015 - 02:17 AM, said:

Live in Melbourne with Internode ADSL2+. Not far from the exchange getting about 11mb down/800k up. My ping stays a consistent 260-290, rarely bobbing above 300.

Wonder if the NBN will improve things at all? My dad lives in Gungahlin in Canberra and he's hooked up onto the NBN. When I was there for Xmas, I wanted to test it out so badly but couldn't since he's on such a limited plan as he barely uses the internet.

I'm in rural VIC, about 2.5 hours north east, my ping used to be 270 with a bit of fluctuation. After the server move i was getting fluctuating pings between 320 and 500 on an Optus ADSL 2 and a 3mbs download. IM not far from the local exchange but the local infrastructure is fairly old and we are unlikely to see NBN anytime soon. It would seem like its Optus throttling my connection at times or dodgy routing between hre and Melbourne as with a VPN the ping sticks to 274 like mud on a blanket.