Question VPN over ISP

[Stymics]

Hi, so I’ve been doing a lot of research online for a possible solution to my “High Ping” and “lag spikes” in online games. I play a lot of Valorant and Fortnite and I just can’t deal with the lag. Discord also showed a change in latency. I use Mediacom Xtream with 400 down 50 up. My speeds are completely fine, ping is the issue. A few months ago when I moved into my new place I had the WiFi installed. No problems at all it ran smoothly. I’m connected via Ethernet to my modem and the co-ax cable is connected to my wall. For some reason my ping is suddenly up to around 70-100, before it was around 20-40. I used California servers for every game I play or (USWEST). For Valorant its odd, I have the same exact ping as I do for Virginia servers which are (USEAST). I have no idea what could’ve happened. I tried contacting support for the game, did tons of multiple recommended solutions but nothing worked. Then I moved onto Mediacom support. They came out twice and switched the modem and one of the cables out by the street. Issue still happening. I have them coming down for a cable drop bury replacement soon. Hopefully that fixes the issue but for now a VPN is literally the closest to what I had a few months ago. I live in a rural area with not many providers. If the problem occurs after the cable replacement should I switch to T-Mobile 5G Home Internet? That is the only other ISP I have not tried yet and it is available in my area. Thank you any answers to my problem will help a lot.

 

[bill001g]

You do not want any wifi anyplace in the path. You need to use a ethernet cable from the game machine to the modem/router. Wifi alone is the most common cause of that problem.

VPN "might" fix some latency issues. It is all hit and miss. In theory it should always increase the latency because you must go to the vpn center and then go from there to the game company. The only way it works is if for some reason your isp has a very poor path to the game company servers but has a good path the vpn company and then the vpn company must have a faster path to the game servers.

This is more used say in asia where sometime ISP do not have direct access to some of the undersea fibers that other ISP do.

You can try it maybe you get lucky.

Tmobile I suspect is going to be worse. It is a wireless technology and will be subject to interfere and you still are sharing the bandwidth with other users which will come and go as people are driving by the cell tower. What tmobile is calling 5g is just renamed 4glte on the majority of their network it is not really any faster than what you get from other providers.

 

[Stymics]

You do not want any wifi anyplace in the path. You need to use a ethernet cable from the game machine to the modem/router. Wifi alone is the most common cause of that problem.

VPN "might" fix some latency issues. It is all hit and miss. In theory it should always increase the latency because you must go to the vpn center and then go from there to the game company. The only way it works is if for some reason your isp has a very poor path to the game company servers but has a good path the vpn company and then the vpn company must have a faster path to the game servers.

This is more used say in asia where sometime ISP do not have direct access to some of the undersea fibers that other ISP do.

You can try it maybe you get lucky.

Tmobile I suspect is going to be worse. It is a wireless technology and will be subject to interfere and you still are sharing the bandwidth with other users which will come and go as people are driving by the cell tower. What tmobile is calling 5g is just renamed 4glte on the majority of their network it is not really any faster than what you get from other providers.

Ok thank you👍🏻I’ll focus on making sure that the problem is fixed soon.

 

[Old Molases]

TBH I tried Express and Nord for gaming and couldnt feel much of a difference with or without VPN. But, I've yet to try Ivacy VPN.