Blur Busters Forums

I am interested in cases where a gaming VPN or route-optimization tool appears to lower ping, but it is unclear whether the actual gameplay connection has improved.

Has anyone measured the results using in-game network telemetry, WinMTR, PingPlotter, or another monitoring tool?

If you have conducted before-and-after testing, I would be interested in:

Average RTT before and after optimization
Changes in jitter or ping variance
Changes in packet loss
Whether the result remained stable across multiple matches
Whether the improvement only applied to one game, server, ISP, or time of day
Cases where the tool reduced displayed ping but did not improve hit registration or rubber-banding

Please redact any personal IP addresses before sharing screenshots or logs.

I am exploring whether players need a more transparent tool that diagnoses the source of instability and only changes the route when testing shows a real benefit. There is currently no product or download link to promote.

I think most games now already have this built in. You never connect directly to a server. For example in Valve games you go through the closest/lowest latency/most stable Valve relay, then via their internal network until you hit the game server. Most games do this these days. It's basically a build in VPN that finds the best route for lowest latency. When using a VPN you can change what relay you go through but you can't change what server you connect to.

Changing your location with a VPN is most likely just going to lengthen the route. It's only useful if you keep getting put on an unstable relay or one that is problematic so using a VPN might get you a different relay.

For example I'm in the UK. CS generally gives me a UK server with direct connection which means I'm connecting to the London relay and to a game server in the same location as the relay/on site. Using a VPN is useless unless there is a problematic hop between me and the relay and I can skip that hop by changing my routing with a VPN..