Cool Ideas VPN Server(s)

PBCool said:
It's possible we could setup a local VPN that would would use the AWS transit over Eassy and via Dijbouti to ME with the lower latency as well. Will take a bit of engineering to do so.
Click to expand...
If you wanted to... could just recommend using Warp since its enabled there... and it's free thats what I do if I ever need to touch those servers...Cloudflare picks my traffic up in CT so no added extra routing or anything
 
PBCool said:
It's possible we could setup a local VPN that would would use the AWS transit over Eassy and via Dijbouti to ME with the lower latency as well. Will take a bit of engineering to do so.
Click to expand...
The better play is getting to Singapore, it's the same latency as Bahrain but they have an actual playerbase in most games and the region doesn't go to sleep.
 
Soul Assassin said:
The better play is getting to Singapore, it's the same latency as Bahrain but they have an actual playerbase in most games and the region doesn't go to sleep.
Click to expand...
Yeah also possible, but expensive buying transit via SAFE just for a handful. It would make more sense to sell a gaming VPN as a service at that point :)
 
PBCool said:
Yeah also possible, but expensive buying transit via SAFE just for a handful. It would make more sense to sell a gaming VPN as a service at that point :)
Click to expand...
Please and thank you and please make it available to all ISPs especially people stuck on Vox until December because they wanted free Vumatel installation.

Vox get 175ms to London just as a fun fact.
 
PBCool said:
Yeah also possible, but expensive buying transit via SAFE just for a handful. It would make more sense to sell a gaming VPN as a service at that point :)
Click to expand...
You have gotten my interest and a few others go on... I know not only gamers would use this VPN service since the likes of @jannier i know asked before about the exitlag getting low latency to Asia since he said he works a bit in Asia

1624520736935.png
 
@PBCool Thank you for this. At least CISP is trying something!
FYI Frotnite from Bloem FPS was 180 with the VPN 178...
:( not a lot... but will test it for the next few days.
 
Hi Guys

I tried the VPN, play Warzone and if I use the VPN, it won't let me find or connect to a game. It just goes finding game at 170 ping and then climbs and sit there. Activision has built in a bunch of VPN protection to stop cheating.

I have the same issue when using PIA VPN.
The only VPN service that allowed me to connect to warzone games overseas is https://www.exitlag.com/en, not sure what they do.
 
PURE said:
Hi Guys

I tried the VPN, play Warzone and if I use the VPN, it won't let me find or connect to a game. It just goes finding game at 170 ping and then climbs and sit there. Activision has built in a bunch of VPN protection to stop cheating.

I have the same issue when using PIA VPN.
The only VPN service that allowed me to connect to warzone games overseas is https://www.exitlag.com/en, not sure what they do.
Click to expand...
I take it you are able to browse and do regular internet things when on the VPN?

And other games work?
 
TheRoDent said:
I take it you are able to browse and do regular internet things when on the VPN?

And other games work?
Click to expand...
Hi

Yip - can browser, discord, party up with friends in-game from the UK. We just can't join a game.
 
TheRoDent said:
Yeah, unless you're willing to do some config, or route a PS5 through a VPN (which is possible), it's not an easy solution, but the physics of light, and ping are not to be discounted.

The VPN solution is a "workaround" to sort out problems with servers that are hosted with AWS et al, in South Africa, but AWS and the like have issues due to the fact that they use their OWN bandwidth, and international routing, which we cannot control.

They have bad pings (which we cannot control), and we have better pings. So it's a workaround. We cannot entirely "disconnect" them.

But this (the VPN) is obviously not something we can generally support, hence the "experiment". But feedback is always welcome. It's just so hard to try and deal with game server matchmaking on different platforms, when all the game servers are being controlled by someone that Cool Ideas cannot have a relationship with.

Not for lack of trying, and we'd happilly offer free infrastructure to popular games, but we can't beat physics, and we can't force Fortnite to use our (freely) offered servers.

It's just that gaming companies don't generally care about South Africa as a market, and only want to deal with cloud providers such as AWS, Azure etc. And these cloud providers care about cost, and not about ping, and they have a very specific views about infrastructure and routing. We could disconnect AWS/Azure/Google but that would be stupid. We have better paths than they do to the UK, but it's nigh impossible to manipulate it, for one specific IP, or game.

Hence our VPN "experiment".

We invested a lot of money to get the lowest pings to Brazil (70ms) from South Africa on the SACS cable, but then eventually all our gaming clients complained that because of forced matchmaking that they couldn't find games that are enjoyable, at hours that they wanted to play. Because of timezone differences. A fault of the game, but not the ISP.

Clients also complained about the fact that there was a language barrier.

Yet, we invested a lot of money into getting the lowest pings to Brazil, on the newest cable. But people hated it.

So we cancelled it.

The issue is that as soon as we make console clients happy with our routing, then we get complaints from PC gamers. And the issue isn't with us as an ISP. The issue is the gaming companies, and their matchmaking (or lack thereof) and regional lockdowns.

If you want to make a difference, then complain and moan at your gaming server provider to let them take in interest in South Africa, and use local AWS/Azure/Google servers.

Or even better, ask them to allow you to host your OWN server...

But that's a pipe dream probably. I've fought this battle for ~8 years. And I'm a gamer. Gaming companies that want to "control" all their servers are silly, and are reducing their market share for the sake of convenience. Yet, they'll happily take your money.

Which is why I haven't supported a game that doesn't allow for self-hosting, or at least locally hosted cloud servers. It does mean I'm pissing in the wind, but hey....
Click to expand...
Pricing will be a problem. Even though they make so much money lol.
We use a major Fortune 500 company's product that is hosted on AWS. We've been asking for a local one on the South African AWS/Azure and their response is always the same: "Due to the high cost of AWS and Azure services and data transfer in South Africa we are unable to consider using infrastructure at that location at this time."

I imagine the gaming providers might have similar reasons?
 
neoprema said:
Pricing will be a problem. Even though they make so much money lol.
We use a major Fortune 500 company's product that is hosted on AWS. We've been asking for a local one on the South African AWS/Azure and their response is always the same: "Due to the high cost of AWS and Azure services and data transfer in South Africa we are unable to consider using infrastructure at that location at this time."

I imagine the gaming providers might have similar reasons?
Click to expand...
Huge issue why majority of providers won't put servers here is poor numbers of players. CSGO is one of our more popular games and the player base is only around 2 to 3k. For a game provider to open servers they need to have enough players playing 24/7 otherwise their game is ruined and the game experience is bad. For example if you search for a game at 2am you won't be able to fill servers for most games. Dota 2 use to have CT servers for ranked games but they were dead so Russians invaded them and used them to boost accounts MMR so they got taken away. BF at one stage got their servers taken away because of low population. You also need to ensure you have enough players in every skill bracket, so someone at the highest rank needs enough people around them to play so take something like CS, if you the top two ranks you won't find ranked games majority of the day.
 
neoprema said:
Pricing will be a problem. Even though they make so much money lol.
We use a major Fortune 500 company's product that is hosted on AWS. We've been asking for a local one on the South African AWS/Azure and their response is always the same: "Due to the high cost of AWS and Azure services and data transfer in South Africa we are unable to consider using infrastructure at that location at this time."

I imagine the gaming providers might have similar reasons?
Click to expand...
Transferring data to your local gamers in South Africa, is practically free, as most ISP's peer for free with cloud providers.

I understand that running a cloud in .za is probably not the cheapest for general high traffic apps. But gaming is a few megabits per second, to a community that is local.
 
CrypticZA said:
Huge issue why majority of providers won't put servers here is poor numbers of players. CSGO is one of our more popular games and the player base is only around 2 to 3k. For a game provider to open servers they need to have enough players playing 24/7 otherwise their game is ruined and the game experience is bad. For example if you search for a game at 2am you won't be able to fill servers for most games. Dota 2 use to have CT servers for ranked games but they were dead so Russians invaded them and used them to boost accounts MMR so they got taken away. BF at one stage got their servers taken away because of low population. You also need to ensure you have enough players in every skill bracket, so someone at the highest rank needs enough people around them to play so take something like CS, if you the top two ranks you won't find ranked games majority of the day.
Click to expand...
We need to get more kids in school involved in gaming. Its a recognized sport now, instead of running around a field chasing a ball or jumping around like they're on hot coals they should have the option of gaming - or at least say 1 outdoor and 1 indoor/e-sport. Kit out schools with proper gaming kit to promote better players.
 
neoprema said:
We need to get more kids in school involved in gaming. Its a recognized sport now, instead of running around a field chasing a ball or jumping around like they're on hot coals they should have the option of gaming - or at least say 1 outdoor and 1 indoor/e-sport. Kit out schools with proper gaming kit to promote better players.
Click to expand...
I think we're at over 180 schools now with free Gigabit internet supplied by us.

But without people pushing gaming companies for local servers, that's a moot point.
 
@PBCool

Hello,

Any news about singapore? My exit lag subscription renews this weekend. And i am enjoying the new Apex season! Just want to find out if i have to keep my sub.

Regards!
 
@TheRoDent is there an easy way to setup this VPN in a split tunnel? Tried doing some Googling but most of the searches flew right over my head... Ideally would like only certain traffic to go over the VPN.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X