Cool Ideas VPN Server(s)

PBCool said:
So most of the realistic variances are just using the SAFE cable system IE East? :)

So we were the first ISP to turn up SACS capacity, and we had more complaints than compliments due to certain games forcing the use of the region with the lowest latency.

IE games with low numbers of players due to major time and as well as language differences.

So the same would apply if we turned up capacity on SAFE typically.

Unless every game allowed you to choose your region it ends up being tricky.
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Yeah, it comes down to choice. The best way to cater for different gaming expectations is a set of local VPN (East/West/south) that have split tunnels based off AWS IP ranges that allow people to select where they want to play vs everybody goes down that route. The split tunnel is to keep all traffic not bound for that AWS region off the link and on your regular network.

There has been a big shift in online gaming in the last 4 years where based on what I have seen in fps shooters, that 80% of the SA online gamer today must be on console and they don't have the ability to run VPN software or custom routes on their consoles but need to set it up on their routers.
 
PURE said:
Yeah, it comes down to choice. The best way to cater for different gaming expectations is a set of local VPN (East/West/south) that have split tunnels based off AWS IP ranges that allow people to select where they want to play vs everybody goes down that route. The split tunnel is to keep all traffic not bound for that AWS region off the link and on your regular network.

There has been a big shift in online gaming in the last 4 years where based on what I have seen in fps shooters, that 80% of the SA online gamer today must be on console and they don't have the ability to run VPN software or custom routes on their consoles but need to set it up on their routers.
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Yeap exactly, the trouble is that to turn up a small amount of capacity on a cable system also doesn't make any sense for a handful of people.

Currently there aren't any transit providers that provide capacity to both the west (South America) and the East (AsiaPac) that would make this an easy solution.
 
PBCool said:
Yeap exactly, the trouble is that to turn up a small amount of capacity on a cable system also doesn't make any sense for a handful of people.

Currently there aren't any transit providers that provide capacity to both the west (South America) and the East (AsiaPac) that would make this an easy solution.
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Difference between SACS vs SAFE is SAFE allows you to actually play on more than one additional region Australia even becomes viable, ping to them is around 220 which is more or less US ping.

I used exitlag for a while but sadly the route kept getting pulled so its not just Asia plus you go from 440 to 220 which is massive if you pull streaming from there e.g. using a VPN from the region to get blocked content.

I know Websquad have setup going both ways. I personally don't see SACS being useful since South America doesn't have anything major going for them and the tiny decrease to US is not not worth it where Asia/Aus is pretty nice.
 
CrypticZA said:
Difference between SACS vs SAFE is SAFE allows you to actually play on more than one additional region Australia even becomes viable, ping to them is around 220 which is more or less US ping.

I used exitlag for a while but sadly the route kept getting pulled so its not just Asia plus you go from 440 to 220 which is massive if you pull streaming from there e.g. using a VPN from the region to get blocked content.

I know Websquad have setup going both ways. I personally don't see SACS being useful since South America doesn't have anything major going for them and the tiny decrease to US is not not worth it where Asia/Aus is pretty nice.
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There is a difference between setting up multiple transits and trying to manage return paths which is near impossible.

So you can use two different transit providers but you will then struggle with asymmetric routing.

Again time difference to Aus and the technical challenges involved doesn't make it typically feasible for a handful of people wanting to use it.
 
There are different user cases based on what people want to achieve

Lowest ping possible crowd: They are normally competitive gamers and would take local servers if they could get them, it's why they prefer playing on ME servers (8'000km vs 14'000km)
SA servers are empty for my game choice: Want to shift the region to another place so that I can actually play with somebody or not wait 5 mins for the server to stop looking for a local game and connect you to an international server
Emigration crowd: Their friends have emigrated to Oz or EU or NA and they still want to play together. Vpn gives them the ability to pick a neutral place to play.
 
Playing on Singapore servers changed Apex for me! Playing with 120-140 ping vs 165-220 in EU from JHB makes such a big difference!
 
luckystrike said:
Playing on Singapore servers changed Apex for me! Playing with 120-140 ping vs 165-220 in EU from JHB makes such a big difference!
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This some games have horrible servers i play on New York servers for Apex because EU has so many issues, Singapore was the smoothest for me and i got the same latency as London.
 
PBCool said:
There is a difference between setting up multiple transits and trying to manage return paths which is near impossible.

So you can use two different transit providers but you will then struggle with asymmetric routing.

Again time difference to Aus and the technical challenges involved doesn't make it typically feasible for a handful of people wanting to use it.
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Yea i agree i don't know all the logistics and that behind everything but what i do know is some ISP's are getting better latencies to certain regions and i know quite a few people who have migrated over to them from CISP.

I also do agree it's difficult to handle from your guys side and there is only a small niche community that realistically will benefit from such changes so expectation of getting something like that is low.

It's just one of those frustrating things where you know you can get better latency but the tools aren't out there/its complicated to setup for someone who has no idea how to.
 
CrypticZA said:
Yea i agree i don't know all the logistics and that behind everything but what i do know is some ISP's are getting better latencies to certain regions and i know quite a few people who have migrated over to them from CISP.

I also do agree it's difficult to handle from your guys side and there is only a small niche community that realistically will benefit from such changes so expectation of getting something like that is low.

It's just one of those frustrating things where you know you can get better latency but the tools aren't out there/its complicated to setup for someone who has no idea how to.
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To accommodate the few makes no sense at scale unfortunately. Niche solutions are what work for this, for niche requirements.

We still use the lowest latency cables for everything to the UK/EU vs a blended cheaper alternative.
 
VPN died this morning as I was trying it and I couldn't reconnect. Just a glitch?

Also, is there a way to define static routes with SoftEther's client? I'd like to set up Discord to bypass the VPN for example, when using local Discord servers.
 
Seeyou said:
VPN died this morning as I was trying it and I couldn't reconnect. Just a glitch?

Also, is there a way to define static routes with SoftEther's client? I'd like to set up Discord to bypass the VPN for example, when using local Discord servers.
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Does it still not connect? You would do static routes at OS level typically.
 
PBCool said:
Does it still not connect? You would do static routes at OS level typically.
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Hadn't tried since, just waiting on a Steam download to finish and I'll give it a shot.

I have routes set up in Windows, but the Softether client seems to ignore them somehow. Works perfectly with Wireguard connections.
 
Seeyou said:
Hadn't tried since, just waiting on a Steam download to finish and I'll give it a shot.

I have routes set up in Windows, but the Softether client seems to ignore them somehow. Works perfectly with Wireguard connections.
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This was PEBCAK. The Discord server's IP range had changed and I hadn't noticed.
 
@TheRoDent or @PBCool is there anything you guys can do with the CISP VPN regarding NAT?

I assume it is a strict NAT that is blocking me from being able to play with friends Apex i can play alone but as soon as i try join their game lobby it breaks the game, naturally i would just use Warp but they have been having some packet loss issues lately and 240ms to Finland is not fun...
 
@CrypticZA asked me to help with setting up a split tunnel so local traffic such as Discord can route normally/locally while some traffic routes via the VPN, so I thought I would post here how to do it, for anyone else interested:

Setup a split tunnel:

1. Increase VPN network adapters interface metric.
This will make your PC prioritise your normal network adapter for default routing, so all traffic will continue routing normally (bypassing the VPN) even while connected, this way only static routes added to the windows routing table will route via the VPN.
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2. Add static routes.
I've attached a zip file with bat files to add static routes for AWS, and/or Google EU ranges, I've also attached bat files that you can use to remove those ranges from the routing table at a later stage if you wish to do so.
These bat files need to be run as administrator.

Note: The following errors can be ignored, as there is some overlap/duplicate ranges in the files:
The route addition failed: The object already exists.

The static routes only need to be added once, you should be able to disconnect/connect while the routes are in the routing table, if you disconnect from the VPN the AWS & Google cloud routes should continue to just route normally until you re-connect to the VPN again.

Source for IP ranges:
Google: https://www.gstatic.com/ipranges/cloud.json
AWS: https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json

Use this at your own risk.
 

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@TheRoDent - can anything be done about the strict NAT setting on this? The VPN itself is great, but I have constant issues in Apex when it comes to connecting to other people's lobbies, readying up, etc. No such issues when the VPN isn't active, or when using other services.
 
Seeyou said:
@TheRoDent - can anything be done about the strict NAT setting on this? The VPN itself is great, but I have constant issues in Apex when it comes to connecting to other people's lobbies, readying up, etc. No such issues when the VPN isn't active, or when using other services.
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@PBCool @TheRoDent - any chance of this being looked at?
 
TheRoDent said:
Unfortunately that will require a public IP, per person using the VPN server which is not something we can do right now.
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I don't know much about VPN's but when i use Windscribe for example my understanding is that is a shared IP and i don't have this issue? My friendly also is behind a CGNAT and that also doesn't stop her from joining lobbies.

Is it just because of how this one is setup? Like i mentioned not familiar with these type of things so just curious :)
 
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