Gaming through VPN over ADSL?

[Sm00thSm0k3]

My brother in law and I thought it would be interesting to try to play some COD4: Modern Warfare over a virtual network but we ran into some serious latency issues.

From a connection perspective everything works. I've forwarded the ports on my router and he can successfully establish a VPN connection to my PC (Windows 7) and we can see each other machines. The problem however is that the ping times on average are sitting between 900ms and 1400ms which as most of the guru's will know, makes it almost impossible for him to play (he keeps getting lag and disconnnects).

I have a 384K unshaped account through Mweb while he has a 4Mb shaped account (also through Mweb).

My questions now is, why are the pings so high (is VPN traffic being severely shaped on Mweb?) and is there a way to improve them? Are the VPN overheads saturating my 384k line therefore leaving little bandwidth for other traffic?

On a ping test to Pretoria I get 32ms and to Cape Town I get 54ms. My brother in law gets roughly the same give or take 1ms or 2ms.

Any advice?

 

[Pada]

That is odd.

First things first:
1) What VPN are you using and how do you know what your brother's IP address is? (eg. PPTP VPN (default windows VPN) and DynDNS to map a hostname to his IP address)
2) What is your ping/latency to your brother's router's IP address without the VPN?
3) What is your ping to your brother's PC's IP address via the VPN?
4) traceroute to your brother's IP address with and without the VPN *** just remember to remove sensitive IP information

Try using the following VPN software: LAN Bridger
We had references to that in the following gaming VPN thread: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/242072-Local-Cap-LAN

The VPN setup should be real easy. You just need a DynDNS mapping to your router's WAN IP address and a nice VPN.
I would use the PPTP VPN as a last option.
Hamachi / LAN bridger works quite nicely if you have very little VPN knowledge.
OpenVPN is for the more hardcore okes

 

[Kroks]

Just a little side note, your VPN will only be as fast as the slowest point. That will be your 128 kbps upload on your 384 line.

 

[Pada]

Just a little side note, your VPN will only be as fast as the slowest point. That will be your 128 kbps upload on your 384 line.

Yeah. Usually 384kbps lines sync at 384kbps/192kbps, so your max upload is around 160kbps without the VPN.

 

[Kroks]

True, but the VPN overhead can be a killer as well.

 

[Sm00thSm0k3]

Thanks for the response all.

That is odd.

First things first:
1) What VPN are you using and how do you know what your brother's IP address is? (eg. PPTP VPN (default windows VPN) and DynDNS to map a hostname to his IP address)
2) What is your ping/latency to your brother's router's IP address without the VPN?
3) What is your ping to your brother's PC's IP address via the VPN?
4) traceroute to your brother's IP address with and without the VPN *** just remember to remove sensitive IP information

1) Standard Windows VPN. I configure W7 to accept incoming connections and then I set it so that the client is allocated an IP address (DHCP). I then specify an IP address range (192.168.1.4 - 192.168.1.6). Once he's connected I just check the status of the incoming connection (WAN miniport) and it shows what IP address he is connected on. I also confirm his VPN IP by getting him to do an ipconfig on his side. DynDNS?
2) I did not get a chance to do this test last night. Will try this this evening and post results.
3) Anything between 800ms and 1400ms both ways when VPN is connnected.
4) Will traceroute tonight with and without VPN and post results.

Once I've done the necessary tests I'll give Lanbridger a bash and see what happens.
I assume that if Lanbridger uses UPnP and NAT-PMP I can disable the 1723 port forward on the router?

Yeah. Usually 384kbps lines sync at 384kbps/192kbps, so your max upload is around 160kbps without the VPN.

So if I'm hosting the game will 128kbps upload be sufficient for what we're trying to do?