With a VPN or game booster on, packets go through that company’s relay servers. If the relay is far away or busy, the connection can actually get slower.
Why The VPN or booster sends every game packet through its relay servers → Effect Distance to the relay and its congestion add up, and tunnel headers shrink the MTU (the largest packet size that can be sent at once) → On screen Higher ping and packet loss; can’t connect when the relay address gets blocked along with everyone else using it
Primary owner External (External) · Also Infra team (Network infrastructure), Game team (Server development)
Game team action items
Keep UDP packets at 1,200 bytes or less (so they don’t fragment even when tunnel headers shrink the MTU), account for shared VPN and booster relay addresses in IP-based blocking and decide together with account and device signals.
Infra team action items
If you have many overseas players, set up your own locations (PoPs) near them, check the routes of ISPs with a cluster of reports saying “turning on the booster made it better.”
External action items
Tell players to turn off the VPN or booster and compare.
Ballpark numbers
A nearby relay adds a few ms; a detour through another country adds tens of ms to over 100 ms.
On the graph
Outliers only · RTT (per player), network operator of the client IP
Where to look
Check whether the client IP’s ASN belongs to a VPN, booster, or hosting provider, and have the player turn off the VPN or booster and compare ping and traceroute
Confirmed if
RTT and loss rise, or connections get blocked, only with the VPN or booster on, and traceroute shows hops through the relay server
Ruled out if
Same with it on or off: the line or the ISP segment. Better with it on: a problem in the original ISP route (“Detour routing,” “Peak-hour congestion at peering links”)
Check with
The player’s own environment
Learn more
Conversely, when the ISP’s route is bad, a booster can take a better route and lower ping. Reports that “turning on the booster made it better” are a clue to an ISP route problem such as detour routing or evening congestion.
Azure network round-trip latency statisticsMicrosoft Azure Round-trip latency added when going through a location (PoP) in another country: Seoul–Tokyo 30 ms, Seoul–Hong Kong 39 ms, Seoul–Singapore 68 ms