Gaming over a VPN

[indyjones]

Hi all,

While I am not computerwise, I still don't have much knowledge with networking. I can set up shares and so on but that's about it......

Anyway on with my question, most PC games support gaming over a LAN, is there anyway you would be able to play (as if your were on the LAN) using a VPN? If so how would I go about setting up a VPN? (I have windows home server, which is basically server 2003).

Cheers

 

[LordOfLA]

A VPN is essentially a LAN in a LAN Windows treats it no differently. If the VPN goes to a remote location though it will only be as fast as both sides can upload data.

 

[LeeJend]

I doubt you will be able to play decently if at all through a VPN. It stands for Virtual Private Network. It is a security system used by businesses that lets "private communications" occur over a public network.

As such it can be loosely thought of as a private, highly restricted firewall. Firewalls wreak havoc on gaming performance even after you open them up to allow gaming ports. A VPN is even worse.

The one I use to connect to work is snail slow because everything goes thorugh the company servers for authentication. It also blocks all other comunicaitons from my PC to the rest of the internet so I can only go through the VPN servers.

Multiplayer games vary, some are peer to peer, others route everything through a server. The peer to peer will probably not work at all with a VPN up.

A buddy had an ISP 10 years ago that used a VPN and he could not game. When he bitched enough they gave him a special access IP outside of the VPN that allowed one PC on his LAN to connect to the internet for gaming.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[Moonwraith]

We've used it as a VPN over das internet to solve a lot of issues we get with people not sure how to unblock their ports, or *ahem* not in my case - but using not-so-legit copies.

Just have everyone install Hamachi (https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?lang=en) - completely legit, completely safe, free version etc. etc. One person creates a channel (with password) - everyone joins it, assigns a VNP IP to each user.. yadayadayada easy peasy.

Hopefully this is what you're after, my brain's pretty burnt out.

 

[indyjones]

We've used it as a VPN over das internet to solve a lot of issues we get with people not sure how to unblock their ports, or *ahem* not in my case - but using not-so-legit copies.

Just have everyone install Hamachi (https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?lang=en) - completely legit, completely safe, free version etc. etc. One person creates a channel (with password) - everyone joins it, assigns a VNP IP to each user.. yadayadayada easy peasy.

Hopefully this is what you're after, my brain's pretty burnt out.

That looks great, thank you. Will give it a try

 

[Moonwraith]

Glad to finally be useful with something

Give me a shout in a PM if you have any issues setting it up/getting it working. Although it's pretty straight forward