Huge Ping Spikes ?
Huge Ping Spikes ?
These issues are generally difficult to resolve when you lack control over the devices involved.
What your tests indicate is that your equipment appears to function normally. The link to your ISP remains stable, and the connection to Google DNS (8.8.8.8) is also reliable. It’s possible the problem lies elsewhere.
It seems the main alternative would be to switch to a different VPN provider. Services tailored for gaming usually perform best when the games you wish to play are hosted in data centers closer to your location. The challenge remains, as you can’t always confirm whether accessing a gaming network through your ISP is feasible without experiencing similar difficulties when trying to reach the gaming server itself.
Ideally, someone nearby who uses a VPN they know works could help. Once identified, you’d then need to evaluate several options yourself. This process is often time-consuming and may lead to discovering a service that doesn’t suit your needs.
Some gaming VPN providers offer limited refund policies for cancellations.
Another approach is to perform pathping tests on the gaming servers. You can also manually ping the nodes using tracert. The aim is to locate where latency spikes occur. Exercise caution when pathping, as it can easily give misleading results. Errors typically appear starting around hop 7 and persist through all subsequent hops. If issues are only seen in intermediate hops but not at the final destination, this could indicate a testing error or a router issue attempting to block ping traffic. Conducting this yourself helps you understand what works and what doesn’t.
The objective is to pinpoint the specific path causing the problem. This allows you to verify whether the VPN servers route through the same ISP as your regular connection—though you might still encounter different router addresses, which could help determine if access remains possible. The key difference between gaming and standard VPNs lies in the routing after leaving the server: a gaming VPN typically uses a more private network, whereas a normal VPN simply reroutes you to a different IP on the same internet.
Unfortunately, dedicated servers don't show their IP addresses clearly, which means I wouldn't be able to perform a ping test that way. Using a VPN works and services like Exitlag offer alternatives, but I prefer not to depend on paid solutions that restrict my gaming experience.
You can view the IP in the resource monitor under the network section.
You should be able to see the real IP if it is using TCP, and it will also display the average latency. However, spikes won’t appear. Many games rely on UDP connections, so you’ll only get the server name; you can use nslookup to discover the actual IP.
Whether the game company will respond to ping depends on other factors. Running tracert to the IP often results in blocks from firewalls... some players might try to crash servers when they lose connection. The firewall or router just before the block should still respond to ping/trace.
The IP 103.10.124.116 appears to be located in Singapore, while the IP 194.170.186.11 is in the UAE. Since I don't engage in gaming, I can't verify it myself. You'll need to experiment with various game servers from different regions to see what works best for you.
deadlock currently lacks any Middle Eastern servers, so I have to switch to the server given to me, which isn’t a problem for me at all. The main issue is that during midgame it randomly spikes to 1000, forcing me to reconnect to the lobby. I’ll test CS2 using the available servers to check if similar problems exist there as well.
Proton VPN offers free services but only supports servers in a limited number of countries. Likely areas include the Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. However, it appears servers switch every few minutes, giving you little control over your choice. You won't be able to pick your preferred country, as it assigns one automatically. It might not be the best option.