Best VPN Protocols for Gaming in 2024

Your VPN protocol lays the groundwork for how you connect to your VPN server, affecting the velocity, stability, and security of your connection, so it’s worth investigating which protocol is best for gamers.

While OpenVPN is considered the industry standard for security, when gaming, speed is of the essence since even the smallest delay can cost you the game. There are better options than OpenVPN, though, for maintaining your speed and your online security so you can protect yourself from online threats like hackers and DDOS attacks without compromising on speed. Keep reading to find out more!

How to Choose the Best Protocol for Gaming

Choosing a gaming protocol for your VPN connection involves finding the right balance between security and speed. Protocols with a slow connection lead to the kind of high latency and ping that can ruin your game. Without enough security protection on your VPN protocol, you put yourself at risk of Internet threats, including hackers and DDOS attacks.

Protocols for Gaming Ranked from Best to Worst 

Here are the top VPN protocols for gaming:

1. Wireguard

WireGuard protocol is one of the newest and fastest VPN protocols, which is taking off like wildfire. It’s extremely lightweight, open source, reliable, and offers a stable, secure connection. It has only 4,000 lines of code as compared to OpenVPNs’ 70,000, so you get an almost instant connection and long battery life. Wireguard encryption uses the ChaCha20 cipher, which offers faster speeds than the AES 256-bit.

2. Lightway

Lightway is ExpressVPN‘s Wireguard protocol equivalent. It is feather-light, with just 2,000 lines of code, and it offers super-fast and stable connections and good security and privacy protection. ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol uses faster and newer ChaCha20 encryption and works well with most devices.

3. Nordlynx

NordLynx is considered one of the fastest VPN protocols and is NordVPN’s version of the Wireguard protocol. It has strong security and privacy features and quickly establishes a stable and secure connection, making it one of the best VPN protocols for gaming.

4. Softether 

Softether is the fastest VPN protocol, is open source, and uses 256-bit encryption standards, making it a great gaming protocol. Its only downside is that it requires third-party software, meaning it can’t be enabled inside the VPN app. While it’s not difficult to download Sorfteher, it’s just not as easy to use as Wireguard and its equivalents.

5. IKEv2/IPSec

IKEv2 IPsec is one of the more popular VPN protocols for use with mobile devices since its MOBIKE feature resists network changes, which is when your connection drops when your device switches between Wi-Fi and mobile data. While the IKEv2/IPSec connection speed is slower than some of the other protocols, it still offers fast speed while remaining secure and private. The protocol was developed by Microsoft, yet, surprisingly, there are some gaming and streaming devices that are not compatible with this protocol.

6. L2TP/IPSec

L2TP/IPSec is an effective protocol that offers decent speed and excellent security. L2Tp/IPSec works best on desktop computers and is compatible with most software platforms. The downside of L2TP/IPSec is it uses a lot of processing power and limits our ability to get past geo-blocks.

Protocols to Avoid 

Here is a common protocol of which to steer clear:

OpenVPN 

While OpenVPN is the most popular protocol with VPN services because of its strong data protection, OpenVPN is not the best gaming protocol because it’s simply not fast enough. OpenVPN is single-threaded, which means it can only use one CPU at a time and which slows the encryption process and therefore takes longer to exchange data. OpenVPN is faster than TCP protocol and UDP protocol, but if you want a protocol for gaming, avoid TCP, UDP, and OpenVPN.

In contrast, PPTP is incredibly fast, which on the surface makes PPTP seem great for gaming, but when you compare its security features to other VPN protocols, PPTP falls way short. In fact, some experts feel that the encryption used on PPTP is obsolete. If all you want is a fast connection, you could use PPTP, but if you want to protect yourself from online threats, it is best to choose something else.

5 Best VPNs with Fastest VPN Protocols 

Here are the 5 top VPNs with the fastest protocols:

1. ExpressVPN – Fastest VPN Connection

ExpressVPN is the best VPN for gaming online since it is extremely fast. In addition, ExpressVPN has a huge network of servers worldwide, incorporates important security features, and demonstrates excellent unblocking capability. Its unique Lightway protocol has fewer lines of code than any other protocol, for minimal lag while online gaming.

2. NordVPN – Secure Connectivity

One of the top VPN providers for gaming. Nord’s VPN users benefit from its VPN protocol, NordLynx, which is extremely fast, stable, and secure. NordVPN offers fast connection speeds, excellent security, a large server network, and reliable unblocking capability.

3. Surfshark – Broadly Spread VPN Server Network

If you are looking for a great VPN that you can use with multiple devices at the same time, Surfshark is a great VPN provider that does just that since it allows unlimited simultaneous connections for one low price. It has servers in the most countries as compared to the other VPNs reviewed here. Surfshark employs top security and privacy protocols and reliably unblocks geo-restricted sites.

4. CyberGhost – User-Friendly VPN

Well-priced, user-friendly, secure, and private, CyberGhost is a great VPN for gaming! It’s compatible with Wireguard, so users can take advantage of a great protocol; plus it’s secure, private, and unblocks content on all the major streaming sites. The server network is vast and includes servers optimized for gaming.

 5. UltraVPN – Good Online Protection

UltraVPN is one of the smaller VPN services, and has the advantage of being an easy-to-use and reliable VPN with top security features including military-grade encryption. While it has few servers, its unlimited bandwidth keeps its speed up for a good gaming experience.

Tips to Increase Your Internet Speeds While Gaming 

Here are some simple tips:

 Choose one of the fastest VPN protocols, such as Wireguard, Lightway, NordLynx, or SoftEther.

 Connect to the VPN server closest to you, this keeps latency low and prevents high ping.

 For the fastest Internet connection, use an ethernet cable to connect your device to your router so you won’t get slowed if your wireless signal is weak.

 Take advantage of split tunneling; by only allowing some of our data packets to go through the VPN tunnel, while the rest uses the ISP’s network, less data needs to pass through at once, leading to faster speeds.

 An overcrowded server can slow you, so try connecting to a different VPN server if you find you aren’t getting the speed you want.

 Try rebooting your server, there may be a glitch slowing you that a simple reset can fix.

 Resetting your device can give it a much-needed rest that may help it work faster.

FAQs

Conclusion

The best VPN protocol for gaming is both fast and secure. When comparing different VPN protocols, the one that provides users with the optimal combination of these features is Wireguard, along with ExpressVPN’s version Lightway, and NordVPN’s version NordLynx. When paired with ExpressVPN’s lightening fast speed, you are all ready for a great gaming experience!