Serious performance degradation when using Hybrid VPN

[gcharma]

Hi all - so, after discovering that the XR300 didn't have the ability to route through a VPN provider, I ponied up for the XR500. Hybrid VPN works fine, except I'm seeing a serious performance drop (like, in the neighbourhood of 95%) when I route my PC to my VPN provider via Hybrid VPN.

The top value is when I connect using my VPN provider's Windows client, and the bottom value is when I disconnect the native client and set my PC to run through Hybrid VPN. In both cases I'm being careful to disable the other connection mechanism before running the test.

What's the issue here? I read this post which gave some vague answers about OpenVPN not being the fastest and R-apps being restricted or something, but to this degree? Disabling QoS did nothing.

I mean, I can use my native Windows client for VPN connectivity, but when I do so I lock out most if not all of the gaming features on the XR500 since deep packet inspection can't see the VPN tunnel traffic. Do I have any options here? Thanks in advance!

[Netduma Fraser]

Yes you will see a big drop when using the VPN. That's why Hybrid VPN is good so you can select specific applications/services on your PC so the rest of the PC will be unrestricted by the VPN and goes through your normal connection. That is your only option here unfortunately.

[gcharma]

Thanks for the confirmation @Netduma Fraser, but... I mean you see the difficulty here, right? I can use the router's gaming features, OR I can use the Hybrid VPN feature, but given the performance hit there's no way I can use both. Is that the end of the road for me with this?

[Netduma Fraser]

Well like I said the Hybrid VPN gives you some flexibility, say for example you just want to secure a few programs/services behind a VPN such as Skype etc then they can all go through the VPN (they may not need that much speed) and then everything else could go through your normal connection. What is it specifically you want to VPN? If it's a necessity to VPN the whole device and you need the entirety of your speed then yes there isn't anything you can do there if you use the VPN on the router.

[gcharma]

My idea was to run games through VPN (e.g. a PlayStation or PC). My VPN provider has very reasonable ping times and if it was manageable to use alongside the gaming features of the XR500 that would have been ideal, but I guess not. I appreciate the confirmation though, thanks!

[Netduma Alex]

The PC client probably has elements that are tailored to the specific VPN provider you're using. OpenVPN is generic so it's possible it doesn't have some of those enhancements. Also, using a VPN requires some processing power, and your computer will be better equipped to provide maximum performance than your router. That said, the advantages of Hybrid-VPN are clear: it can run on devices that have no native VPN ability, it can target specific ports, it requires no overhead from your computer.