Questions about LAN gaming

[sevepen]

Hello.

I'm interested in using SoftEther VPN for hosting LAN games (Remote Access VPN Server).

I've read that Local Bridge is faster than Virtual NAT.

However, I'm curious about these scenarios:
1. Local Bridge ON, Virtual NAT OFF, Virtual DHCP OFF
2. Local Bridge OFF, Virtual NAT OFF, Virtual DHCP ON

Is the first scenario still better for performance than the second?

During my testing I discovered that LAN games worked fine without Local Bridge.
Simply enabling the Virtual DHCP Server (without Virtual NAT) was enough.
I also left all "Options Applied to Clients" fields empty.
Do I lose performance by not using Local Bridge?

I assume these functions are not needed for LAN gaming.
Should clients disable them in the VPN Client Manager?
1. VoIP / QoS Functions
2. UDP Acceleration

Are there any benefits of enabling these settings in the VPN Client Manager?
1. Half-Duplex Mode
2. Bridge / Router Mode

[eddiewu]

If your participants are all on the VPN, it does not matter using local bridge or virtual NAT because the traffic is internal. No NAT is taking place.
If some of them are not, then virtual NAT might become a issue, depending on how your game connects. Virtual NAT is one-way, like all NAT is.

[sevepen]

If your participants are all on the VPN, it does not matter using local bridge or virtual NAT because the traffic is internal. No NAT is taking place.
If some of them are not, then virtual NAT might become a issue, depending on how your game connects. Virtual NAT is one-way, like all NAT is.

All participants are on the VPN, connected to my server. It works out for the most part.

On the other hand, some games only work when clients are connected to my physical network via Local Bridge.
I also tried SecureNAT with default settings but it didn't work well for gaming. Local Bridge is the most reliable method thus far.

Out of curiosity, is there anything else I can do for such games if I don't want to use Local Bridge? :)

Not sure if this is helpful, but I added two Process Explorer screenshots of different games.

In this example, I connected my Server PC to its own Virtual Hub (without Local Bridge).
SecureNAT options: Virtual NAT OFF, Virtual DHCP ON (192.168.30.10-200), Default Gateway/DNS fields empty.

The first game (cars.exe) works without Local Bridge.
The second game (CMR2.exe) works ONLY with Local Bridge.

I noticed that CMR2.exe tries to access my local network (192.168.0.104:31471) despite me being connected to the VPN.

Is it possible to fix this issue without using Local Bridge?

[eddiewu]

When I say all participants, it also includes the game server. I assumed that the VPN server is just a server providing connectivity.
If it also participates in the game (as a client or a server), the NAT limitation applies and if it fails on virtual NAT AFAIK there is no easy fix.

[eddiewu]

I don't know what your concern is using local bridge.
If you don't like the idea that it uses your main NIC, you can try bridging with the loopback adapter.
https://www.vpnusers.com/viewtopic.php? ... 111#p98187

[solo]

The second game (CMR2.exe) works ONLY with Local Bridge.

Let's fix this inconvenience. Believe it or not but there are several solutions available. I'll list them in the order of my preferences:

1. CLI: netsh int ip set int "VPN - VPN Client" metric=3
2. GUI 1: "VPN - VPN Client" NIC > IPv4 > properties > advanced > automatic metric > OFF=3
3. GUI 2 for Win XP/7 only: move "VPN - VPN Client" adapter to the top of the order in "Advanced Settings" of "Network Connections" folder
4. SOFT 1: WinIPBroadcast https://github.com/dechamps/WinIPBroadcast
5. SOFT 2: ForceBindIP https://r1ch.net/projects/forcebindip

[Ricchyrr]

And if you use the game radmin vpn for LAN games, then simple vpn should be turned off?

[sevepen]

I don't know what your concern is using local bridge.
If you don't like the idea that it uses your main NIC, you can try bridging with the loopback adapter.
https://www.vpnusers.com/viewtopic.php? ... 111#p98187

I guess the main concern is my local subnet (192.168.0.0/24), because it's too common and very likely to conflict with clients.

This guide I found recently seems promising:
https://sites.google.com/view/softether-dhcp-bridge

I think changing my subnet mask from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.224.0 would be the easiest option.
I want the physical DHCP to assign IPs from 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.199 ONLY in my local network.
Meanwhile, I would prefer clients to receive IPs from the virtual DHCP server (192.168.31.10 to 192.168.31.200).

Hopefully my scheme is correct and there aren't any possible DHCP conflicts or other flaws:


Two more questions:
In the Client Hub, does the subnet mask in SecureNAT settings need to match my local subnet mask?
Should I also enable "Filter DHCP Packets (IPv6)" in the cascade connection security policy?

[sevepen]

1. CLI: netsh int ip set int "VPN - VPN Client" metric=3
2. GUI 1: "VPN - VPN Client" NIC > IPv4 > properties > advanced > automatic metric > OFF=3
3. GUI 2 for Win XP/7 only: move "VPN - VPN Client" adapter to the top of the order in "Advanced Settings" of "Network Connections" folder
4. SOFT 1: WinIPBroadcast https://github.com/dechamps/WinIPBroadcast

Interface metric was already set to 1 by default and WinIPBroadcast didn't help.
I also tried changing SoftEther's network category from public to private to no avail.

SOFT 2: ForceBindIP https://r1ch.net/projects/forcebindip

ForceBindIP does its job, but client can't see host's session/lobby for some reason.


Looks like I'll be using the local bridge scheme from my previous reply.
Thank you for the suggestions nonetheless :)

Some extra details:
I did the tests between my two computers on separate networks.
Host PC was connected to a router via ethernet cable (home network).
Client laptop was connected to a different mobile network (Wi-fi via smartphone's hotspot).

[eddiewu]

Different netmasks would generally prohibit one subnet from accessing the other. In your case, clients in 192.168.31.0/24 can't reach 192.168.0.1.
And it seems you want to enable virtual DHCP on the local bridge, which would result in two DHCP servers conflicting with each other.

[solo]

Looks like I'll be using the local bridge scheme from my previous reply.
Thank you for the suggestions nonetheless :)

Your disappointing report has inspired me to install CMR2 and check it out for myself. My conclusion is that you're doing something horribly, horribly wrong. Are you connecting via IPX, modem, serial or other ancient protocol, ffs?

Look, I VPN-ed two Win7 PCs to a VPS in Japan on a pure SoftEther vHUB with no LBS and default SecureNAT. It's a beauty, no worries at all. Have a look at the screenshots...
.

fin.png

net.png

.
Hell, I invite you, or anyone else, for CMR2 race test run for the next 3 days at GMT 2200-2300 on my SoftEther VPN here:

host: vpn.packetix.net/tcp
port: 443
vHUB: SOLO1
user: guest
pass: guest
When CMR2 asks for host, enter: 192.168.30.2

See you...

[sevepen]

Are you connecting via IPX, modem, serial or other ancient protocol, ffs?

I'm connecting via TCP/IP.

Strangely enough, I only got success with this method:
Host ForceBindID ON, Client ForceBindID OFF

Host was able to join client's lobby but not vice versa.

Hell, I invite you, or anyone else, for CMR2 race test run for the next 3 days at GMT 2200-2300 on my SoftEther VPN here:

host: vpn.packetix.net/tcp
port: 443
vHUB: SOLO1
user: guest
pass: guest
When CMR2 asks for host, enter: 192.168.30.2

See you...

Alright, I can join at GMT 2200 :)

Hmm, perhaps I should be using port 443? I set it to 5555 on my server.

[solo]

Awesome, it works, your picture, lol...

sev.png

[sevepen]

Awesome, it works, your picture, lol...

sev.png

Damn, I quit the race. Can you try joining my lobby now (192.168.30.10)?

[solo]

Great, please email me your non-public server address for HL1 later :-)
My server in Japan has 250ms latency one-way, OK for test but not real game.
But back to main topic, CMR2 works fine without any bridging. Was it a Windows issue and you reinstalled it?

EDIT
My freshly restored, almost default-state Win7 PCs did not need ForceBindID nor any other mod.
All these old games which require Layer 2 broadcasts work perfectly on SoftEther VPN.
I will try CMR2 on Win11 later, currently it does not start at all because my Win11 is N-edition and needs "Media Feature Pack" which infects with a load of additional telemetry and MS spyware to deal with.

[sevepen]

Was it a Windows issue and you reinstalled it?

Nothing serious, just wanted to delete my laptop's bloatware with a clean reinstall.

My freshly restored, almost default-state Win7 PCs did not need ForceBindID nor any other mod.
All these old games which require Layer 2 broadcasts work perfectly on SoftEther VPN.
I will try CMR2 on Win11 later, currently it does not start at all because my Win11 is N-edition and needs "Media Feature Pack" which infects with a load of additional telemetry and MS spyware to deal with.

Both of my computers are running Windows 10.

One major difference between your setup and mine:
1. Both of your computers were connected to a remote server. It was simply two clients playing the game without the host taking part in the race.
2. In my case, I tested the game between a host PC and a client PC. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my original post: my aim was to create a server where both host and client could participate in the game.

Could it be that only clients can play together without local bridge? If I don't use local bridge, and I want to play with clients on the same PC that is hosting the VPN server, I need to use the Client Manager to connect to my own virtual hub (you don't have to do that with local bridge). Maybe some games get confused when I connect to my own virtual hub on the host PC?

[solo]

Maybe some games get confused when I connect to my own virtual hub on the host PC?

CMR2 is not one of them. I have recreated your exact setup on a Win 10 host:
- no bridge
- "enabling the Virtual DHCP Server (without Virtual NAT) was enough. I also left all "Options Applied to Clients" fields empty."
- SE client connects via localhost to SE server
- CMR2 starts network session host on it

Then another PC connects via VPN Azure (to make things harder :-) and joins the session. Here is a screenshot...
.

Win10-CMR2-NET.png

.
Note this line:

Code: Select all

  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         On-link     192.168.30.10    257

As long as the broadcast has the lowest metric, it has to work!

[sevepen]

Update: CMR2 issue is resolved by disabling SSDP Discovery service and/or disabling UPnP on the router.

To make everything easier, I made SE VPN gaming guide:
https://sites.google.com/view/softether-vpn-gaming

Big thanks to @solo for helping me along the way :)

[solo]

Update: CMR2 issue is resolved by disabling SSDP Discovery service and/or disabling UPnP on the router.

To make everything easier, I made SE VPN gaming guide:
https://sites.google.com/view/softether-vpn-gaming

Big thanks to @solo for helping me along the way :)

Great guide! Thank you for your cooperation on this most intriguing VPN gaming issue. Basically there are L2, L2/L3 or L3-only games, however when a VPN introduces another route while SSDP/UPnP is active, L2 games may partially or completely break.

CMR2 fails but HL1 works fine.

(We did have HL1 battles along the intercontinental way :-)

[solo]

I am happy to announce that @sevepen is working on Linux SoftEther Gaming Guide. This is a fantastic development on the way of liberating users from Windows and we can hope for a really easy Linux VPN alternative.

Stay tuned :-)

[sevepen]

Update: CMR2 issue is resolved by disabling SSDP Discovery service and/or disabling UPnP on the router.

To make everything easier, I made SE VPN gaming guide:
https://sites.google.com/view/softether-vpn-gaming

Big thanks to @solo for helping me along the way :)

Linux guide is finished (hopefully), but may require more testing across various distros.
So far I only tried a handful of LAN games between Windows 10 and Nobara Linux :)

[PickleF]

Hey,
it seems this is the most active thread in regards to setting up SoftEther for LAN gaming, so I'm posting my issues here. The only purpose of the VPN is to be able to play games with LAN multiplayer functionality over the internet.

This is the setup I have:

- on my physical LAN I have a server computer on Debian Linux which has the latest SoftEther VPN Server installed on it

- almost everything on the VPN server is on default (I tinkered with the security settings a bit, for safety reasons)

- SecureNAT is on, without VirtualNAT and without a default gateway. Sometimes people that I don't know too well can connect and I don't want them routing all their traffic through my router. This is also why I hesitate to have a local bridge, because from what I understand that makes them appear as an actual device in the local network and gives them the ability to access traffic and other devices in the LAN as if they were actually physically here (for example I also have a low security SAMBA share active on the LAN which I don't want anyone connecting to the VPN server to have access to). I am far from having a good understanding of cybersecurity, but from what little I did grasp, my current setup is a pretty secure way of doing things (they can connect and still have their own home IP address and most of their traffic still goes through their own router without going through the VPN server, but we can see eachother in games, connect and play).

- for the VPN clients connection settings, I used the ones recommended in the above linked SE VPN gaming guide, with the exception of setting the number of TCP connections to "32" (supposedly improves throughput)

- in most games we can see eachother and connect with no further tinkering (sometimes the game has a setting for which network adapter it uses for broadcasts, which then has to be set to the SoftEther one)


My problem is - there seems to be periods of lag spikes or similar hiccups in the connections we all have (sometimes? always? I'm not sure.). One of the games we have noticed it in is the GOG.com version of Diablo from 1996 (which was really weird to me as that does not seem like it would be a performance hog in any manner of speaking) in the sense that our player characters would sometimes seem to teleport back and forth in these periods of lag (rubberbanding) as well as the enemies. It's not unplayable, but it can get annoying. I also noticed the icon for the mouse cursor very frequently turning to an hourglass icon in-game, as if it was constantly having trouble "catching up" or loading. Now, we all have high-end PCs, optic fiber, very stable connections and we all live in the same city (the VPN server is located in the same city). I monitored the CPU load a couple times and it was always low (below 30 % or so). Is it the game itself? I don't remember ever having this problem when playing in physical LAN, but maybe it's a different story when going through a VPN (the game uses ipxwrapper to trick the game into thinking TCP is IPX), although I couldn't find anyone with similar problems online.

Very similar story with Grim Dawn, another game 4 of us played through the VPN. There would be periods when we couldn't pick items up, the enemies would be invulnerable and teleport around.

We've played other games too, but maybe not enough for this to get noticed, or we just weren't being attentive enough.


Anyone have any ideas? Maybe it's something to do with the configuration of the VPN server. Thanks for at least reading this far, if you did. :)

[sevepen]

Sometimes people that I don't know too well can connect and I don't want them routing all their traffic through my router. This is also why I hesitate to have a local bridge, because from what I understand that makes them appear as an actual device in the local network and gives them the ability to access traffic and other devices in the LAN as if they were actually physically here (for example I also have a low security SAMBA share active on the LAN which I don't want anyone connecting to the VPN server to have access to).

Local bridge is not really necessary for gaming and I doubt it offers any benefits in terms of performance:
https://www.softether.org/4-docs/1-manu ... rk_adapter

• The VPN Server or the VPN Bridge have to separate the frames used for VPN communication such as for cascade connection with another VPN Server, and the frames subject to local bridging, thereby consuming CPU time and slowing communication speed.
• The Ethernet frames inserted into the physical network adapter have to be copied by both the frame buffer to the TCP/IP protocol stack in the OS and the frame buffer required when inserting for local bridging, thereby placing a burden on CPU time and memory and slowing communication speed.

I previously thought that Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was an exception because it refused to work without local bridge on Windows. Turns out it was SSDP Discovery service that messed things up... With this service disabled, I don't think there are any games that require local bridge :)

for the VPN clients connection settings, I used the ones recommended in the above linked SE VPN gaming guide, with the exception of setting the number of TCP connections to "32" (supposedly improves throughput)

Did you also enable Unlimited Number of Broadcasts (SE VPN Server -> Manage Virtual Hub -> Manage Users -> Security Policy)?

My problem is - there seems to be periods of lag spikes or similar hiccups in the connections we all have (sometimes? always? I'm not sure.). Is it the game itself? I don't remember ever having this problem when playing in physical LAN, but maybe it's a different story when going through a VPN (the game uses ipxwrapper to trick the game into thinking TCP is IPX), although I couldn't find anyone with similar problems online.

Could you try these games on a physical LAN one more time to verify if it's a game or a VPN issue? Not sure about the games you mentioned, but it's possible that their network code could be poor even on a physical LAN. Moreover, have you tried ZeroTier, Hamachi or any other similar VPN? I wonder if those have similar issues.

Unfortunately, I don't have in-depth knowledge about various SE VPN settings, maybe other users/developers can chime in with their advice :)

[sevepen]

One of the games we have noticed it in is the GOG.com version of Diablo from 1996 (which was really weird to me as that does not seem like it would be a performance hog in any manner of speaking) in the sense that our player characters would sometimes seem to teleport back and forth in these periods of lag (rubberbanding) as well as the enemies. It's not unplayable, but it can get annoying. I also noticed the icon for the mouse cursor very frequently turning to an hourglass icon in-game, as if it was constantly having trouble "catching up" or loading.

As for Diablo 1, perhaps DevilutionX could fix these issues?
https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX

[PickleF]

Kudos for the very fast reply, even though a lot of time has passed. :)

I previously thought that Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was an exception because it refused to work without local bridge on Windows. Turns out it was SSDP Discovery service that messed things up... With this service disabled, I don't think there are any games that require local bridge :)

That's interesting, I'll look into that.

Did you also enable Unlimited Number of Broadcasts (SE VPN Server -> Manage Virtual Hub -> Manage Users -> Security Policy)?

Yeah, what I did was I made one group with all the security policies that I want to be applied to users and then I assigned them all as members of that group.

Could you try these games on a physical LAN one more time to verify if it's a game or a VPN issue? Not sure about the games you mentioned, but it's possible that their network code could be poor even on a physical LAN. Moreover, have you tried ZeroTier, Hamachi or any other similar VPN? I wonder if those have similar issues.

I'm very busy these days so not sure I could do extensive testing right now. However, as I said, I'm 99 % sure we never had any problems when connected through actual LAN and I've never seen anyone online complain about such problems.

As far as other services are concerned, I've tried and found Hamachi and GameRanger work perfectly 99 % of the time, but the whole point in using SoftEther is so we could have our own privacy-respecting, non-resource-hogged, free and modified to our liking, VPN. ZeroTier works for games with direct connection options, but for games usings broadcasts (meaning connection through a server browser, where the game scans for open games) it doesn't work by default. Maybe with some extra configuration, but when I was using it I couldn't find any useful guides.

As for Diablo 1, perhaps DevilutionX could fix these issues?
https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX

Yeah, thanks for going above and beyond, I saw a couple of "restoration mods" like that. However, I'm fairly certain that the problem does not lie with the game, but with the VPN server, or, more likely, my configuration/setup for it. I'm trying to set it up so that we can game in peace when we want to without having troubles like this and having to resort to less desirable options like Hamachi and GameRanger.

[sevepen]

ZeroTier works for games with direct connection options, but for games usings broadcasts (meaning connection through a server browser, where the game scans for open games) it doesn't work by default. Maybe with some extra configuration, but when I was using it I couldn't find any useful guides.

SoftEther also has this problem on Linux. You need to manually add broadcast and multicast routes. My client.sh script does that already for SE Client, but you can easily apply it to ZeroTier as well:

Code: Select all

sudo ip route add 255.255.255.255/32 via 0.0.0.0 metric 0 dev "zerotier_adapter"
sudo ip route add 224.0.0.0/4 via 0.0.0.0 metric 0 dev "zerotier_adapter"

[PickleF]

ZeroTier works for games with direct connection options, but for games usings broadcasts (meaning connection through a server browser, where the game scans for open games) it doesn't work by default. Maybe with some extra configuration, but when I was using it I couldn't find any useful guides.

SoftEther also has this problem by default. You need to manually add broadcast and multicast routes. My client.sh script does that already for SE Client, but you can easily apply it to ZeroTier as well:

Code: Select all

sudo ip route add 255.255.255.255/32 via 0.0.0.0 metric 0 dev "zerotier_adapter"
sudo ip route add 224.0.0.0/4 via 0.0.0.0 metric 0 dev "zerotier_adapter"

Interesting that you say that, as it appears to be working for me by default on SoftEther, unlike ZeroTier (for example Warcraft 3, a game in which you can't select the network adapter it uses, worked with SoftEther but not with ZeroTier). I'll keep your solution in mind though, if the problem ever comes up.


Also, I guess I should bite my tongue in regards to what I said about it being SoftEther's fault. It seems it's really not prudent to say "99 % sure" :p
I just tested Diablo a bit over SoftEther and then over actual LAN and it had the same problems in both situations, so it looks like it might actually be a problem with the game itself. I even found an example online of the exact same type of problem. I'll have to keep monitoring the situation as we try out new games and I'll post again if similar problems arise.

[solo]

Local Bridge OFF, Virtual DHCP ON: Works well, but introduces slight overhead.

Something is missing in this description. If not, what overhead is it?