How to change region efficiently with a VPN?

VPN
1

I checked a lot of reddit posts about VPN & Valorant but did not find an answer to my quesiton. My question is mostly for people using VPN (I use Nord VPN)

Context:

I’m in Canada and my friend is in Europe so to play together I play in EU servers. Without VPN I’m around 120 to 210ms ping, depending on what server we play on. When I use a VPN, if we play in Frankfurt for example, I set myself to frankfurt and I can get 90 or 89ms ping. or 90 in London, or 90/100 in Paris etc… (each country I have to change my VPN location to optimize the ping)

We usually play in Frankfurt but it looks like Valorant doesn’t detect the VPN sometimes, what I do is:

I launch the game

when I see the main menu screen I open the VPN and connect to Frankfurt

and then wait few minutes for valorant to connect to it and it works like 1 out 5 or 8 times, I repeat the process until it works before we play (I tried to change the location before loading the game but it works rarely too)

My Nord VPN is set up with split tunneling

Question:

Do someone have a better way to set up the VPN without trying a million times before having a decent ping in the server we play in ? I just know that it can go to 90 pin I just don’t want to try 10 times every time we play

2

Connect to vpn before opening valorant or connect to it once you are inside the match. Don’t do it in main menu.

Also bonus tip: always connecting the the country where the game server is doesn’t equal to best ping. It depends on the VPN service network routing, for example if you are playing on frankfurt, you might get 90 connecting to Frankfurt vpn but might get an even better ping connecting to netherlands on vpn or some other country. You can find your best route by trial and error.

3

Thanks a lot for your answer! Definitely will try what you said

  • I already tried to connect the vpn before opening the game, and 9 times out or 10 it just won’t open saying “server is down” or something like that, I saw on the internet that it is a known issue most of the people have

  • never tried setting it in game tho, do you think I can start a spike rush for example to set the vpn and then play competitive? I don’t want to start a competition and set my VPN during the match it’s not nice for my mates

4

If you are getting server is down message then your vpn service provider is not a good one. A quality vpn service won’t cause that but anyhow you can fix the server is down by updating ur time zone to the country ur connecting to

5

I’m with Nord VPN, I saw people have this error with Proton, Express and more vpn

I may have try changing the time, not sure that works 100% will try again

6

I used express vpn for a while and didn’t have this issue but changing time zone to the correct time zone has fixed the server down for me multiples times

7

If that m’s not too puch to ask, what country are you in and where do you usually play?

8

And your vpn is to what country?

9

I don’t play on vpn anymore, but i used to connect to frankfurt

10

And did you have some problems with the voice chat? Looks like sometimes I can’t hear, or talk to others when I use a VPN