VPN servers currently down *Updated Jan 14 2013*
Phoenix and Atlanta servers are currently down

An Introduction

Whilst traditional VPNs are secure, they tend to be slow and clunky.
This is why Proxies generally work best for gaming. However, there are situations where you might find that a VPN is necessary.

For this purpose, we have set up 17 Optimized VPNs that are blazing fast by VPN standards.

Each VPN server supports 2 connection types for maximum versatility. The difference in protocols used is only seen by your ISP/School and not by your software/games. They both work equally well with TCP/UDP games.

UDP – Use this protocol whenever possible for gaming. This is the faster of the two types.
TCP – Use this when you have connectivity issues with the UDP method above. And for connections that require data integrity.

VPN Software

Installing our VPN software for the first time?

Download and use the VPN installer here:
VPN Installer version. 2.2.2

When the install process completes, use our VPN Configurator here:
VPN Configurator

Updating only for the Latest VPN Locations?

Delete the old “Config” folder found at C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\Config.
Download only the VPN Configurator above.
Install it to access the new VPN locations and certs.

*Note: When using our VPNs with games that are supported by our Proxy software, you will need to first close our proxy app SS5CAP as it will likely cause routing issues when both are active. To ensure it is closed, check your System Tray for a colorful “cap” icon. Rght-click and choose to exit.

On a Campus?

Campuses often completely disable UDP traffic. You can still play UDP-based games with our service but you will have to use our TCP-based VPN servers. (These are the connections named TCP-yy-xxx)

Getting Connected

When both setups have been completed, check your Desktop for an icon called “OpenVPN GUI”
Double-click this icon. (Windows 7 users will need to right-click and “Run as Admin”)
An icon called OpenVPN GUI should now appear in your System Tray.
Right-click it, select a VPN option and choose to Connect.

You will now be prompted for a Username and Password. Find these in your Setup email.
Enjoy lower-latency Gaming and an accelerated Web**!

Detailed Guide

1. Start up the OepnVPN-GUI by right-clicking on the icon and choosing to “run as admin” on Win Vista/7. On XP, you only need to double-click it. Choose a location near your location and choose connect. UDP should be your first choice. It’s generally quicker and yes, both TCP and UDP works through it.

2. Under Control Panel / Network settings, look for the following: Internet Options / Connections/ LAN Settings / Automatically Detect Settings option should be Disabled.

3. If using the VPN, make sure NOT to use our proxy software at the same time. If you’re gaming on Xbox/PS3, you probably won’t need the proxies anyway. So feel free to uninstall our FixMyLag proxy software if you installed it.

4. If you use a software firewall like Norton or Kaspersky etc, you may need to add the VPN’s network to a “Safe”, “Home” or “Internet” Zone. One where access would be allowed.

5. During the VPN installation, a new Network Adapter should have appeared in your network connections. It will likely be called “TAP Adapter” This is the interface to the VPN – a virtual adapter (not physical). Make sure this is ENABLED.

6. If on Windows 7, Right-Click the OpenVPN GUI icon and switch to the tab “Compatibility”. Look near the bottom and Enable “Run this program as administrator” Click Ok.

7. Rule the internet!

Connecting the Xbox/PS3 to VPN

1. You will need 2 LAN devices on your PC. Many new computers now come with 2 on-board LAN adapters. If your PC only came with one, you can easily add a 2nd one via a Wireless LAN USB adapter. This is what most users do. Another option for Desktop owners is to add a 2nd LAN card.

2. Now, your Xbox/PS3 is probably hooked up to the PC/Laptop via a LAN adapter (both Wired and Wireless). Identify which one it is in your system. You will need to make this Xbox/PS3 LAN Adapter SHARE the connection of the new TAP Adapter. This would allow the console to ride on the VPN’s network access aka VPN tunnel to our servers.

3. Control Panel > Network and Internet > View Network Status and Tasks > Change Adapter settings >Right-click on the one that say “TAP-Win32 Adapter V9″. Switch tab to “Sharing”. Under Internet Connection Sharing, Enable “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection. From the drop-down box, select the LAN adapter that your Xbox/PS3 is hooked up to. Then click Ok.

FixMyLag.com has 17 VPN servers in the following locations:

Atlanta Georgia, USA
Dallas Texas, USA
Fremont California, USA
Houston Texas, USA
Las Vegas Nevada, USA
Los Angeles California, USA
Miami Florida, USA
Phoenix Arizona, USA
Washington DC, USA

London, UK
Maidenhead, UK
Maidstone, UK
Manchester, UK

France
Netherlands

**NOTE: Illegal P2P usage will not be tolerated on our network! We will terminate your account if necessary. You will not be refunded for such terminations.

The first is http://www.guildwars.e-gamefeed.com/.
It’s a news feed of sorts where many useful Guild Wars 2 articles and news have been compiled for easy reference. It doesn’t seem to be updated of late but is still a great resource for those of you needing to do some catch up.

And when you’re ready to try your hand at building out some GW2 characters, this is a great site to do just that: http://gw2.revgaming.net/Tools/BuildTool/

A big thanks to Falconix of the guild, Circle of Kakis, for sharing the links.

The Diablo 3 experience has been a mixed bag. Some have had a rocking good time. Others have had a miserable time plagued with errors and poor performance. And for good reason… many gamers have complained of 3 types of Lag – Input, Video and Connection.

You may have already read our first guide. This is Part II. It has been updated with new information and features more images that will allow for easier reference and tweaking. A picture is worth a thousand words, aye?

The 3 main types of Lag can be broken down into:

1. Video Lag – Often Video-card related and possibly even CPU. The game might stutter or freeze often, causing your hero to die at the most inopportune times. This gets worse when you complete Normal mode and go on to Nightmare, Hell and Inferno as the number of foul creatures grows exponentially and more “effects” get thrown around the screen.

2. Input Lag – Some players experience a “delay” or “lag” in their input to the game. Every action seems to take a split second longer to register in-game than it should. If you have input lag, trust me – you’ll know it! It’s like having gum stuck under your shoe.

3. Connection Lag – Often also referred to as a “High ping” or Latency. Lag spikes cause your hero to become unresponsive at times and to “rubber-band” around the screen with packs of demons on his tail. At times, your hero continues to respond to movement clicks but he’s not able to hit any mobs. The Left-mouse button goes silent.

Reduce Video Lag

Here, we will attempt to tackle Video Lag. Remember that you can keep track of your FPS in Diablo 3 by hitting “Control-R”

Update your Video Drivers
Not too much needs to be said about this. Always stay current where possible.
Nvidia users: Download Official Nvidia Drivers
ATI users: Download Official ATI Drivers

If you’re adventurous and use a Nvidia based card, you can try the Nvidia Beta 301.24 drivers.
This was recommended by user Zakarumite on the DiabloFans forums. He feels they have worked best for him. So if you like to try stuff, go for it! If not, stick to the official drivers.

Nvidia Control Panel Settings
We had to split the settings into 2 images. Refer to both and set your options accordingly.
For the purpose of maximizing Performance, we sacrificed Visual Quality. As we said before and will prove again, Diablo 3 doesn’t benefit that much from High Quality settings anyway.

ATI Card Owners
I’m afraid we don’t have an ATI-powered graphics card in any of the PCs on hand so we’ll have to leave the graphics driver settings to you. However, they should be relatively similar.

Diablo 3 Video Options
Go for the absolute minimum settings if you’re having FPS problems. From here, you can gradually tweak each setting higher and monitor its effect on your overall FPS.

Diablo 3 Preferences
These settings have reportedly helped some users reduce Game Performance issues. We added the reduction to the “ChannelsToUse” setting as the number of sound channels in a game can often negatively impact performance.

Head over to this location:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Documents\Diablo III

Open up D3Prefs.txt in a text editor and modify the following highlighted options to match the image.

Results & Visual Comparison of Min/Max Settings

If you look closely at the FPS monitor in the 2 images below, you will see that the difference in FPS between Min and Max settings is a staggering 183 FPS. That’s greater than a 100% increase. However, this 100% increase may not be a realistic benchmark for every PC. Nonetheless, give the tweaks a shot and find out what they can do for your game. Now, let’s move on to Graphics Quality.

The below FPS tests were performed on our test system equipped with Nvidia SLI. What we want to pay attention to are not the absolute FPS numbers, but rather, the improvement in Video Performance after the Tweaks. The tweaks allowed a 100% improvement in FPS measured over a few screenshots. We posted only the averages.

Before Tweaking

After Tweaking

Fix Input Lag

The following settings normally help with reducing input lag. They can normally be found in the Graphics Driver settings. (These have been covered above with the Nvidia Control Panel)
But if you have an ATI-based graphics card, you may want to look into checking these to ensure they’re disabled.
Disable Vertical Sync
Disable Triple Buffering

However, if you have a persistent issue that refuses to go away, it is worth trying the opposite for one of the settings:
Enable Triple Buffering

Improve on your Latency in Diablo 3

The following are LIKELY signs that the Latency you’re experiencing originates at Server-side:
1. Your ping is consistent. (even if it seems to be 100ms higher than in other games)
2. You only experience the occasional spikes in latencies.
3. When you do experience significant connection lag, everyone else has the same problem at that time.
4. When you experience lag during play, the Auction House too feels sluggish or non-responsive and the same can be said for the Diablo 3 Official forums
5. You only have issues at Peak hours and Weekends. It’s fine the rest of the time.

These MIGHT indicate that you have Client-side lag on top of the usual Server-side problems:
1. Your pings vary by a significant amount consistently during a single play session. IE. They are not stable.
2. You have a high latency most of the time – regardless of Peak or Non-peak hours (or Weekends).
3. Your pings very widely from day to day.
4. When you experience connection lag, your friends report that everything seems fine.
5. Your pings rise during Your ISP’s peak hours, rather than Blizzard’s servers. (if you live in a different timezone)

You cannot do much about Lag that originates at Blizzard’s end. You might, however, be able to do something about Client-side lag.
Fixing connection lag is far more complicated than any of the other types of lag mentioned above though.

Let’s cover what you CAN do:

1. Ensure you are not running P2P software in the background. No torrents please! Non-P2P downloads and uploads included.
2. Power-cycle your modem/router occasionally and see if that helps.
3. Uninstall Pando Media Booster if you have that installed. (a few games install that)
4. Avoid playing D3 on Wireless! Go LAN cable.
5. Use a Proxy or VPN service if you suspect your game traffic is taking a bad route to the server. Check out our video below for more on this.

What causes Connection Lag or Latency in Diablo 3?

1. High loads on the D3 servers. Immature server code. You can’t do anything about these. They will not be permanent and should eventually fade as the game matures.
2. Your ISP providing poor routing to the D3 servers, causing your game data to take an inefficient or congested route with high latency or ping. A moving picture is worth a thousand words, so check out our video below which illustrates this!

If you found this article useful, do Like us in the Facebook box on the right!

What are the benefits of improving my connection to the Diablo 3 servers?

1. Reduce your connection lag. The game should ideally feel more responsive and consistent. There should not be a delay between your click and its resulting action. (Do not confuse with Input lag)
2. Lower Ping numbers seen in-game. Have a latency meter that shows a healthy Green more often than a sickly Yellow/Red.
3. Eliminate or reduce Lag Spikes. Remember those times you click your mouse buttons and nothing happens? You should see these far less often.
4. As a result of all the above, you should have an increased performance in game, allowing your hero to be more effective and reach his true potential.

You would have to use a Proxy or VPN service to modify the route your Diablo 3 traffic takes. You want to be able to route your game traffic over a path that is not heavily congested and has a lower latency or ping. Our software does this for a small fee and provides a whole host of benefits that you can check out below.

For more information, check out this page here:
Benefits of a Lower Ping

For a detailed understanding of how things work, check out this link:
FAQ on How we Reduce Lag

Feel free to Contact Us if you have any questions

There are really 3 types of “Lag” many Diablo III players are having problems with. We will cover a number of tweaks and solutions below but let’s have a quick look at what these issues are. If you find this article useful, remember to Like us in the Facebook box on the right of this page. This will allow you to keep up to date with our latest game tips and tweak guides!

You Got Lag!

1. Graphics Lag – This is the kind of lag that affects your performance in a game. The game might stutter or freeze often, causing your hero to die at the most inopportune times. This gets worse when you complete Normal mode and go on to Nightmare, Hell and Inferno as the number of mobs grows exponentially.

2. Input Lag – Some players experience a “delay” or “lag” in their input. Every action seems to take a split second longer to register in-game than it should. It’s like there’s marshmallow stuck under your mouse button or keys.

3. Connection Lag – Commonly known as a high ping or latency. Diablo 3 has certainly had alot of users complain of horrid lag spikes. Lag spikes cause your hero to become unresponsive and the environment not to react to your actions. Your hero moves but isn’t able to attack any mobs. It’s like he/she is in the Bermuda triangle. And you wonder if your hero is still alive with 47 mobs beating on him…

Fix 3 types of Lag with our suggested Tweaks

Now that we’ve got that stuff broken down into easily digestible bite-sized pieces, let’s look at a number of tweaks that will hopefully help the majority of you!

Reduce Graphics Lag

Monitor your FPS (frames per second)
Diablo 3 has a built-in FPS monitor. The default hotkey combo for this should be “Control-R”. Enable it and test if each tweak improves your FPS and by how much. With some effort, you can probably reach a balance of FPS and visual satisfaction.

Update your Graphics card drivers
Really basic but often forgotten. Too busy playing Diablo 3 to update your graphics drivers? Do it now! New drivers often feature optimizations or fixes for the latest games.

Graphics Driver settings for Max Performance
If you have a Nvidia-based graphics card, you can set many graphical options using the Nvidia Control Panel. We recommend these settings for Maximum Performance.
Anisotropic Filtering – Off
Antialiasing Mode – Off
Texture Filtering Quality – High Performance
Triple Buffering – Off
Vertical Sync – Force Off

Start with these and if your Diablo 3 FPS improves, you can gradually tweak some of the settings higher for a better graphical experience. (more on that later)

Diablo III Video Options
We recommend the following settings for those of you with FPS issues.
Vertical Sync – Disabled
Texture Quality – Low
Shadow Quality – Off
Physics – High (Set to Low if you have an older CPU)
Clutter Density – Off
Anti-Aliasing – Disabled
Low FX – Leave unchecked but you can try this as a last resort

Commentary
It is our opinion that the graphics settings in Diablo 3 can be reduced drastically if you’re in need of a serious FPS boost. You don’t lose THAT much quality although this may be subjective. One key thing to remember is that Diablo III is a fast-paced non-stop action game. You rarely have the time to stop and admire the scenery. Here’s one last bit to prove you aren’t going to lose all that much detail if you dial things down. The first screenshot used Max Settings while the second used almost the lowest settings possible. You’ll see that the difference is quite marginal. The most obvious difference is the lack of shadows and jagged edges.

Highest Settings

Lowest Settings

Reduce Input Lag

It has often been reported that the following will help tremendously with Input Lag. Worth giving a shot with your Graphics Driver settings. (These have already been featured above with the Nvidia Control Panel)
Disable Vertical Sync
Disable Triple Buffering

However, if you have a persistent issue, it is worth trying the opposite:
Enable Triple Buffering

Reduce Diablo 3 Latency

Is your in-game Latency Meter Yellow or Red? Does it constantly change colors between green and red? Fixing this one is far more complicated then either of the above. There’s also a chance that part of the issue lies with Blizzard’s servers. (A ping below 300ms shows as “Green”) You would want to avoid a ping higher than this.

Let’s cover what you CAN do:

1. Ensure you are not running P2P software in the background. No torrents please!
2. Uninstall Pando Media Booster if you have that installed. (a few games install that)
3. Avoid playing D3 on Wireless! Go LAN cable.
4. Use a Proxy or VPN service if you suspect your game traffic is taking a bad route to the server. Check out our video below for more on this.

What causes Connection lag or related problems in Diablo 3?

1. High loads on the D3 servers. You can’t do anything about this one. The good news is that it’s not a persistent problem and will eventually go away as the game matures.
2. Your ISP providing poor routing to the D3 servers, causing an unnecessarily high ping. Rather than go into the details, check out our video below which illustrates this!

If you found this article useful, do Like us in the Facebook box on the right. This would allow you to keep up to date with our latest game tips and tweak guides!

How can improving my Connection to the Diablo 3 servers benefit me?

1. Reduce Lag noticeably in the game. Things should feel more responsive. There should not be a delay between your click and its resulting action. (Do not confuse with Input lag)
2. Lower Ping numbers seen in-game. Have a latency meter that shows a healthy Green more often than a sickly Yellow/Red.
3. Eliminate or reduce Lag Spikes. Remember those times you click your mouse buttons and nothing happens? You should see these far less often.

You would have to use a Proxy or VPN service to modify the route your Diablo 3 traffic takes. You really want to choose a path that is not heavily congested and has a lower latency or ping.
Our software does this for a small fee and provides a whole host of benefits that you can check out below.

For more information, check out this page here:
Features

For a detailed understanding of how things work, check out this link:
How this stuff works

Feel free to Contact Us if you have any questions

Blizzard has commented on how one could improve account security and has hinted at implementing WOW-style security measures but has NOT openly acknowledged that any problem may exist on their end. Not that it would be the wisest thing to do to openly discuss the exploit either. But gamers are looking for a certain answer that the problems will be resolved soon. Also, previous Beta testers have been talking about how some problems have existed since before Launch and this is adding fuel to the fire!

Has Blizzard really changed? Are the days of “We’ll release it when it’s ready” over?
Korea is one of, if not the, biggest markets for Blizzard. On the bright side, this recent spate of events might actually put pressure on Blizzard to get things fixed?

Diablo III Security Measures you can take

In the meantime, you may want to check your account security settings and ensure that:
1. You use an authenticator
2. Your authenticator is required on EVERY Login attempt
3. Avoid playing Public games
4. Play with an encrypted stream where possible to prevent any form of sniffing (VPNs or encrypted Proxies provide this)

Also, if you have not checked out our Diablo 3 tweak guide below yet, you may want to do so!
Reduce Lag in Diablo 3 – Tweak Guide

Angry Diablo 3 users in South Korea demand refunds…

Source: Jakarta Post

“The highly celebrated launch of online game Diablo 3 is rapidly turning into a consumer nightmare as thousands of users are demanding refund over server lags.

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission official said Wednesday it has received between 111 and 175 Diablo 3-related complaints per day in the past few days, according to news reports. The official added that the average number complaints received every day is about 150.

The Fair Trade Commission vowed it will “look into the situation,” but did not elaborate.

Reportedly, most of the discontent consumers were furious over excessive time it took them to log on to the game.

“Error 3003 has been slapping me in the face nightly. … Fix this fast or I will not be buying any new products from Blizzard,” warned one user on Diablo 3’s online page.

The wildly popular action RGP game by Blizzard Entertainment has garnered huge popularity upon its release last week, but its success is taking a toll as too many users are causing server maintenance problems.

In just a week, over 3,000 internet users have signed an online petition in Daum’s Agora forum, demanding refunds over server problems.

Blizzard vowed to take measures against the problem, but did not present any specific measures on refund demands.

Last week, the company said in an official statement that its preparation for the launch of the game “did not go far enough,” an apologetic gesture in reaction to the downpour of complaints from consumers.”

These HOT new games fresh out the oven have been added and are now supported by our service!
You can simply update (without re-installing) by downloading 1 tiny file.
Find the details on our proxy page:
http://www.fixmylag.com/proxy

We’re definitely going to be playing D3 and GW2 ourselves. See you in game!
Reduce lag in these games today!
Or simply be able to enjoy these games on campus or in the office.

Links to the games:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/?-
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/
http://tera.enmasse.com/

Solutions to 3 Types of Lag in Diablo 3

1. Graphics Lag – This is the kind of lag that affects your performance in a game. The game might stutter or freeze often, causing your hero to die at the most inopportune times. This gets worse when you complete Normal mode and go on to Nightmare, Hell and Inferno as the number of mobs grows exponentially.

2. Input Lag – Some players experience a “delay” or “lag” in their input. Every action seems to take a split second longer to register in-game than it should. It’s like there’s marshmallow stuck under your mouse button or keys.

3. Connection Lag – Commonly known as a high ping or latency. Diablo 3 has certainly had alot of users complain of horrid lag spikes. Lag spikes cause your hero to become unresponsive and the environment not to react to your actions. Your hero moves but isn’t able to attack any mobs. It’s like he/she is in the Bermuda triangle. And you wonder if your hero is still alive with 47 mobs beating on him…

To see the potential solutions, just head on over to the page below.
Reduce Lag in Diablo 3

It’s unfortunate but those timeout errors and cryptic error messages with numbers like #3003, #3005, #3006 are annoying as Hell (pun intended). What’s the issue? Is it my PC? My ISP? Blizzard’s servers? Are the servers Up or Down?

The good news is that you can now find out the answers to that last question.
Just head on over to http://us.battle.net/d3/en/status and you’ll have the official answer.

Solutions to 3 Types of Lag in Diablo 3

1. Graphics Lag – This is the kind of lag that affects your performance in a game. The game might stutter or freeze often, causing your hero to die at the most inopportune times. This gets worse when you complete Normal mode and go on to Nightmare, Hell and Inferno as the number of mobs grows exponentially.

2. Input Lag – Some players experience a “delay” or “lag” in their input. Every action seems to take a split second longer to register in-game than it should. It’s like there’s marshmallow stuck under your mouse button or keys.

3. Connection Lag – Commonly known as a high ping or latency. Diablo 3 has certainly had alot of users complain of horrid lag spikes. Lag spikes cause your hero to become unresponsive and the environment not to react to your actions. Your hero moves but isn’t able to attack any mobs. It’s like he/she is in the Bermuda triangle. And you wonder if your hero is still alive with 47 mobs beating on him…

To see the potential solutions, just head on over to the page below.
Reduce Lag in Diablo 3

Someone has had the genius to create an Android app for checking the latest Diablo 3 Server Status.
There’s lots of Diablo 3 addicts just waiting to login and play once they get home!
Having an app like this is great because you’d know if the server is up or down before you rush home.

Server down? No problem, grab a beer!
Server up? Oh baby, here I come!

Kudos to the app developer for being real quick on this. Check out the link below for the App.
Diablo 3 Server Status Android App link on Google Play

If you play a Demon Hunter and try to fit your Templar companion with a new shield, there is a good chance the game will “stall” and you eventually lose connectivity.

Josh himself experienced this. After giving his templar companion a new shield, his game just stopped responding. He subsequently had to close the game as it had become non-responsive.
And all attempts to login again met with failure. You can imagine the poor guy’s frustration.

The good news is that Josh’s testing has allowed us to modify the proxy method slightly.
Please use Layer-1 with Diablo III from now on. The updated files are on the Proxy page as always.

Remember you can reduce lag in Diablo 3 today with both the Proxies or the VPNs.

Link to the known issues in Diablo 3 thus far:
http://us.battle.net/support/en/blog/5367451

We don’t know about you guys but we’re pretty excited about this game thanks to the following factors:
1. Secret Societies – who doesn’t love these?
2. Class-less system – No more bitching about being the underdog class?
3. No levels – We reserve judgement on this
4. 500 skills – Yes, the Skill-calculator website’s wet dream (or nightmare)
5. Gorgeous dynamic environment (lights that illuminate draw zombies, set fire and burn the zombies etc.)

Well, at least one of us has pre-ordered. If you think this might be your cuppa too, then check out the following link:
Pre-order The Secret World

Pre-orders, as usual, get early game access and beta access which begins in May.
Lots of games coming out in the next few months. This one and GW2 look good. (No, there’s no need to mention Diablo 3, is there?)