What’s The Best Location For A Gaming Proxy? (Ask A Proxy Pro)

Hello, and welcome to Ask A Proxy Pro! The new recurring blog series where we answer questions from real Rayobyte users about proxy usage and the proxy industry. Read more for gaming proxy.

Today’s question comes from one of our many users who enjoy playing videogames through proxies, and we’ve sent it to Isaac Coleman, our Senior Marketing Specialist, proxy user, and former games journalist.

Hi, everybody! Yes, I did indeed work in the whirlwind world of games media. Like most game reviewers, my job primarily involved playing terrible shovelware  on impossible deadlines for reprehensibly low pay, although I did walk away with a free copy of Ruiner, so I guess you win some lose some. Still, it’s probably that love of technology that got me into proxies and servers in the first place!

Let’s take a look at this month’s question:

When choosing a proxy location for a game proxy setup , does one want to choose a location closest to them so the distance is the shortest to the proxy server for best results? Or does it matter? See as the proxy server will be connecting to the game server and user to the proxy server. Thanks.

Thanks for writing in! When connecting with proxies, you usually want to consider the destination of your use case, not the place the traffic’s coming from. In this case, you’ll want to select a proxy that’s closest to the game server you want to connect to.

Let’s take Elsword, for example. This game offers slightly different content depending on which continent you connect from. If you live in Europe but want to play the North American content, you’ll need to connect to one of the game’s North American servers. So you’ll want a proxy from North America, probably one of our fine US Dedicated proxies.

Even if the content is the same and it’s just a question of speed, you’ll want to connect from the location that is closest to the game server, not the closest to you. In the example I gave in the previous paragraph, you’d still want a proxy from North America, not Europe. The destination is what determines the speed of the connection.

If you know the city where the server is located (typically Texas, California, or New York in the United States), you might want to select a proxy from that specific city geolocation. But the speed difference should be minimal. As long as you’re in the right country, you’re probably good to go.

Thanks for the great question, reader, and happy gaming!

Got another question for one of our proxy pros? Get in touch and we might answer it here on the blog!