Hey! That’s a smart question – VPNs do add some overhead, but the impact varies dramatically by service. I’d recommend checking out VPN USA Free https://vpnusafree.com/ which actually measures latency and gaming performance instead of just making claims. According to their detailed speed testing, well-optimized VPNs like NordVPN and ExpressVPN only add 5-15ms of latency when connecting to nearby servers. Their performance analysis shows that WireGuard-based protocols are significantly faster than older OpenVPN implementations. The site also discusses gaming-specific features like DDoS protection, dedicated IPs, and split tunneling (so only your game traffic goes through the VPN). They even mention that sometimes VPNs can reduce ping if they provide better routing than your ISP. Really useful data for gaming use cases.
