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faq
Yes. LightSpeed is free for personal, non-commercial use under the LightSpeed Software License. Commercial use requires a paid license - see LICENSE. You run your own proxy on a small VPS (see deployment guide). There are no subscriptions, no usage fees, no paid tiers.
No. LightSpeed uses the same class of OS-level network driver (WinDivert/nftables/pfctl) that other packet-capture tools use. It does not modify game files, memory, or processes. All major anti-cheat systems (EAC, VAC, BattlEye, Riot Vanguard) permit this. Game servers see your real IP address - this is a transparent tunnel, not a VPN or anonymizer.
Kernel-level packet interception requires elevated privileges - the same reason VPNs and firewalls need them. On Linux it uses nftables/iptables. On macOS it uses pfctl. On Windows it uses WinDivert (a signed kernel driver). Without root, you can still use redirect mode (--game-server).
| Platform | Interceptor | Redirect Mode | GUI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows 10/11 | ✅ WinDivert | ✅ | ✅ egui |
| Linux | ✅ nftables/iptables | ✅ | ❌ CLI only |
| macOS | ✅ pfctl | ✅ | ❌ CLI only |
| Linux ARM64 | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
LightSpeed does not make your traffic go faster - packets can't outrun the speed of light. What it does is proactively route your traffic onto the fastest available path, avoiding congestion and needlessly long detours.
Your ISP sends packets along whatever path is cheapest for them - often congested or circuitous. LightSpeed sends your packets through a proxy in a major data center with direct backbone connections to game server regions. If that path is shorter or less congested than your ISP's default, your ping drops and stabilizes. Typical improvement: 10-40ms.
Two common reasons:
- Wrong proxy location - if the proxy is farther from the game server than your direct path, the extra hop adds latency. This is the most common cause. Rule of thumb: pick the proxy closest to the game server, not closest to you.
- Poorly-connected proxy - not all data centers are equal. A proxy only helps if that data center sits close to a major internet backbone or peering exchange. A cheap VPS in the "right" city but on a congested or residential upstream can be slower than your direct route.
LightSpeed can only optimize the route it's given. If you point it at a badly-placed proxy, your ping will go up - that's expected behavior, not a bug.
The proxy closest to the game server region. Examples:
- Playing on US West servers → pick a US West proxy
- Playing on Singapore servers from Australia → pick a Singapore proxy
- Playing on EU servers from NA → pick a Frankfurt/London proxy
Real internet routing is governed by BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) - the contracts and policies ISPs and transit providers use to hand off traffic. Your packets don't travel in a straight line; they follow whatever path the BGP tables and peering agreements decide, and providers routinely prioritize or deprioritize certain routes for cost or policy reasons.
What that means for you:
- A proxy only helps if it sits on a better BGP path than your home connection's default - typically a data center near a major backbone or peering point.
- "Closer on the map" doesn't always mean "faster on the wire."
- Route-optimization tools (including LightSpeed) estimate and re-route, but the physical path is ultimately dictated by the networks in between - which neither you nor LightSpeed control.
Usually 1-3 seconds after you connect to a game server. The interceptor watches for 3 packets to the same destination within 1.5 seconds before locking on.
The proxy derives the country of an IP address from a locally stored DB-IP Lite database. This happens in memory, transiently, at session creation, for both the client source address and the game-server destination address. It then counts sessions per (source_country, destination_country) pair, so the network can see which region pairs are underserved. A cell is suppressed until it has at least 3 sessions before it is exported, and the public stats carry only coarsened region-pair counts (for example mena-eu). The counters contain no raw IP, and no raw IP is exported by the placement pipeline.
Forward Error Correction. The relay sends a small amount of redundant data (up to ~25% at the default block size) alongside your packets. If one is lost, it can be reconstructed from the parity without retransmission, so recovery does not need a round trip to the game server.
No. Packet repair is on by default and adapts to measured loss: a clean line carries effectively no overhead, and parity rises only while packets are actually dropping. (Earlier builds exposed a manual toggle, the "Reliability Shield"; since 1.7 the adaptive policy is always in charge.)
You don't have to do anything. LightSpeed ships with the community relay network as the default: eight sponsor-funded relays (Los Angeles, New Jersey, Singapore, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Mumbai, Madrid, Sydney) that the client discovers automatically through a signed registry. The registry URL and the operator's public key are compiled into the client, so there is no setup and no config file needed.
If you want to use a different registry, override it with --registry <url> or a [registry] block in lightspeed.toml. See the Community Relay Network guide.
No. The community network is the default and works out of the box. Self-hosting is still fully supported if you want your own dedicated relay: deploy a lightweight proxy (~500KB RAM) on any Linux VPS. See the deployment guide.
Nothing if you use the community network. If you self-host, a small VPS runs a few dollars a month, and the proxy binary uses ~500KB RAM, so even the smallest instance is plenty. LightSpeed itself has no fees.
Yes. The proxy supports multiple concurrent sessions with per-client rate limiting and authentication. Configure tokens in proxy.toml.
- Make sure your game is actually connected to a server (not just the main menu)
- Verify you selected the correct game (
--gameflag) - Try
--scan-processesto list running game processes - If your server uses a non-standard port, use manual server mode (
--game-server)
- Linux: make sure you're running as root and nftables/iptables is installed
- macOS: pfctl is built-in but requires root
- Windows: ensure
WinDivert64.sysandWinDivert.dllare next to the.exe
Your packets reach the proxy but responses aren't reaching your game. Usually a firewall issue. LightSpeed tries to add firewall rules automatically. If that fails, add an inbound UDP rule for lightspeed or lightspeed-gui.exe manually.
LightSpeed sees UDP packet headers (source/destination IP, port, size) to route them. Game content (player positions, chat, etc.) is encrypted by the game's own protocol and is not decrypted or logged. See the full Privacy Policy.
Telemetry is on by default since v1.6.5. It sends anonymized aggregate metrics (RTT percentiles, jitter, FEC stats, and the direct/relayed/saved latency numbers) to the /telemetry endpoint of the relay you are connected to (a community or sponsor relay, or your own if you self-host). No IP addresses, tokens, identifiers, or game account data are collected. A cell is suppressed until it has at least 3 reports; this floor counts reports, not distinct people, so it is not a guarantee that 3 different people contributed. Reports are POSTed over plaintext HTTP to port 8080, and the endpoint is unauthenticated. Turn it off any time with --no-telemetry, telemetry = false under [general] in lightspeed.toml, or the GUI's "Share anonymous latency stats" checkbox. See Privacy Policy and the Data Dictionary.
No. The proxy processes your source IP and the game-server destination IP transiently, in memory, to route packets and to derive a country for placement analysis. The address itself is not stored. What is kept is an aggregate session counter per (source_country, destination_country) pair, with a floor of 3 sessions per cell so small cells are suppressed, and the public stats carry only coarsened region-pair counts. The placement counters contain no raw IP, and no raw IP is exported by the placement pipeline; the client telemetry contract is unchanged. Note that relay access logs can contain client IPs; see What does the proxy log?.
Operational logs written to stdout (configurable via RUST_LOG) can include client IPs, session start/end times, and bytes relayed. Client IPs appear there only for rate limiting and abuse detection. Those logs live on the relay that served the session (a community or sponsor relay, or your own if you self-host), are not exported, and are not joined to the placement counters. Retention is controlled by that relay's logging configuration. See Privacy Policy.
Generally no - both try to intercept network traffic and will conflict. Disable your VPN before using LightSpeed.
Yes. Use --warp to enable WARP for the proxy leg of the connection. WARP can shave 5-10ms off local ISP routing. Combine with a proxy for maximum benefit.
Open an issue on GitHub. Include your OS, game, and log output (run with RUST_LOG=debug for verbose logs).