I recently moved countries (Singapore to be exact) and I still want to stay in contact with my gaming buddies in Melbourne. However, I have been experiencing extreme lag when I play with them. Options that I have tried to use are to connect to VPN servers that claim they have very little lag. Without the VPN, I get an average of 300 ping, while on the VPN I get 160-200. There are some vpns that I have come to know that do have 'dedicated servers to gaming', but don't have a trial that I can use before I commit to paying.
Are there any VPNs that you can recommend that would reduce my lag ideally to about 50-100? Or are there any other ways that I can utilise to reduce my lag?
I am definitely sure that it is not my connection on this end, because I use fibre optics.
You're not gonna get 50-100, it's not how things work sadly. A perfect connection between Sydney and Singapore currently is around 110-120ms. That's between two high-end ISPs and doesn't factor in getting the connection from your ISPs international router to your home in Singapore. Once you factor that in, 160-200 isn't overly bad.
Ping google.com, if your ping to Google is around ~30-40, then 160 is spot on what it should be to Sydney.
If you're comfortable messaging me extra details I can attempt to look into it a little for you and recommend a provider, though I wouldn't expect anything below 130-140ms at best anyway. I'll need details like what games you're attempting to play (I can look up exactly what networks they're on and who they peer with), your ISP (same again, can see who they're peered with) and if you're comfortable with it your IP (to check routing from various servers).
Ultimately you'll want a server that has direct peering with both the games network and with your ISP, or peered at a maximum of 1-2 hops.