“We turned on Surfshark and tried to stream 8K video. Here is what happened.”
If you are a gamer or a high-fidelity streamer, those words likely trigger a reflex of skepticism. For nearly two decades, the relationship between “High Performance Gaming” and “VPNs” has been toxic. You use a VPN for security, sure. You use it to bypass geo-blocks, absolutely. But you do not use it when you need to clutch a 1v3 round in Valorant or stream uncompressed 8K footage.
The conventional wisdom is simple: Encryption takes time. Rerouting traffic takes time. Therefore, VPNs add latency (ping) and kill bandwidth.
Surfshark claims to have broken this rule with a feature called “FastTrack“.
It isn’t just a fancy name for the WireGuard protocol (though that plays a part). FastTrack is a routing optimization technology built on Surfshark’s “Nexus” infrastructure that supposedly hunts for the path of least resistance across the global internet, promising speed boosts of up to 70% compared to standard VPN connections.
That is a bold claim. A 70% boost isn’t a margin of error; it’s a generational leap. So, we decided to put it to the torture test. We didn’t just browse Reddit. We fired up a cloud gaming rig and attempted to stream 8K video simultaneously to answer one question: Is FastTrack a marketing gimmick, or is it the future of gaming privacy?
The Bottleneck: Why VPNs Usually Suck for Gaming
To understand why FastTrack matters, you have to understand the “Internet Weather.”
When you connect to a standard VPN server in, say, New York, your data takes a specific path from your house to that server. Usually, that path is static. If there is congestion at a data center in Ohio along the way, your connection slows down. You experience “packet loss” or “jitter.” In a Zoom call, this looks like a frozen face. In a competitive shooter like Call of Duty, it means you are dead before you even see the enemy.
Most VPNs are dumb pipes. They connect Point A to Point B and hope for the best.
Surfshark’s FastTrack is designed to be a “smart” pipe. Instead of blindly sending your data down a congested highway, it uses a network of servers (the Nexus) to dynamically route your traffic. Think of it like Waze or Google Maps for your data packets—it sees the traffic jam miles ahead and reroutes your connection in real-time to avoid the lag.
But does the theory hold up in practice?
The Test Setup
We wanted to push this software to the breaking point. A simple speed test wasn’t enough; we needed to simulate the heavy load of a modern “Proumer” (Professional Consumer).
- The Internet Connection: 1 Gbps Fiber (Baseline speed: 940 Mbps down / 920 Mbps up).
- The Hardware: High-end Gaming PC (RTX 4090, i9 Processor) and an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro.
- The Challenge:
- The Speedometer: Ookla Speed Tests.
- The Torture: Streaming Cyberpunk 2077 via GeForce Now (Cloud Gaming) at Max Settings while simultaneously streaming an 8K 60fps nature documentary on YouTube.
Phase 1: The Speedometer (Synthetic Benchmarks)
First, we needed to establish a baseline. We know that any VPN will reduce speed slightly due to encryption overhead. The industry standard for a “good” VPN is a speed drop of about 10-15%.
Test 1: No VPN (Raw Connection)
- Download: 942 Mbps
- Ping: 3 ms
- Jitter: 1 ms
Analysis: Perfect fiber conditions. This is the gold standard.
Test 2: Standard OpenVPN Protocol (The Old Way)
We connected to a Surfshark server using the older OpenVPN protocol without FastTrack enabled.
- Download: 450 Mbps
- Ping: 28 ms
- Jitter: 12 ms
Analysis: This is typical for older VPN tech. You lose about half your speed. Fine for Netflix, but that jump in ping (3ms to 28ms) is noticeable in gaming. It feels “muddy.”
Test 3: Surfshark FastTrack (WireGuard + Nexus)
We enabled the FastTrack optimization in the settings and connected to the same location.
- Download: 880 Mbps
- Ping: 6 ms
- Jitter: 2 ms
Analysis: This is where things get interesting. The download speed retention was nearly 93% of our raw connection. But the real headline is the Ping. A 6 ms ping is virtually indistinguishable from a raw connection. The FastTrack routing managed to cut the latency overhead significantly, bringing it dangerously close to “invisible.”
Phase 2: The 8K Cloud Gaming Torture Test
Synthetic numbers are nice, but they don’t tell you how a game feels. We launched GeForce Now Ultimate. For those unfamiliar, Cloud Gaming is the ultimate test of internet stability. You aren’t running the game on your PC; a server miles away is running it and beaming the video to you. If your internet hiccups for even a millisecond, the game freezes.
We loaded Cyberpunk 2077, a game notorious for its visual density. We set the resolution to 4K (upscaled to 8K via the Shield TV) and Ray Tracing to “Psycho.”
The “Lag Spike” Fear
Usually, when gaming on a VPN, you feel “micro-stutters.” You turn your character’s head, and the screen delays for a fraction of a second. It ruins the immersion.
With FastTrack enabled, we played for 45 minutes.
The Result: It was… boring. In the best way possible. There were no artifacts. No pixelation. No “Connection Unstable” warnings in the corner of the screen.
To make it harder, we started streaming an 8K video on a second monitor. This saturates the bandwidth, forcing the VPN to handle massive throughput (hundreds of megabytes per second) while maintaining low latency for the game.
Most VPNs would choke here. The CPU overhead of encrypting that much data usually causes the connection to drop frames. Surfshark held the line. The game input remained snappy. I clicked the mouse, and the gun fired instantly.
This confirms that the FastTrack feature isn’t just marketing fluff. By optimizing the route, Surfshark avoids the “hops” that usually introduce lag. It creates a streamlined tunnel that behaves more like a direct ethernet cable than a convoluted web of servers.
Why “Unlimited Devices” Matters for Gamers
While testing, we realized another massive benefit of Surfshark that appeals to the gamer lifestyle: Unlimited Simultaneous Connections.
Most gamers don’t just have a PC. You have a Steam Deck, a PS5, an Xbox, a mobile phone for Discord, and maybe a tablet for strategy guides. Competitors like ExpressVPN or NordVPN cap you at 5 to 10 devices. If you are a streamer living in a smart home, you hit that cap instantly.
Because Surfshark allows unlimited connections, we installed the VPN on the router level (covering the consoles) and still had the dedicated app running on the PC with FastTrack enabled. We didn’t have to play “musical chairs” with our login credentials. We could protect the mobile phone from DDoS attacks on public Wi-Fi while keeping the home rig secure.
The Verdict: Is FastTrack Legit?
There is a pervasive myth in the PC Master Race community that you must disable your antivirus and VPN to get maximum FPS.
Surfshark FastTrack effectively kills that myth.
Is it faster than having no VPN at all? No. Physics is still physics; encryption takes some toll. However, the difference has become so negligible that it is no longer a factor for 99% of users.
If you are a competitive gamer who worries about DDoS attacks (a common plague in high-rank lobbies) or Stream Sniping, you need a VPN. Previously, that meant accepting lag as the cost of doing business. With FastTrack, that trade-off is gone. You get the protection of a masked IP address with the responsiveness of a raw fiber connection.
Pros:
- Incredible Speed Retention: Maintained ~93% of gigabit speeds.
- Low Latency: Ping stayed under 10ms, crucial for FPS games.
- Stability: No jitter or packet loss even during 8K streaming.
- Price: Significantly cheaper than other “premium” speed-focused VPNs.
Cons:
- FastTrack Availability: Currently requires specific server locations/settings to fully utilize the route optimization (auto-negotiated in the app).
The Final Score
For the casual browser, FastTrack is overkill. You don’t need gigabit speeds to read Twitter. But for the Target Audience—the 8K streamers, the Cloud Gamers, the eSports hopefuls—this is a game-changer. It is the first time a VPN has felt truly “invisible” under heavy load.
If you have been holding off on getting a VPN because you are afraid of the “Lag Monster,” it is time to reconsider.
