[SOLVED] Are gaming routers worth it?

[pati_yeet]

When I sometimes play online games the wifi can be slow and make the game lag. If I get a gaming router to go to my room (which is upstairs) will it improve my gaming experience. The router I got right now is a standard talk talk router which my parents, my sister and I use. Sadly I can only use it wireless as it is downstairs and my room is upstairs. If I will get a gaming router will I be able to have it wired upstairs in my room, will it improve the internet speeds and are they just worth it overall?

 

[Barty1884]

How do you propose it connects to your network in your room upstairs? It would need to have a wired connection and, if there's already a wired connection.... you can just connect directly to your system? If you just want to use it as an access point (AP), picking up the Wifi signal from downstairs... You'd be no better off than you are currently - probably even slightly worse off.

A "gaming" router can have some benefits with managing/prioritizing traffic over an ISP provided unit, but not all "gaming" routers are created equal. Even then, the 'benefits' are rarely worth the cost - a lot of the time it's marketing 'fluff'.

 

[Barty1884]

How do you propose it connects to your network in your room upstairs? It would need to have a wired connection and, if there's already a wired connection.... you can just connect directly to your system? If you just want to use it as an access point (AP), picking up the Wifi signal from downstairs... You'd be no

A "gaming" router can have some benefits with managing/prioritizing traffic over an ISP provided unit, but not all "gaming" routers are created euqal

 

[pati_yeet]

How do you propose it connects to your network in your room upstairs? It would need to have a wired connection and, if there's already a wired connection.... you can just connect directly to your system? If you just want to use it as an access point (AP), picking up the Wifi signal from downstairs... You'd be no better off than you are currently - probably even slightly worse off.

A "gaming" router can have some benefits with managing/prioritizing traffic over an ISP provided unit, but not all "gaming" routers are created equal. Even then, the 'benefits' are rarely worth the cost - a lot of the time it's marketing 'fluff'.

I’m using wireless internet right now, wired internet would be quite hard as the router is downstairs and my pc is upstairs. That’s why I was planning to get a new router which would be in my room (the other router would still be there downstairs for my parents and sister to use) so I would use to not make my game lag when I play and to improve download and upload speeds for both my pc and phone. The new router would be used wired. I’m not sure which router I’m going to go with yet which is why I’m asking first if it is even worth it and I’m also accepting suggestions for which router I should get. Hopefully that made more sense for you.

 

[Barty1884]

How do you propose getting 'internet' into your room though?

You can't just stick an extra router/AP and expect it to work without connecting to your current infrastructure. You'd either need a wired connection to your room via ethernet/powerline* etc, or connect via Wifi - at which point, you've got a wireless access point, and signal strength is not going to be any better than you currently have OR a totally independent service that came in via dedicated lines to your room

*Depending on the wiring in your house, powerline (ethernet over power) might be the way to go. Ethernet out of router, into powerline adapter A (at the router) .... uses your electrical wiring to carry the signal to powerline adapter B (in your room) and then a wired connection out to your system. Wiring plays a huge factor though - if it's old, or poor quality, or a particularly long run on the circuit, your speeds likely will not improve.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yep, fundamentally, you are going to need to run an Cat 5 or higher ethernet cable from where the current router is located, to the router in your room, which means you need a long enough cable to do that with, and you need to verify that your current router or modem even has the necessary physical ethernet ports to do it WITH. Some cable modems allow only one connection, which most will run to a router if they need multiple connections, and then also many newer cable modems already have a dedicated wireless broadcast for your wireless devices.

If you don't currently HAVE an existing router, and are calling the cable modem the router, then you will need TWO routers in order to do what you want to do, plus the cable to run it to your room, plus the know how to run that cable through the walls and floors if necessary unless you want a cable just running throughout your house. All told, if you are here asking about this, you probably are going to need assistance in some form or another, on site. It's not going to be just buy a router and woo hoo, I have my own connection. Doesn't work that way.

The powerline adapter is the other option as Barty indicated, but you will STILL need a router after the cable modem, plus the powerline adapter (Unless it comes all in one) and as he said, if this is an old house with old wiring, the result is probably not going to be any better than the wireless connection you already have and is not going to make ANY difference no matter WHAT you do, as far as lag from the number of users online at the same time. If the lag is due to a poor signal, I'd suggest maybe a better wireless router in place of what is there now or else you'll have to use one of these other options. Either way, you probably need professional assistance if you're here asking how to do it.

 

[bill001g]

A gaming router will not fix wifi problems and that is the major issue when you talk gaming. It is still wifi is subject to interference from outside your house nothing can fix that....I suppose you could pay all your neighbors lots of money to move away.

The only thing a gaming router can do is give priority of game traffic over other devices on the (wan) ISP side of things not the lan or wifi. This is really just a fancy form of preconfigured QoS. Someone put together a bunch of the common game ip and port numbers and wrote rules to favor them. In effect you paid someone to type in a configuration. Pretty much any router that has a OK qos options you can favor traffic for your machine which includes all games.

Putting "gaming" on a product is as useful as when they use to put the word "turbo" on boxes back when that was the trendy marketing thing to do.

 

[pati_yeet]

Sorry for the late reply but when I wrote the thread I didn’t think about the modem, guess the idea of getting a router is gone. Do you think powerline adapters will be good?

 

[bill001g]

The newer technology powerline based on the av2 standard works much better than the older av200 or av500 units. Still there are those rare houses that any powerline units refuse to work in.

In general powerline is much better for gaming because it is not subject to interference from outside your house. It is still subject to interference from inside the house, I have a shop vac I can plug in anyplace in the house and it will kill the powerline units but its not like that is in use much.

 

[cryoburner]

Depending on the layout of your house, it might be worth running an ethernet cable of sufficient length. At least, that would result in the most reliable performance. Installation could be a relatively easy or complex process depending on how your house is designed and where the cable is being run though. Powerline adapters would of course be easier.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Depending on the layout of your house, it might be worth running an ethernet cable of sufficient length. At least, that would result in the most reliable performance. Installation could be a relatively easy or complex process depending on how your house is designed and where the cable is being run though. Powerline adapters would of course be easier.

That would STILL require that they have at least ONE router, which it sounds like they do not have. So there will still be a need to purchase a router, plus cable, plus either labor or your own time to run the cable and configure the router for all users, and if that is not something that you or somebody else in the house is capable of doing then you will need to bring somebody in to do it which is going to be an additional expense. Even for a powerline network you may need to still have a router rather than just the cable or DSL modem, depending on what you have now. It's just not going to be plug and play, easy peasy, no matter what you do. Or cheap. There is going to be an investment in one way or another that is beyond what I think they OP was willing or planning to have to make.

 

[cryoburner]

That would STILL require that they have at least ONE router, which it sounds like they do not have.

The router I got right now is a standard talk talk router which my parents, my sister and I use.

They obviously have something. Even if it's built into their modem, there must be an ethernet-out jack on it, if not several. It's probably something like one of these...

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/talktalk-hg633-super-router

...or one of these...

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/talktalk-wi-fi-hub

In which case, it could just be a matter of running a $20 length of ethernet cable from one of its ports directly to their computer upstairs. I have no idea what their house layout might be like, or where the modem might be positioned in relation to their room, so it's difficult to say what that might involve. In a simple scenario, they could just drill up through the floor in a closet and have that single cable come out the other end into their room. Or, for a more proper but complex installation, they might want to run cable up through walls with ethernet jacks at both ends. Of course, this wouldn't do anything for their phone's wireless connection, but would likely make network performance on their PC a lot more reliable.

As for potentially improving the existing wireless performance, is the wifi router located in a relatively central location in the house? If it's at the opposite end of the house relative to your room, or otherwise poorly positioned, that could negatively impact performance further away from it. It might be worth trying to move the router to see if that improves anything, if it happens to be practical to hook it up elsewhere.

 

[McKeu]

Depending on what bandwidth you have, make sure that your current router can run 5GHz band. Up to 500 MBit, you shouldn't need worry about that, though (Although using the 5GHz band can eliminate other disturbing signal noise from other devices).
Then get yourself a repeater, place it halfway to your room, connect it to your wi-fi and you should have a better and more stable network.

 

[Darkbreeze]

They obviously have something. Even if it's built into their modem, there must be an ethernet-out jack on it, if not several. It's probably something like one of these...

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/talktalk-hg633-super-router

...or one of these...

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/talktalk-wi-fi-hub

In which case, it could just be a matter of running a $20 length of ethernet cable from one of its ports directly to their computer upstairs. I have no idea what their house layout might be like, or where the modem might be positioned in relation to their room, so it's difficult to say what that might involve. In a simple scenario, they could just drill up through the floor in a closet and have that single cable come out the other end into their room. Or, for a more proper but complex installation, they might want to run cable up through walls with ethernet jacks at both ends. Of course, this wouldn't do anything for their phone's wireless connection, but would likely make network performance on their PC a lot more reliable.

As for potentially improving the existing wireless performance, is the wifi router located in a relatively central location in the house? If it's at the opposite end of the house relative to your room, or otherwise poorly positioned, that could negatively impact performance further away from it. It might be worth trying to move the router to see if that improves anything, if it happens to be practical to hook it up elsewhere.

For starters, those are not cable modems, they are routers. He seemingly does not HAVE a router, and every cable modem I've ever seen has only ONE ethernet output on it. That means you can either purchase a router if you need multiple ethernet outputs or you can connect it via ethernet to ONE computer, and all other devices will need to connect using wireless IF the cable modem has that feature which a lot of them do these days.

Yes, you can get 100ft, which is probably enough to reach the furthest room in MOST homes, from where the router is, for less than 20 bucks. But a router plus 20 bucks you're looking at at least 75 bucks if you don't want a complete piece of crap for a router, and that's still not going to get you a very good one and to me it doesn't sound like the OP has 75 bucks to invest or the wherewithal to setup and configure the network, but if he does and if he can, then it's certainly his best option.

The other critical factor may be that he is not in a position to make these kinds of decisions, as I suspect he is superseded in the decision making by somebody who may be the actual breadwinner in that household. In other words, not the momma, or the daddy, and so perhaps not even able to do any of this officially. But perhaps they do have the free hand to do as they see fit in which case the above mentioned scenario for running Ethernet is the best option IMO but as I also said, unless they want unsightly cable running along 50-100ft of the walls and floors, somebody is going to need to drill some holes through some floors and walls and do the installation. Not everybody has the means or capability of doing that.

 

[McKeu]

From what I understand, he is using wi-fi, ergo he has some sort of router. I think the repeater would be the best and least invasive approach.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Like I said, MOST cable modems these days DO have wireless capability. Many of them even offer guest hotspots for their own customers to log in on using YOUR router as a connection, but outside your local network. Very sketchy and controversial but they are a fact. Public hotspots using your own cable modem.

Comcast sued by customers for turning routers into public hotspots

Suit alleges raised power costs, slower speeds; Comcast disputes security claim.

arstechnica.com

Yes, Arstechnica is calling them routers, and technically they are, to a degree, but in truth they are cable modems, plain and simple, and lack many of the features of an actual router such as multiple ethernet ports.

Regardless of THAT little tidbit, most of them DO have wireless capability if they are even halfway modern. BUT, they typically only have one ethernet port, unlike most DSL routers which have many usually.

 

[McKeu]

As soon as something allows multiple network connections simultaneously between different networks, be it wireless or wired, it qualifies as a router in my book.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Yes, Arstechnica is calling them routers, and technically they are, to a degree, but in truth they are cable modems, plain and simple, and lack many of the features of an actual router such as multiple ethernet ports.

Regardless of THAT little tidbit, most of them DO have wireless capability if they are even halfway modern. BUT, they typically only have one ethernet port, unlike most DSL routers which have many usually.

Regardless of whether it has multiple ethernet ports, that device would still be a router. If it only has one ethernet port all you have to do to get more would be connect a dumb switch to it.

 

[cryoburner]

For starters, those are not cable modems, they are routers. He seemingly does not HAVE a router, and every cable modem I've ever seen has only ONE ethernet output on it. That means you can either purchase a router if you need multiple ethernet outputs or you can connect it via ethernet to ONE computer, and all other devices will need to connect using wireless IF the cable modem has that feature which a lot of them do these days.

They never said that they have cable internet. Both of those routers have a phone line port on the back, making them DSL modems in addition to being routers, and are apparently the standard units provided by their ISP. And they have said multiple times that they have a router, so it's probably one of those, or a similar model.

What it sounds like they wanted was to put another wireless router in their bedroom, but that would still need to connect to the existing modem/router, meaning they would need to either run a cable anyway, or connect wirelessly to the first, which wouldn't likely help performance.

 

[bdginmo]

Do you have a coax drop in the room? If so you might be able to use MoCA.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I guess none of you have every had a cable internet connection, because I PROMISE you, if you try to connect to your ISP using a router, you're going to be really fracking sad because it's not going to happen. I said there are DSL modems that are also routers, but personally I've never seen a cable modem with multiple ethernet connections. At least, none of the ones they supply you with. Perhaps SOME of the aftermarket models. But I've had three or four top end DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 compliant models that were aftermarket, and none of them had more than one ethernet port but all of them had wireless connectivity.

So if he has DSL, yeah, he can probably ONLY have to run an ethernet cable to wherever his room is, but if he has cable he's going to need a router unless all other devices in the house connect via wireless and none of them need a dedicated line.

If you search out cable modems, I doubt you'll find any that have more than one. I don't see ANY. And if you search out routers, I KNOW you won't find any that double as a cable modem. At least none that I've ever seen or have ever heard about. If it's DSL, that's obviously a different ballgame. But if it IS DSL, it's no wonder his connection sucks.