Only Lag when multiple devices are in use?

[dclite]

Hi guys, my question today is regarding why I lag and how I can fix it.

FYI: I use Wifi to game (i know it sucks but i have to deal with it for now)

So i have been noticing when no one is home and I try to game, my ping is always fine and around 20 ping steady. My problem is when people start using devices such as laptops and phones, watching youtube, and such I begin to lag horribly. I understand that the more people using a device means more bandwidth usage but is that all the routers fault?

My question is how can I get rid of this problem? My router currently is the NETGEAR N600 its around 70 bucks....would upgrading help this problem? or is it ISP related?

Edit: I also Don't know what my current plan is with my internet, is there a way to find out? I don't pay for it.

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

The only way to fix this problem is to pay the ISP for faster speeds. Changing the router will achieve nothing.

 

[bill001g]

Even if we would assume you had enough internet bandwidth wifi degrade greatly the more devices that are active. It is half duplex which means only 1 device can transmit at a time. There is no control between the device so the more you have the more likely it is that they transmit at the same time by accident. This includes the router talking to different end users since it can only talk to 1 at a time.

For most application this causes only minor issues but games are extremely susceptible to any type of delays caused by packet loss or data retransmission.

You can't really fix this except maybe to force all the other users to use 1 radio band your game machines to use the other radio. This still does not solve the problem of the neighbors who also use wireless causing interference with your radio channel and cause random lags.

There really is no solution for games other than to not run them on wireless. Pretty much everything else except games works well.