The Connection Problems That Spoil Online Arcade and Gaming Nights

You have invited friends and all the bites are laid out; there is an arcade cabinet humming and people are waiting to find that perfect game online. Suddenly, the game begins to lag. Perhaps the connection drops out entirely, matchmaking for the game fails or the cabinet unexpectedly prompts everyone for an additional login.

It is especially annoying when the cabinet itself appears to be functioning properly. Thankfully, many common online connection issues in arcade and retro gaming are actually due to the home network rather than the cabinet or the console. A few simple troubleshooting steps can often resolve issues and get game night running again, and the first step is working out which problem you have.

Match the Problem to the Cause

Lag, dropouts, failed matchmaking and extra login prompts can feel alike, but they usually point to different causes.

Here is a quick way to narrow it down before you change anything:

• Lag or choppy play. Often a weak signal or a congested network.
• The connection drops out entirely. A weak signal can cause it, and so can a router that needs a restart.
• Matchmaking or logins fail for everyone. The online service may be having an outage, which has nothing to do with your home connection.
• Extra login or verification prompts, mainly when you use a VPN. A shared VPN IP address is a common cause.

The sections below cover each one.

Start With the Room

Before blaming the cabinet, find out whether the room is the problem.

Game gear often lives in a basement, garage or spare bedroom, where the Wi-Fi signal has to pass through several walls to reach the machine. Thick, heavy materials like concrete, brick and metal weaken wireless signals. Large metal objects, including arcade cabinets, can affect the signal, and other appliances and wireless equipment can add interference.

Here is a simple test. If one area of the house has a much worse connection than others, distance from the router is the likely cause. Try the machine closer to the router. If the game runs more smoothly there, then signal strength, not the cabinet, is the problem.

Still choosing a spot or a machine? Our guide to the best arcade games for home use covers placement and layout, and our guide to connected arcade and pinball machines covers what works offline and what to ask before you buy.

Check Your Wi-Fi and Network

Your home's network may be congested, leading to slow internet, even if you usually have a fast connection.

For instance, your smartphone, tablets, big-screen TV, streaming box, desktop computer and home security camera might all be using bandwidth at the same time.

During gameplay, pause big downloads, backups, and high-quality streams if you can. If more than one person is streaming or gaming at once, your network could just be under a little more strain.

An older router can also hold things back. If you have had yours for some time, see if the manufacturer has a firmware update or whether it is time to replace it.

It also helps to know how the two Wi-Fi bands compare. For a useful technical overview of how 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz differ, Cisco's wireless guide explains the trade-off between coverage, speed and interference. At 2.4 GHz, your signals can reach farther and penetrate thicker walls, while 5 GHz delivers much faster speeds at closer range.

Ethernet Is Still Hard to Beat

A wired connection is the quickest way to find out whether Wi-Fi is the problem.

If your arcade cabinet or PC-based machine has an Ethernet port, plug it into the router, even if only for a test, and play for a while. If the lag or dropouts disappear, Wi-Fi was the cause.

A wired connection avoids many of the pitfalls of Wi-Fi, such as wireless interference or a weak signal, which makes it a good fit for a cabinet that stays in one place.

If a cable cannot reach the cabinet for good, our game room tech setup guide covers wired and mesh options for getting a reliable connection into the room.

Restart Before You Start

It may seem simple, but rebooting network devices can fix temporary problems.

Just before a planned gaming session, reboot the router and let it fully restart before powering on all your gaming gear.

If that still does not work, check the online service's public status page. During a service outage, you may not be able to find a match, log in to your account or start a session at all, and the problem has nothing to do with your home connection.

One more warning: avoid changing advanced router settings if you are unsure what they do. Two terms are useful to know, though. Latency is the time between sending data and getting a reply, and packet loss is when some data fails to reach its destination. Both can affect your online gaming experience.

When Logins and Account Checks Get in the Way

Speed and Wi-Fi are not always to blame for connection issues.

Sometimes extra login or verification screens appear when you are using a VPN.

That is often because many VPNs assign users shared IP addresses. An IP address is the numerical address that identifies your connection online, and on a VPN that address can be shared by many subscribers at once. A gaming service may then see activity from an address used by many different accounts and ask for extra verification.

If you use a VPN and constantly have to verify yourself, you can get a dedicated IP with PIA, which gives you a consistent IP address that only you use.

A dedicated IP is meant to solve this kind of account or IP problem, not boost performance. It will not speed up your internet, remove any latency or prevent a gaming platform from ever prompting for proof. A VPN can also add extra overhead, so it is a good idea to check whether the VPN itself is part of the problem.

Always follow the gaming platform's rules and account requirements, and do not use a VPN or a dedicated IP to get around regional restrictions.

Your Pre-Game-Night Checklist

Before everyone arrives, run through these quick checks:

• Plug the cabinet or gaming PC into the router with Ethernet, even briefly, to see whether Wi-Fi is the cause.
• Test Wi-Fi strength in the game room itself.
• Reboot the router before everyone connects.
• Pause downloads and backups.
• Update router firmware to the latest version.
• If you have weak spots, add a mesh Wi-Fi system or a wired access point.
• Check the service status page if you cannot log in or find a game.
• If you are using a VPN, try switching it off to see whether your connection changes.
• If verification prompts keep coming up on a shared VPN IP, consider a dedicated IP.

A solid gaming setup rarely requires complex networking. Often, all it takes to turn a frustrating arcade night into the one you planned is a stronger signal, a little traffic management or a switch to Ethernet.