Fixing a Slow Internet Connection

It is Christmas break and so my oldest son and I spent the afternoon setting up our PlayStation 4 consoles so we can kill bad guys together. Last night we saw the latest Star Wars movie and so naturally we plan to spend a fair bit of time playing Star Wars Battlefront.

This afternoon we got done skiing and decided that instead of playing split-screen coop we would each try playing on our own consoles. We set up a small monitor next to the big screen in the TV room and worked through the difficulties of having 2 consoles so close together. When we tried to initiate Share Play, we were told that my home Internet connection was too slow. So we pulled out some tools to see if we could fix the problem. The first was to bring in a laptop and run a speed test over the WiFi network. The tool of choice can be found at SpeedTest.net. I then ran another test on a computer hardwired into the home Internet connection. The wired connection tested at over 50 Megabits per second. The WiFi tested at only 2. That is a huge difference.

The next course of action was to try and figure out how we could speed things up over WiFi. My son introduced me to a tool on his Android phone called WiFi Analyzer from farproc. This showed us that all of my neighbors have their 2.5 Gigahertz WiFi routers all set up around channel 11. Guess where my WiFi connection was set? It was on "Auto" but was really using channel 11. My router only does 2.5 Gigahertz and so I manually set the channel to 3, where nobody seemed to be. I then reran the speed test and got much better numbers. Unfortunately they were not good enough for Share Play.

When trying to use Share Play you are told that it is best to use a wired Ethernet connection. Fortunately I have a large spool of CAT-5 cable and the tools to make Ethernet cables. We measured everything out and made 2 cables capable of reaching from the hub in my office to the PlayStation 4 consoles in the TV room. We tested the connection and the network ran sufficiently fast to use Share Play.

We got ready to play and then discovered that with Share Play, my son could watch me play or I could watch him. However we each couldn't play Star Wars Battlefront with only a single copy of the game. That was a bummer. Fortunately we each have a copy of the game and so we popped in the 2nd disk and have enjoyed several survival games together.

It is good that I now have enough network speed to use Share Play but the real problem turned out to be that we each needed our own copies of the game. I am glad we went through this exercise though as I now know a lot more about WiFi networking and have the tools to fix problems when they arise. Hopefully someone else finds this useful.

My 2015 Christmas List

Normally at this time of year I like to put together a Christmas list to give people ideas for the season. Last year I took a departure from the norm and wished for small and simple things that didn't have anything to do with computers nor technology. I figured it is only fair that I try to go back to a regular list and provide some good ideas for those last-minute shoppers:

New Video Games: There are 2 games that I can recommend this year: Star Wars Battlefront and Fallout 4. My recommendation comes from playing one of the games at home a lot and the other comes from talking with other gamer players and listening to what they are playing. Both games seem to be a lot of fun and will bring countless hours of entertainment.

Old Video Games: I have a huge collection of older video games and have seen these for sale at rock-bottom prices in places like Target and Best Buy. My two favorite games that I have played this year have to be Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption. Both provided hours of enjoyment. I enjoyed Tomb Raider so much, I returned the copy I borrowed from a friend and purchased a version for the PS4 at Game Stop during a Black Friday sale for $15.

Television: I hate to recommend any one brand or model as everyone has such varying requirements. However I think that if you are in the market for a new TV you should consider upgrading to one of the 4K models. A normal HDTV has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The new UltraHD TV's are 3840x2160. That is the equivalent of 4 HDTV's. Furthermore they are coming down in price so that they are actually affordable.

There are a number of other smaller gifts that you might consider. In the past I have recommended USB thumb drives. I don't see a need for these as much simply because there are a number of online places to exchange large computer files. You can never have too many memory cards though. The only trick is making sure you get the right ones. While it used to be safe to pick up SD cards in the past, there are a number of different format cards for different devices. I would love to add a memory card to my Android phone and my kids are always running out of space on the cards used in their DSLR cameras.

Another small gift recommendation in the past has been USB cables. I now have a huge supply of them but find myself lacking HDMI cables. HDMI cables are not that expensive and I would definitely appreciate having a few extras.

Hopefully your Christmas shopping is done and this list is useless. If not, I hope I have given one or two good ideas to choose from. Merry Christmas.

Split-Screen Coop Mode

I did not get as much time as I would have liked to play video games this Thanksgiving break. I spent a lot of time skiing and while video games can be fun, skiing is much more fun. About the only spare time I had was yesterday afternoon when the family was done skiing and everyone but my oldest son and I was tied up with other activities.

We had some good father-son-bonding time and so I pulled out Star Wars Battlefront for the PS4. Some of the missions have three different modes to choose from: Solo, Coop, and Split-Screen Coop. While I have 2 PS4's, the 2nd one is in a different part of the house right now and so I didn't want to play coop mode. While we would be playing together, we would be far enough away that it really wouldn't count as father-son-bonding time. So we opted for split-screen coop. I took the top half of the screen while he took the bottom and held our own wave after wave of bad guys. It was a lot of fun.

We spent a couple of hours playing together and my son did much better than I did. At the end of each game, it would give statistics. We were pretty even except when it came to kills. I would get about 45 per game while he would get 75. Naturally I will have to concede that he is the better player but what is important is that the both of us had a lot of fun playing together.

When we were done, we headed to Target and picked up a 2nd copy of the game. Now when I am in California, I can play coop mode with him in Utah. I just need to bring one of my PS4's out there for when I am on my sailboat during the week. That will happen after Christmas.

So Many Games, So Little Time

I am working from my home in Utah this week as it is the Thanksgiving week and I figured I would abstain from adding to the chaos in the airports this time of the year. With all of my recent travel it feels kind of strange to be home for such an extended period of time. Normally I don't play video games at home but as I find myself with a lot more time here I have turned on my consoles every now and then. It is a great way to stay awake when I am tired.

I only have a PS3 on my boat in California while I have both a PS3 and a PS4 at home. That has opened up a number of games for me this week. Here are some of the games I will be playing this week:

1. Star Wars Battlefront - I preordered a copy and it arrived while I was in Japan last week. Since I have been home I have gone through several training missions. If you are a fan of the Star Wars movies, then you will love this game.

2. The Order: 1886 - I was given a copy of this game when it came out yet have never found the time to play it. I understand that it should only take 4 to 6 hours to complete and look forward to finally being able to dedicate that much time to it.

3. The Uncharted Collection - I have all three Uncharted games for the PlayStation 3 but only ever played the first game. My sons have played both the 2nd and 3rd games and said they are awesome. I enjoyed Tomb Raider a lot and look forward to a very similar game. I want to get all 3 Uncharted games completed before Uncharted 4 comes out next year so I am ready for it.

Now for the standard disclaimer: I have connections in the video game industry that allow me to get really cheap copies of all these games. In fact I may even work for one of the companies that creates the games mentioned in this post.

My E3 Favorites

I have had the pleasure of walking the E3 show floor for the past couple of days and have been amazed by the high-quality games soon to be available. I thought I would take a paragraph or two and mention my favorites from the show. Before I do that I have to provide the disclaimer that I work for a video game company and may be promoting one of my own games. I don't think that is a real issue as there are a number of games from different studios that I mention. Hopefully I am seen as objective and not playing favorites. So in alphabetic order (to keep it fair), here they are:

Call of Duty: Black Ops III - I have always been a fan of first-person shooters and Call of Duty is the most popular franchise out there. I have played a number of COD titles and they all have felt very well put together. This one looks like it will be a great game when it is released on November 16, 2015.

Doom - Doom is the original first-person shooter. I remember playing it on the PC when it first came out and spent many hours crawling around the dungeon-like setting. The latest version is a major advancement in graphics and looks to be the same great fun available in the Spring of 2016.

Just Cause 3 - I never played the first two versions of this game but was drawn into the Square Enix booth at E3 and really enjoyed the rich environment found in this game. I sat through the demo movie more than once and look forward to the release some time this year.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - Several years ago one of my coworkers gave me a copy of Metal Gear Solid and suggested I play it. I loaded it onto my PlayStation 3 but couldn't really figure it out. Today I spent 45 minutes in the Konami booth watching an expert go through a mission. There is a lot to the game and I could see why it was so tough to figure out the first time. This is one of those games that will take hours to master but will be well worth the effort. It will be available September 1st of this year.

Star Wars Battlefront - When EA released Star Wars Battlefront II for the PlayStation 2, I went and bought 2 copies. One for each of my PS2 consoles. That way each of my sons could play each other over the network. It was a really great Christmas break. When the latest version was announced, I was excited to see game play footage at E3. It did not disappoint me and I will immediately rush out and get this one when it is available on November 20th of this year.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - Uncharted has to be one of my favorite game series ever. I have to admit that I am not very good at it but my youngest son is. I could sit and watch him play for hours. It was a toss-up between 2 or 3 being better but they were all a lot of fun. I have only been able to see small sections of 4 and it looks like it will be another immediate purchase I make when it is available in 2016.

There were a lot of other games I thought looked pretty amazing and are eager for their release. I didn't mention them only because I don't have an unlimited amount of time to write this evening. Besides, these are the ones I am most excited about. Judging by the E3 crowd reaction, I don't think I am the only one.