Q&A Bad Internet Ban (technical questions/fixes)

[Sean²]

Is it possible to get a refund on the subscription service? I just can't play this game with input lag. It's not Smash bros

Nope

 

[Wobblerbox]

are you both playing on wifi, if you don't have Ethernet you honestly shouldn't complain about online lag because its hard to know if its you having bad wifi or if you're internet is bad or if it is a netcode problem

We both have ethernet adapters, it makes no difference if you're playing with the adapter or wifi as long as the wifi signal is good. The input delay is there, which is sad, he lives on my street.

 

[Wobblerbox]

It would not be placebo if you are directly telling the Switch to pull large amounts of data from the router

I've played some matches with the MTU on 1400 then to 1500, while I don't see any huge changes. The input delay felt noticeably better.

Unless you played against the same guy online there is no one of testing This theory, the input delay is different depending on the location of the opponent and his internet speed.

 

[Level45]

We both have ethernet adapters, it makes no difference if you're playing with the adapter or wifi as long as the wifi signal is good. The input delay is there, which is sad, he lives on my street.

Thank you for the reply but it does make a difference even with a good signal but thank you for telling me that the two of you are on Ethernet.


may i ask what speed you are both on? and is it DSL or cable or fiber, there are a lot of factors i'm just trying to get a good idea of what type of setup you are on, no matter what there is gonna be input delay since its online all games have it, one thing i would do is ping you're friends IP and see what the delay is on that, lets just hope nintendo makes some changes to the Net code if i recall correct splatoon 1 got some updates that improved net code.

 

[Level45]

Could it be related to taxation of the hardware? The Switch working less hard in hand-held mode because 720p instead of 1080p?

There is no way that running the game in 1080p causes more input delay, it makes no since i could see getting more input delay from playing on a TV if its not a good TV, But come on saying its the taxation of the hardware, Plus wifi is going to have more delay than Ethernet even with a good signal.....

Yes actually according to some reddits the lesser resolution frees up the hardware...I hate to think this is the only solution tho.

The nintendo switch under clocks when in hand held mode and over clocks when docked meaning that its actually slower in hand held mode, also that is like saying that me running a game on my computer is going to make it download slower even if its a offline game.....

 

[Sucumbio]

Use the edit button instead of double posting thx

Uh, I guess. I don't really know myself just quoting what I read... It was stated in regards to several switch games that playing in handheld was better.

 

[Toyamasmash]

No, i play online with my neighbor and it still feels like ****.

Today was the first time I could play with a really good connection and it still was nothing like the local multiplayer. I am seriously wondering if online is that good of practice for tournaments. I was on fiber optic and everything and let down by the experience this is a game where any lag comes in completely wrecks the experience, as I have never had even a twitch of lag in my entire melee existence

 

[Mi4Slayer]

Yes actually according to some reddits the lesser resolution frees up the hardware...I hate to think this is the only solution tho.

If that's the case, I was thinking about this for input lag in general but now it would be more relevant to have them patch the game with a PERFORMANCE option that lower that graphics but makes that game smoother. It think that it would the best solution as it won't punish casuals fans that don't really care about performance that much and let those who do, have a better experience that we wanted.

Also if this is 100% truth... it piss me off a lot ! Nintendo was always about making the gameplay experience better over pretty graphics. BotW slow down, even after patchs, are kinda annoying but it a single player game so it not so bad... but smash.... common ! They even used the competitive side of the community to market this game... they know how important it is to us. Yet they act like they don't care.

...Maybe this game really was a BIT rushed out the door ?

 

[Artanix]

network guy here.

So it works for some and not for others based on some encapsulation that can happen on your ISP network (or even your LAN in some cases). It's a bit silly nowadays (newer stuff should be ok, but depends on ISP settings and a whole bucket of stuff), but MTU size above 1500 generally will get fragmented causing a delay as it is effectively deconstructing the packet and sending it in 2 parts. (or more)

It's likely if 1500 doesn't work for you, that 1492 will probably work (if NAT-T is happening for example). 1400 is considered a "safe" MTU on the basis that you can pretty much do anything to the packets and it'll never go above 1500.

It's a fairly simple thing that becomes very complicated as you introduce more funky stuff that ISPs may do to your data as it goes from network to network.

Also it shouldn't be noticeable at all, but it depends on the netcode for this game. I'm not a software guy, but I've seen stuff that generally redoes network things at the application layer. So if the netcode is reliant on chunks of data that happen to also be the same size as a packet, it'll really struggle to deal with this packet being split into two and sent over, it pretty much has to wait for both parts to be received, reassembled and put up the stack into the game. Like I said, I'm not a software guy, so this is just my weird understanding of it from networks experience.

Basically any number between 1400-1500 could work, and it could be better. There isn't a silver bullet for everybody to use that isn't just the basic 1400 already used by the switch. I'd recommend using online MTU size finders to help out as that can really do the fine tuning for you.

 

[RepStar]

The game glitched(?) into having a recent player that dropped out of the 4 player party, name still appear with an empty character icon with only their percentage and name showing the next match. It glitched out and said a communication error has occured, which i assume disconnected us all but, now im banned for 2 hours and 15 minutes. This is legitimately not ok or fair and, its been over a week and, nobody that runs this game online has noticed this?

 

[Scottfrankd]

The only issue I would have with a forfeit button is what it would do to your GSP. I've had so many matches that are basically unplayable because people have poor internet, and I don't want to waste time playing a 3-stock slide show - that's just not fun. But if I were to forfeit, because the other player apparently thinks nothing is wrong with powerpoint smash, you can bet I'd end up losing points/elite status (how do these people get into elite smash anyway?)

Also, something I found by accident the other day - I was hosting an arena and accidentally lent on my TV remote and turned it off - this caused my Switch to go into handheld mode and brought up a weird prompt to confirm which character I was playing as, before ending the connection.
Thankfully I didn't get penalised, but I find it weird that turning my TV off disconnects matches - I'll keep the remote away from me next time....

 

[Wobblerbox]

Im honestly expecting someone to come up with a way of connecting with friends threw a mod or program and playing online with a better experience than nintendo provides, i mean you can go play smash 64 online threw and emulator and the input delay is maybe 1/4th of ultimates AT WORST.

 

[Semako]

I have 300 down, 30 up and 8ms Ping, use a LAN adapter and still have annoying input delay. I also set the MTU to 1500, any other stuff I can do to reduce input delay online?

 

[ADAS20]

Offine my inputs come out fine, the game feels quick and snappy.
Online my inputs are delayed by what feels like a half second. It's not completely terrible, but its super annoying to deal with.
I'm using a 5ghz connection with my router roughly 20-30 feet away from me (right across from where i play) and i consistently get 42-43 download and 11 upload.
Im using a DMZ network as well.
When i use the same network on my laptop to play games, it feels virtually lagless.
Any tips?

 

[Wobblerbox]

Offine my inputs come out fine, the game feels quick and snappy.
Online my inputs are delayed by what feels like a half second. It's not completely terrible, but its super annoying to deal with.
I'm using a 5ghz connection with my router roughly 20-30 feet away from me (right across from where i play) and i consistently get 42-43 download and 11 upload.
Im using a DMZ network as well.
When i use the same network on my laptop to play games, it feels virtually lagless.
Any tips?

It isn't you and there is nothing you can do about the delay, there's a delay when you play offline threw local play too with the other person being right next to you, its ridiculous.

 

[ADAS20]

Wait you serious? So I have to wait for Nintendo to patch it don’t I?

 

[Wobblerbox]

Wait you serious? So I have to wait for Nintendo to patch it don’t I?

I wouldn't count on it. Its been like this since brawl, you can play melee threw an emulator online and get far less input delay than playing ultimate online.

 

[Golurk]

Got my Nintendo Switch today. Played some Smash Ultimate on it, unlocked a few characters, then I wanted to play online. Paid $21.19 for a years worth of ability to play online. Tried to play online, connected my Switch to my high-speed mobile phone hotspot which I use for my internet for everything, and it doesn't work. It says I have a NAT Type D, and I believe only a NAT Type A and B will let you play online. I don't understand why the NAT type is so low. I use this phone hotspot for everything. I get 30-80ms ping using it for games like Overwatch. Is my hotspot good enough for games like that, but not for Smash? That seems outrageous. Now I wasted $21.19, and $360 for the Switch and Smash. How much fun can you get out of a game in singleplayer? For me, not much. I want to play online and fight actual opponents, not CPUs. I watched several tutorials on how to increase NAT Type, but each of them either said that phone hotspots don't work, or to go to your router's admin page. My hotspot does not have an admin page, at least not to my knowledge. I use a T-Mobile hotspot, and when I search to try and get to the admin page, it sends me to a link and tells me to log in. Upon going to that link, it sends me to a completely random page, unrelated to hotspots and with no where to log in. This hotspot isn't bad, I really don't understand why this won't work. I will be pissed off if I literally cannot play any online game ever for the Switch. Every nintendo product i've ever had has been super bad with internet setup. Wii U barely would connect to the internet, same with the Switch now. Yet my computer which can play much heavier games than this Switch can can use the hotspot just fine. Please tell me I did not just waste $381.19, my Christmas money. And for a person who gets around 1 new game a year, this is pretty devastating.

 

[R208]

From the bit of research I just did, NAT Type D is the typing that most Mobile networks give. A few of the articles I found were older, but it may still be the case. T-Mobile specifically seems to have this issue a lot.

The following is a possible workaround: https://np.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/8qaqm7/tutorial_get_around_nat_type_d_on_a_mobile/

I'm not a Network Tech, so I don't have super-intimate knowledge of NATs, but I'd guess that the Switch requires a stricter NAT type then what a Mobile network can typically provide. I'm sure someone will correct me here.

 

[Golurk]

From the bit of research I just did, NAT Type D is the typing that most Mobile networks give. A few of the articles I found were older, but it may still be the case. T-Mobile specifically seems to have this issue a lot.

The following is a possible workaround: https://np.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/8qaqm7/tutorial_get_around_nat_type_d_on_a_mobile/

I'm not a Network Tech, so I don't have super-intimate knowledge of NATs, but I'd guess that the Switch requires a stricter NAT type then what a Mobile network can typically provide. I'm sure someone will correct me here.

I appreciate your help, but although I do have an Android as the article speaks about, I do not have the same type of phone. Therefore, my hotspot settings on my phone appear to be much more limited than theirs. I do not have the ability on my phone to see the access point names.

 

[Sean²]

Do you have a desktop or laptop running Windows 10? You could try this. But be prepared to possibly spend a little more money in the long run.

 

[Golurk]

Do you have a desktop or laptop running Windows 10? You could try this. But be prepared to possibly spend a little more money in the long run.

I don't have Windows 10, nor do I have more money to spend in the long run.

 

[Sean²]

Then I don't know what to tell you. Nintendo doesn't use dedicated servers like most game companies do, they're still running most of their games purely p2p, which may be why you can play other games without much issue. Or they have less regulation on who can connect. Obviously your mobile network provider keeps NAT strict, which is why you're getting type D. I think you can technically still play, but it will just only connect to people who have type A. No idea how many people are actually running a fully open NAT online with this game.

But if Nintendo detects your network to even be a little dodgy, they won't even let you into the online mode on the main menu. I was downloading a big patch for an xbox game and was going to play smash while I wait. Both my Switch and my Xbox are running through the same gigabit ethernet switch which goes through a single cat 6 cable to my router. They wouldn't even let me on till it was done. Also a possibility considering your setup.

Considering I don't know if you're just using a cell phone hotspot, or a physically separate one. Unsure if you were to get something like this for your hotspot if it would work or change anything, if you also used a USB ethernet adapter for your Switch as well and just hardwired it into your hotspot. But these are obviously all monetary goods so I dunno what else to say that isn't total hindsight at this point.

If I'm being realistic, I would tell you a wireless hotspot isn't a long term solution if you want to do any heavy online gaming, especially with Smash considering the lag you'd likely get. But this thread isn't about my opinion. Hope you find something that works for you.

 

[sixkami]

if everyone would stop whining and buy a damn ethernet cable they might not have a thing to worry about...

 

[DairyOrange]

if everyone would stop whining and buy a damn ethernet cable they might not have a thing to worry about...

right, because an ethernet cable totally helps in the case of the opposing player's internet being total garbage lol

 

[RepStar]

if everyone would stop whining and buy a damn ethernet cable they might not have a thing to worry about...

How about nintendo stop being ****heads and, having fanboys blame us because, they didnt add a ****ing wired port to the switch, lmao.

 

[sixkami]

Yes! It does help! I get the least amount of stuttering and delay across all of my matches. Hardly anything to complain about. It's worth it. I'm not defending Nintendo for leaving the port off the console...AGAIN, but your only real options are 1. buy a cable and get better connections across the board or 2. keep whining.

 

[MG_3989]

So I play SSB in my room (the router is in the next room) and I have decent internet so I haven’t had too much trouble with WiFi but I have hit a couple laggy spots and dropped one game. I really wanna play through a wired connection but I don’t have a port in my room. Is there any way that’s not super expensive and not drilling a hole through my wall to get wires Internet in my room?

 

[Sucumbio]

Yeah. Run a very long cable. I did this with the wii and brawl. Drilled holes in the walls and ran a 100 ft cable through like 4 rooms lol

 

[R208]

Well, you can just run an ethernet cable from the Router to your room. Set it along side the wall and all that. You can get 100 feet for $10 USD. Doubt you'd actually NEED that much, but Ethernet cabling is super cheap if you do a bit of digging on non-brand-name sites.

 

[MG_3989]

Thanks guys! I’m thinking of just drilling a hole through my wall because the router is literally in the next room. A 100ft cable would be more than long enough. Plus it would benefit my PC and PS4 too so I see no reason not to do it

 

[Lorisaur]

Well, I've tryed many solutions but nothing seems to work:

My problem is just the classic one, I can't play online with most of the users. I can't set up a DMZ with my current router (it's not in the options) and I can't change it or use a second router for many reasons. My NAT type is currently D. I've also tried to use port mapping to create a virtual server but for some reasons it seems to not work. Any other solutions?

 

[Acerhero]

With my switch i have slower internet with 5ghz (10 and 8) wifi than 2.4 ghz (44 and 12)
When i use 5 ghz wifi on my notebook is much faster, so the problem is in the nintendo switch.
What could i do to solve this problem?
The console is near the router.
I tried changing the MTU, and nds, but nothing happends.

 

[yknowlikenia]

realistically, the safest solution is just buying a 3.0 ethernet adapter, for your sake and your opponents'. i had similar issues in the past, and with wired signal it's been perfectly smooth.

 

[Luigifan18]

I'm going to be blunt — I'm sick and tired of seeing my alerts getting clogged up by newbies making threads to ask simple questions about their issues with getting online play to function because they're missing necessary parts. So I decided to make a thread to consolidate everybody's issues and hopefully answer multiple people's questions at once (and ease up the flow of junk mail into the inboxes of people watching this forum).

 

[Niuyoi]

BEFORE you drill holes in your wall, there is a solution to this! I use a powerline adaptor to connect my PC and my Switch to the router without having to run an ethernet cable across my house. I've used the same one for about 5 years now and they're quite good, the speed and reliability are dependant on how old the wiring in your house is (our house was built in the late 90s for reference) but I am still able to get above 30MBps down and 2MBps up on my fibre optic internet connection.

Your powerline adaptors MUST be plugged in directly to a wall outlet and will not work properly if plugged into an extension cable. Also the two ends of the powerline adaptor must be on the same circuit within your houses wiring, I've never had this be an issue and if you find you can't pair your two powerline ends then try different wall outlets.

My powerline adaptor only has 1 ethernet port so to plug the PC and Switch in simultaneously I have a small 5 port network switch to connect them all.

The powerline adaptor I have is the entry level TP link one, it does the job but does cut out sometimes. The way to stop this is to run a ping command to constantly ping your router to keep the line active (ping 192.168.1.1 -t)

 

[Niuyoi]

How to have a wired ethernet connection when you can't run an ethernet cable from your Switch to your router:

Equipment needed:
- Powerline adapter kit (I use the entry level TP link one and it works okay)
- Ethernet cable
- Ethernet adaptor (I use the £10 Ugreen one on amazon) https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Ethernet-Adapter-Nintendo-Chromebook-x/dp/B00MYT481C/
- Optional, small network switch if you have multiple devices in the same room wanting a wired connection such as your PC or other consoles (DO NOT use a network hub as these are obsolete except for in special cases)

Steps:
1. Plug one end of the powerline adapter directly into the wall outlet near your router and the other end into a wall outlet near your switch. Powerlines do not function properly when plugged into an extension cable and must be plugged directly into the wall outlet.

2. Go through the pairing process of the powerline adapter you have chosen, this typically involves pressing the pairing button on one of the devices then pressing the pairing button on the other. There will be instructions provided in the box of your powerline adapter

3. Plug in your Nintendo Switch ethernet adapter to your switch, I don't know if the USB 3.0 port or USB 2.0 port matters though I use the USB 3.0 one as I plug the gamecube adapter into the two USB 2.0 ones on the side of the dock.

4. Connect one end of your ethernet cable to Switch ethernet adapter and the other end to your powerline near your switch. On your other powerline, connect an ethernet cable to that and the router.

4b. If you are using a network switch, connect your powerline, Nintendo switch and other devices to the network switch. The instruction sheet's diagram inside the box of my network switch showed that port 5 connected to the router and ports 1 - 4 connected to local devices. It shouldn't matter but doesn't hurt to follow what they give you as cheap network switches might be setup with a designated 'out' port.

5. Go to internet settings in your Nintendo Switch and select wired connection.

Woohoo now you have a stable connection to your router and can justifiably be annoyed at people online with poor connections, horray! (please note that this does not affect your internet connection outside of your local network. If you have an unstable internet connection your mileage may vary. If you play using a satellite internet connection please go back to playing online chess)

 

[Dark 3nergy]

5G router networks work with Switch. If you have the option to spin up this kind of network it's better then 2.5.

Some of you have probably not created very many arenas yet. If you modify the settings prior to setting it up this warning appears:

"If you're experiencing connection errors during arena battles or when spectating, try decreasing the Max Players allowed.

Using a wired Internet connection will also help increase network stability"

Please keep this in mind when fighting in large lobby arenas.

"Console is near the router"

Move it away from the router and run the network test at different parts of the room you're in. Problem is the dead zone that can occur around and close to the router. A haze of radio signals; ie multiple devices that use online in one room can also interfere with that radio signal.

 

[zipzo]

I use the defacto best 3.0 Ethernet adapter, the plugable one, and currently I run a 300mbps download speed plan.

My switch gets around 30-40 on wifi, but using my Ethernet dock it only gets around 60-70.

Is this normal? It's Nat type B and I've changed my mtu to 1500 as well but nothing seems to make it higher. Just seems like I'm wasting money paying for higher download if it's not even gonna get used...

Speed tests from several sites show that my download speed is accurate (they don't all reach 300 perfectly but usually in the 200 range).

Kind of annoying :/

 

[Oneiros5321]

Same problem here.

First, I think the USB 3.0 port actually works as a 2.0. Nintendo doesn't even advertise it as a 3.0 port.
I don't know why it's that way, but it might be part of the problem.

I also feel like the Switch kinda cap you connection. I have a 150mbps connection, showing as it when I run speed test on my computer but my Switch can only get around 40 to 50mbps while I've seen people with a 1gbps connection getting around 100 to 120mbps.

It's been an issue for a while and as far as I know, there's no solution.