Hardware Lan is complete garbage?

[YourHero]

So here is my Switch wireless.

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And this is wired.

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And for comparison my Wii U on the new HTML5 speedtest.net

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And for extra comparison, my PC off the same connection.

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Wii U and PC are wired connections. So what gives?

The download on the Switch lan is awful compared to a really weak wireless signal for me. I have a Ugreen USB 3.0 lan adapter, which contains the identical chipset of the Switch Lan. I have tested it on my PC and my Wii U as well and results for those are the same as shown here, yet the Switch gets junk.

My concern is more or less for downloads. Playing online seems fair on the Switch, though I have only played FAST RMX and Bomberman. I await Arms to really see how good the lan is in comparison, but wireless is never good for online gaming.

UPDATE: Progress has been made

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It appears the Switch does not like the router I am using for a LAN SWITCH. The router is basically a braindead auto sensing lan switch, but the Nintendo Switch seems to not enjoy this. Nothing else has an issue with it. Going to see if different firmware does anything and report back.

 

[Deleted User]

The Switch does not support wired Ethernet connections. Buying an adapter doesn't change that. It's hardware is simply not built to accept a direct LAN connection for internet.

When you connect your USB adapter it's basically just taking your wired connection and running a bunch of conversions to make the signal resemble the type of signal the Switch would be expecting through a WiFi connection. Basically, your USB adapter has to run a bunch of extra proceses to convert the signal and those processes take time. That's why your speeds aren't as good.

 

[linuxares]

USB 2.0 isn't very fast you know. Plus it also depend a lot of the adapter itself, is it an official one? etc.

 

[GerbilSoft]

The Switch does not support wired Ethernet connections. Buying an adapter doesn't change that. It's hardware is simply not built to accept a direct LAN connection for internet.

When you connect your USB adapter it's basically just taking your wired connection and running a bunch of conversions to make the signal resemble the type of signal the Switch would be expecting through a WiFi connection. Basically, your USB adapter has to run a bunch of extra proceses to convert the signal and those processes take time. That's why your speeds aren't as good.

I don't know where you learned basic networking, but that's not how it works at all. Switch (and Wii U and Wii) definitely supports wired LAN using a supported USB adapter. There's no "hurr durr USB makes ethernet look like wifi" conversions, and I'm pretty sure that isn't a thing, period. It's effectively the same as using a USB Ethernet adapter on, say, a new MacBook Pro.

Nintendo did say that the USB 3.0 port on the dock would be running at USB 2.0 speeds initially. Granted, that means 480 Mbps, so clearly something else is wrong.

USB 2.0 isn't very fast you know. Plus it also depend a lot of the adapter itself, is it an official one? etc.

USB 2.0 tops out at 480 Mbps (or realistically half of that). A USB 2.0 LAN adapter should be able to saturate 100 Mbps Ethernet.

 

[YourHero]

The Switch does not support wired Ethernet connections. Buying an adapter doesn't change that. It's hardware is simply not built to accept a direct LAN connection for internet.

When you connect your USB adapter it's basically just taking your wired connection and running a bunch of conversions to make the signal resemble the type of signal the Switch would be expecting through a WiFi connection. Basically, your USB adapter has to run a bunch of extra proceses to convert the signal and those processes take time. That's why your speeds aren't as good.

So you're saying the one Nintendo has officially approved that they sell for an over priced 30 dollars is not supported by them? Tell me more.

I don't know where you learned basic networking, but that's not how it works at all. Switch (and Wii U and Wii) definitely supports wired LAN using a supported USB adapter. There's no "hurr durr USB makes ethernet look like wifi" conversions, and I'm pretty sure that isn't a thing, period. It's effectively the same as using a USB Ethernet adapter on, say, a new MacBook Pro.

Nintendo did say that the USB 3.0 port on the dock would be running at USB 2.0 speeds initially. Granted, that means 480 Mbps, so clearly something else is wrong.


USB 2.0 tops out at 480 Mbps (or realistically half of that). A USB 2.0 LAN adapter should be able to saturate 100 Mbps Ethernet.

Someone here seems to understand something. But it's not making much sense that the Wii U with it's low power USB has no trouble grabbing higher speed. My theory is the USB ports on the dock, I'm using the 3.0 on the rear, are being throttled by the Switch because the same adapter has to do conversion for the HDMI. It has been proven a regular USB C adapter with an HDMI does not work, which means the Switch dock probably converts a Displayport signal to HDMI 1.4, which is odd because USB-C should support it as a general spec.

Either way, I was expecting it to be at least as good as wireless with a sub 20% signal (according to my router). Instead the Switch is outran on lan by my Wii U.

And it literally makes no difference that this is not the "Nintendo officially approved" because it has an identical chipset in everyway. The Switch couldn't tell the difference if it wanted to, and I guarantee if I went and paid a whopping 30 dollars it would be the same adapter PCB inside and perform the same.

In the end, online works much more consistently, but downloads require me to undock if I want it done sometime this hour.

 

[DocAmes1980]

USB 2.0 tops out at 480 Mbps (or realistically half of that). A USB 2.0 LAN adapter should be able to saturate 100 Mbps Ethernet.

It most definitely can. I got a USB 3.0 gigabit LAN adapter and it gets me 35 Mbps down on the Switch. On my laptop, connected to a 2.0 port, it gets me 122 Mbps down. I got the adapter because the Switch's wireless connection was horrible. The Switch gets 27 Mbps down on my 5 GHz network. My OnePlus One gets 80 Mbps and shows a signal strength of -40 dBm from the same location as the Switch (4 ft away from the router, direct line of sight). In my bedroom (25 ft away from router, through two walls) the connection on the Switch is so poor that it times out sometimes when navigating the eShop. My phone gets 75 down with a signal strength of -57dBm.

I've tried the WiFi connection on two other Switches on my dock (4 ft from router) with similar results. Although, when it comes to the speed tests on the Switch (especially with WiFi) I have to speak in terms of the average speed because results varied wildly at times. When I say 27 Mbps down in the above paragraph I mean between 20 and 34. I have also tried the wired connection on one other Switch and the speeds were similar. The speed test results of the wired connection are much more consistent, but rarely I get much faster results. The highest I've seen was 97 Mbps down. That would be great if all my other wired devices didn't get 122 down. Also, I eliminated Nintendo's servers as a culprit as I checked speeds on the Switch using fast.com as well (by redirecting the request for Nintendo's connection test page to "fast.com"). Results were similar. I then made sure that fast.com wasn't the issue by testing via fast.com on my PC. 122 Mbps down on the PC consistently.

The networking on the three Switches I've tried is fucked. It seems that reports of unusually slow speeds/poor signal strength aren't uncommon. I wonder how many people are getting speeds comparable to other devices on their network. I've played many multiplayer games of Fast RMX on the Switch. I can't recall a match where some if not all players were lag skipping. I only played about six multiplayer matches of Fast Racing NEO on Wii U but those matches were butter smooth and the other players were from Germany and the UK.

I think the Switch's OS is just beta as hell right now. Nintendo released early. Multiplayer on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe might be a lagfest unless Nintendo has a fix forthcoming. I suppose there is footage out there. I'll see how multiplayer runs when my roommate gets the game. I'm passing on MK8 Deluxe. Also everyone needs to bear in mind that bandwidth beyond a relatively small amount doesn't matter in online gaming. Ping is king. Decent speed test results equal decent download speeds. However, if you have crappy ping, you have a crappy connection in terms of online gaming.

I'm going to find a good website for testing ping. Got to go deeper...

 

[YourHero]

Yes, so you can get decent speeds on Switch lan. This adapter is not defective, it gets 101mbps down when I plug it into a usb 3.0 port on my desktop PC. So it has to be a piss poor driver or something.

 

[linuxares]

Lagfest? A multiplayer game hardly needs 2mbit(depends on game) to function like a champ. I think you guys are blowing this out of preportion but yes, they need to open up more speed to both the ethernet and wifi.

 

[ItsMetaKnight]

Just get another LAN adapter, some work better than others on the Switch.

 

[DocAmes1980]

Lagfest? A multiplayer game hardly needs 2mbit(depends on game) to function like a champ. I think you guys are blowing this out of preportion but yes, they need to open up more speed to both the ethernet and wifi.

You didn't read the last paragraph of my long ass post. I said that you can game on relatively little bandwidth. It's all about ping. The speed test results should be somewhat consistent. They are not. Something is wrong. Unfortunately, speedtest.net will not load properly on the Switch's browser so I used fast.com. Fast.com lack ping info because it's Netflix's speed test site. Ping doesn't matter when it comes to streaming media and they don't want to confuse the tech unsavvy.

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Just get another LAN adapter, some work better than others on the Switch.

I believe mine uses the same chipset as the overpriced officially licensed ignorant consumer model. Even if it doesn't use the same chipset that shouldn't matter. It's a USB device. If it doesn't work as well on the Switch as it does on everything else with a USB port then that's a fucking issue.

 

[YourHero]

Just get another LAN adapter, some work better than others on the Switch.

I've already proven the lan adapter is not the problem? Did you read? It works perfectly as intended on my Wii U and my PC. It's just the Switch getting poor speeds.

 

[DocAmes1980]

I did rudimentary ping testing. I used this site:

http://www.dslreports.com/tools/pingtest

The test shows the response times to many servers worldwide and gives you three grades (one every 30 seconds). I ran the test 3 times on my Switch and my HTPC (Gigabyte BRIX with an i3). As for grades from the 3 tests (3 grades a test) the HTPC got 9 A+'es and the Switch got 8 A's and one A+. The actual response times can't really be compared because the Switch's web browser seems to have a rendering issue. It only shows the times from the first 4 servers listed.

 

[linuxares]

You didn't read the last paragraph of my long ass post. I said that you can game on relatively little bandwidth. It's all about ping. The speed test results should be somewhat consistent. They are not. Something is wrong. Unfortunately, speedtest.net will not load properly on the Switch's browser so I used fast.com. Fast.com lack ping info because it's Netflix's speed test site. Ping doesn't matter when it comes to streaming media and they don't want to confuse the tech unsavvy.

Uhm, no it's not. Ping is just the term how long it takes for a signal to go and comeback.
There is a lot more than just ping when it comes to network. It have to do with packets, packets loss, quality of signal (wifi), interference etc.

We know the Switch can get really, really fast speeds internal and why routers report fast wifi speeds, so there seem to be a limit as soon as it opens to the internet.

 

[DocAmes1980]

Uhm, no it's not. Ping is just the term how long it takes for a signal to go and comeback.
There is a lot more than just ping when it comes to network.

I know what ping is thank you. I'm not talking about broad networking principals of a network. I'm talking about what makes a "good" connection for online gaming. That would be low ping. The reason why is obvious.

Yes there is packet loss, NAT, IPv4, DNS and many other words and acronyms that have to do with networking.

 

[linuxares]

I know what ping is thank you. I'm not talking about broad networking principals of a network. I'm talking about what makes a "good" connection for online gaming. That would be low ping. The reason why is obvious.

Yes there is packet loss, NAT, IPv4, DNS and many other words and acronyms that have to do with networking.

But there is a lot more than "ping" in computer games as well. I can have the best internet connection and the lowest ping, but if I get a ton of package drops it won't help me anyway. Sure the most common term is "low ping is good" but when we talk about the switch now, and since it's mainly wifi it uses. There is a lot more that can go wrong on the way. And Ethernet Adapter can be fault as well, but if OP tries a webpage internally if they have their own NAS with files on that can be access with the webbrowser, they probably will get full speed of their network connection on the switch. There is a thread about it here on the forums.

 

[Tzuba]

The Switch does not support wired Ethernet connections. Buying an adapter doesn't change that. It's hardware is simply not built to accept a direct LAN connection for internet.

When you connect your USB adapter it's basically just taking your wired connection and running a bunch of conversions to make the signal resemble the type of signal the Switch would be expecting through a WiFi connection. Basically, your USB adapter has to run a bunch of extra proceses to convert the signal and those processes take time. That's why your speeds aren't as good.

Good lord. That's not... Where the hell did you learn this from?

 

[Kyrara]

i use my old WiiU Lan adapter on the Switch and have a Download Speed from 49,6 Mbps.
Are you on the last FW?

 

[osaka35]

Yeah, are you using a usb 2.0 to ethernet adapter? There are some generic usb 3.0 ethernet adapters that have verified to be working with the switch, and they do take advantage of the 3.0 speed-boost. (3.1 gen 1 is what they're calling it now, but I'm still gonna call it 3.0)

 

[Cava]

I have a ugreen 2.0 lan adapter and if your DNS settings is different (i mean blocking the eshop/system update) then your speed is capped at 10Mbps download speed. If you change it to your default auto DNS then the speed is capped at 48-50Mbps download speed. Both wired and 5Ghz wireless. Tested.

 

[OrGoN3]

I've already proven the lan adapter is not the problem? Did you read? It works perfectly as intended on my Wii U and my PC. It's just the Switch getting poor speeds.

The only thing you are proving here is that the Switch's OS friggin sucks, and so does its wired usb adapter drivers. Wait for a system update to fix it or contact Ninty to let them know.