One of the interesting reports we’ve seen around the web for early online Nintendo Switch games is that sometimes they’re pretty laggy. We’ve seen that complaint leveled at Super Bomberman R and Fast RMX, with some people reporting rubber-banding in the racing game so bad that they actually lose a few places when the race is finally over, despite having crossed the finish line in 1st on their screen.
If you’re experiencing these issues too, it’s likely that you need to do a bit of network configuration in order to use your Switch with a completely lag-free experience. There are a few ways to accomplish this and I’m only going to get into general details because router interfaces are completely different across manufacturers.
Option #1: Set your Switch’s IP address to a DMZ
Open the interface for your router and look for an option listed as DMZ. This option lets you put the IP address of a certain device beyond the firewall and security measures of your router, which means it’ll allow the device to communicate better since there’s no protection blocking its connection to outside traffic.
Normally you would not want to do this with a computer since it can leave your network vulnerable to attacks, but the Switch is a closed system and it won’t hurt to allow it into your router’s DMZ. Your router’s interface should show a list of all the connected devices, so it’s just a matter of enabling DMZ for the Switch IP. You can find your Nintendo Switch IP on the console itself under Settings -> Internet.
To make sure you’ve done this correctly, launch a connection test on the Nintendo Switch. When the results come in you should see a NAT Type of A, B, or C. You want NAT Type A, which is open.
Option #2: Port Forwarding
This is the recommendation that Nintendo has you do if you’re experiencing trouble with multiplayer online, but the problem is it’s a lot more finicky to set up. You need to be much more knowledgeable about tech than just setting up a simple DMZ for one specific IP.
If you want to follow Nintendo’s guide and try to set this up yourself, here’s the Nintendo help page for setting up the correct ports. However, you should know that numerous redditors have reported issues even with the correct ports forwarded. It seems to be more hassle than it’s worth when the DMZ option works fine and doesn’t really expose your network to anything malicious.
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