The Nintendo Switch Downloads Faster in Sleep Mode

Mitch once again dropping info gems in late night articles.

It took about an hour to DL Snake Pass' 3.7gb file with the system on (and me constantly checking the progress) the whole time.

Sounds about right. Luckily the default download speed isn't too shabby either, unlike PS4.

Weirdness but, makes sense. I guess begin a download then switch to sleep mode. Cool.

Luckily for me I keep a wired connection and have no plans to download anything of a large size to my Switch (unless they come out with Gamecube VC, then I'll indulge in downloads of up to 2.4gb) but I can see how this'd be useful for people to know that are going to download retail level games digitally instead.

@SCAssassin My PS4 (both the original and now the Pro) seem to download at my max speed for a certain amount of time, and then it trickles in at like a 1/10th of that speed. Pausing and resuming seems to fix it for a while until it does it again, it's pretty annoying.

I download faster in sleep mode too.
Unfortunately I'm always on and in need of charging.

Cool will do that from now on. Thanks for the tip.

Huh, That's good to know for when i'm downloading stuff on the Switch eShop.

@blackice85 That sounds more like your ISP. As a lot of them will give you a speed boost to download a file for a short period but then cut back your download speed. You pausing and restarting just causes the ISP to give you a temporary boost again.

@Lions Nah it's the PS4 (or Sony's servers, whatever). I can download at full speed indefinitely otherwise, like on my PC. This is a known problem with PSN, the performance is flaky.

I'm not sure what the problem on mine cuz it disconnects from the internet every single time I put my Switch into sleep mode which of course stops the download midway. Do you guys just press on the sleep/power button or did you set it on auto-sleep?

Eh, I like to play other games while downloading but I believe this could have merits for others.

It's neat. Download, go do something while your game downloads in sleep mode, come back and play without losing barely any battery.

Eh, kind of makes sense

Eh, kind of makes sense

Eh, kind of makes sense

A better way to check download speeds would be to check your router's Traffic Management/Bandwidth Monitor.

@blackice85 Yup, PS4 is horrible with downloads. But putting it into sleep mode helps...or at least it feels like it.

Off topic, but I noticed Vroom in the Night Sky wasn't in the recently released section on the E Shop. I have no intention of buying it as it looks awful, but there is no way to find it without using the search function. There really should be an all games section. I hope this doesn't happen to worthwhile games. E Shop layout is poor so far but I figured that would be fixed when they released more games.

This will be handy for when I have something to buy from the eshop, Mario Kart 8 I suspect will be the first

Haven't downloaded anything without sleep mode yet... buyed all my eshop stuff at work via the nintendo homepage and when I come home and turn on the switch the notification for "download finished" (or whatever it says in english) pops up.

My Switch downloads things faster than my PS4. I can't remember the size of the games I was downloading off PSN just last weekend but Moon Hunters and (Heart & Soul I think it's called) kept stopping and failing over and over again. It was an absolute joke. Not to mention the snails pace...

Meanwhile my Switch took care of all its downloads in literal minutes - as you'd expect. Then again, my PS4 has always been terrible with playing online - can't hold its connection for more than 30 minutes at a time. So... I guess I shouldn't expect anything different there.

And no, don't you dare suggest its my connection when every other device in my house has no such issues. If anything, my Switch is another good one to add to the list.

@Zyph I'm having the same problem and it's really starting to honk my chuff. My switch doesn't like staying connected to the internet in sleep mode.

@blackice85 Are you sure it's not horrible throttling from your ISP?

@FredBiletnikoff They've probably buried Vroom in the night sky where nobody can ever find it again...

I actually was thinking this very thing last night when I downloaded Snake Pass with the system on and it didn't seem that speedy. Then I put it in sleep mode because I wanted to check if it kept downloading that way (didn't know if that was a feature), and to my surprise a few minutes later it had downloaded the game almost completely!

Lol. Didn't think ppl had time to leave it in sleep mode, what with all time been consumed by playing zelda

@ThatNyteDaez
I have same problem with my Vita, when playing killzone I often get disconnected or it won't let me into a match, keeps saying error time elapsed. I don't have a problem with other devices I have. I like my Vita but I must say Sony servers are rubbish, our household 3ds has never had this problem

I found it to download pretty fast regardless.
1-2-Switch was downloaded within 20-30min

Anyone know if it's going to be possible to save credit card details on the eShop? It's getting a bit tiresome having to type them in every time I buy something (I had to do it twice yesterday for Snake Pass and Metal Slug).

@JHDK Wow that's a long time.
I bought the game and downloaded it in portable mode and it took no longer than 20 minutes. Still long enough for only 4GB, but not too bad.

When i downloaded fast rmx on launch i think it took 15 mins? That's from buying it and playing it lol

That's cool. It also downloads fast when docked in my experience.

@Skunkfish Like I said in my first reply, I have no problem downloading at full speed elsewhere. We have a 30mbs connection, and I can pull files from my seedbox over http or ftp at full speed. I've even tested it with huge ~50GB torrents, and I got the full rate consistently. It's just Sony, and from Google searches I've noticed it's a common issue.

@NintySnesMan My Switch sleeps when I sleep

@meppi That's interesting. I don't think it's my internet because
I can DL 4gb movies in way less than an hour so who knows what's going on.

I wonder if this applies both wireless and wired or if it's just power saving on the wireless front, and if there's a certain bandwidth amount that this actually matters (like if someone on a 5Mb/s connection would see no slowdown but someone on a 100Mb/s would?)

@blackice85 I thought that was just my flaky wifi and poor location of my PS4 that did that. So it's really PSN after all? Eww.

@NEStalgia It was like that for me while on gigabit Ethernet, and now with the Pro I've tried it with Wifi too (strong AC 2.4 and 5ghz signal). Again it'll rocket along until it decides not to. It's not dropping a connection either, that much is stable. The speeds are just inconsistent.

@blackice85 yep. PSN sucks bigly. I will say however that PS4 download speeds are much faster for me in rest mode than when it's turned on.

@pigwarts5ever Yeah its driving me nuts! Got it to work yet?

Downloads faster and scratches the screen faster, too!

I know the OS has gotten a lot of flak due to it being barebones....I personally like it, and the speed I can hop back into games when I come back from it being in sleep mode is unreal.

I'm a Linux sysadmin and I'm still not sure how they pulled that off.

My room has a lot of drop out spots and I find if I leave it on sleep mode it D/C from the net. Which sux. I had LA Noire half way and for some reason I have to start all over again.

I just got the Switch and it also gives me errors when it downloads in sleep mode

After just getting a switch and having a PS4 that downloads faster in rest mode, this had me think if the switch was the same.