Skyrim on Switch 2 Gets Input Lag Patch - But It's Problematic

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 has proven a more eventful mid-December release than we'd anticipated, owing to its severe issues with input lag. Ahead of the weekend, Bethesda announced a patch meant to resolve this issue of button-tap latency. Ahead of our fuller conversation about the patch in our next episode of DF Direct Weekly, we are opting to post our immediate findings.

The good news: Input lag has indeed been touched up in this new patch, labelled 1.7.73.0 - the tiniest numerical jump from the prior 1.7.72.0 version. But in bad news, that update has come at a considerable cost in the form of unlocked frame rates. In docked mode, this combination ultimately feels like a smoothness downgrade.

We start with our revised input-lag measurements on the latest patch, measured via the same slow-motion camera capture methodology as employed in our coverage earlier this week. The "jump button" test counts the time between tapping the jump button and a jump animation playing out on screen, while the "analogue stick" test measures the time between pressing a joystick firmly to the left and the in-game camera moving. Each scenario has been tested and captured 30 times to determine a proper, consistent estimate.

Today's patch, then, brings the Switch 2 Anniversary Edition quite close to the Switch 1 version - which isn't particularly responsive, especially compared to the PS5 version, but that may be good enough considering how little attention the Switch 1's timings garnered since its 2017 launch.

But we immediately noticed something amiss while conducting our latest input-lag tests, which had us rushing to process our capture for frame-rate and frame-time analysis. We then confirmed that Bethesda has opted to unlock the frame-rate from its prior v-synced 30fps cap in this patch - up to a 60fps maximum. As the game's optimisations on Switch 2 generally do not push the frame-rate near 60fps, we're left with average frame-rates that, in our brief testing period, clock in at roughly 30-34fps - which means the game in docked mode displays frequent 16.7ms frame-times that interrupt the rest of the 33.3ms frame-times.

You may very well not notice or be bothered by frame-time bounces like this, but if you're used to the Switch 1 port, it does not feature such an unlocked frame-rate. As such, the older port's combination of input lag and frame presentation currently looks and feels smoother than the latest Switch 2 version.

Thanks to this unlocked frame-rate, we can also now measure a maximum 60fps frame-rate for the Switch 2 port, which we can reach by aiming our viewpoint toward the ceiling of a dungeon like Helgen Keep with no other geometric detail on-screen. This is a rarity in our current testing thus far, with most normal gameplay reaching nowhere near the game's v-synced 60fps refresh rate. We've yet to measure noticeable frame-rate dips beneath 30fps, and direct glances at complex scenery measure very close to 30fps - albeit with jumpy frame-time spikes.

From what we can tell so far, this patch solely addresses input lag and the frame-rate cap. Other visual bugs we've reported on, including blue level-of-detail (LOD) geometry swaps and screen-space reflection (SSR) jitters, remain unchanged.

For more on our findings, tune into our next DF Direct Weekly episode, where we'll also share thoughts on the patch's impact on portable play - which does not appear to lean on Switch 2's optional undocked VRR mode or any form of low frame-rate compensation (LFC) while undocked.