Skyrim on Switch 2: PS5-Level Visuals Marred by Input Lag

In the wake of our initial, incredibly negative impressions of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Nintendo Switch 2, we've taken an opportunity to more fully investigate the game's visual makeup. We're glad we have - because beneath its disqualifying issues with input lag, this port's impressive graphical settings are comparable with the best console versions.

We begin by further testing the Switch 2 version's previously reported bad news: input lag. There's no sugar-coating how poor this Skyrim feels to play, with button taps and joystick presses alike each suffering from a flat Switch 2 penalty compared to both PS5 and Switch 1. We put both a tap of the "jump" button and a turn of the game's camera under the high-frame-rate microscope on three consoles, each connected to a Dough Spectrum ES07D03 monitor with 2.35ms of display latency - which has been deleted from the below test results. The below input-lag values were calculated after 30 tests each.

These results come in spite of disabling all motion- and mouse-related toggles on Switch 2 - a step we took after Bethesda's official response suggested such a step might help. It did not. As little as 237ms and as many as nearly 300ms is a profoundly high gap between pressing a button and seeing its corresponding action on screen - especially for local rendering, as opposed to the network-based latency hit we would expect from a cloud-based service like GeForce Now or Xbox Game Streaming.

Also, our Switch 2 results did not noticeably change whether testing with the Switch 2 Pro Controller or Joy-Con 2 controllers, nor whether either was wired or wireless. As a just-in-case measure, we put a Joy-Con 2 into mouse mode to test whether that turned in more responsive controls, but its latency was as egregious - especially compared to PC mouse-control expectations.

With PS5 input latency added to our latest tests, we measure a trend of seemingly flat jumps in input lag for both Switch and Switch 2. It's currently unclear whether Bethesda's Creation Engine adds a flat tax of roughly six lost 33.3ms frames between input and on-screen action due to a Switch 2-specific implementation or if the issue stems from elsewhere. Bethesda has indicated it is looking into a solution to the problem - albeit without a time estimate.

Speaking of, we can confirm that Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Switch 2 is capped to a 30fps frame-rate - a disappointing count for a game whose vintage dates back to the early Xbox 360 era. But it at least sticks more cleanly to that frame-rate than the prior Switch port. Still, we hope we may one day get options to either unlock the Switch 2 port's frame-rate or reduce settings and possibly reach a VRR-friendly 40fps frame-rate or higher.

That being said, Bethesda can at least counter our frame-rate complaint with quite the tout: Skyrim on Switch 2 turns in a seeming match for PlayStation 5's visual quality settings. What's more, it sports the game's first-ever official DLSS implementation - and a solid one, at that.

In docked mode, Switch 2 Skryim locks to 1440p base resolution as upscaled via DLSS to a full 2160p signal, while in portable mode, Bethesda applies DLAA to a native 1080p resolution. In comparing the Switch 2 version to PS5, the latter reaches 2160p natively and thus has an ever-so-slight edge, but DLSS on Switch 2 has plenty of pixel data to work with to upscale its final image with minimal flicker, stair-stepping and artefacting.

And in both docked and portable play, Switch 2 visual settings match those seen on Sony's base current-gen console. Grass density, level-of-detail (LOD) distance, shadow draw distance, shadow resolution and texture resolution are all a match, though in the case of somewhat dated textures, this is arguably a point where the PS5 leaves visual potential on the table.

As a reminder, Skyrim on PS5 may run at a higher maximum frame-rate, but its performance dips into the 50s during intensive effects-filled moments like bursts of dragon fire or plumes of waterfall droplets. Switch 2's 30fps frame-rate does not buckle in like-for-like tests. And loading times on Switch 2 aren't too much worse than on PS5 - 4.9 seconds to load into the game's first open-world entrance on PS5 compared to 8.6 seconds on Switch 2. That's much less than the 28.7 seconds for the same content to load on Switch 1.

Matching settings on both Switch 2 and PS5 continue with aspects like depth of field effects, motion blur, volumetric lighting and screen-space reflections (SSR). Sadly, as of press time, Skyrim on Switch 2 exhibits some kind of SSR rendering bug, where the mirror image on bodies of water exhibits awkward judder when moving the viewpoint up and down. This comes in addition to the almost alien-looking issue of blue-tinted grass and trees appearing as a buggy LOD swap when they're in the distance in particular zones on Switch 2 - as if the Creation Engine is mistakenly grabbing assets from a frostier biome.

We also note that the Switch 2 port demands a 53GB install, far higher than the 28GB on a standard Switch. This is in part due to all language voice packs being pre-installed. These weigh in at around 3GB apiece, which balloons the default install size - rather than, preferably, being left as an option as on the original Switch version.

We're hopeful the port's bugs are easily resolved - and that Bethesda finally addresses input lag for Skyrim, not just on Switch 2 but hopefully also for Switch 1 now that attention has been newly drawn to both. Fixing that alone would go a long way to bringing out the PS5-calibre content and making this Switch 2 version worth recommending - assuming you have the time and patience for another platform to play Skyrim on.