Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players are divided on whether the latest update actually improves performance or if it's just being imagined. Following the release of the recent Pokemon Scarlet and Violet update, the playerbase was quick to conclude performance was the patch's main priority. Whether that's accurate or not still hasn't been entirely clarified, but some players think Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are running better regardless.
The update in question was released on December 1, officially dubbed Pokemon Scarlet and Violet version 1.1.0. The patch notes supplied by Nintendo were anything but illuminating, however. The start of Season 1 of Ranked Battles was confirmed, and a fix preventing music to play incorrectly on Victory Road was issued. Otherwise, the only other note was, "Other select bug fixes have been made." There was an additional message, however, stating that Game Freak is aware of issues impacting game performance and offering an apology for the inconvenience.
Immediately after the patch was issued, Pokemon players began posting on social media that performance issues had been fixed or improved. A post on Reddit with thousands of upvotes reads, "Patch is out, performance is better," and goes on to claim that areas that previously had performance issues either now ran "perfectly smooth" or had better frame rates. Some highly upvoted comments agree, saying the game feels much better. There are upvoted comments saying it isn't true, though, and others saying players are experiencing a placebo effect.
A second thread posted just hours after the first has also climbed to the front of the Pokemon subreddit. This thread is titled "False information spread on 1.1.0" and claims that the patch made no changes to the overall performance in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. It cites the patch notes, saying there's no indication performance was addressed in the update. It didn't cite any specific information supporting its claim, though.
There's chatter online that Pokemon dataminers have yet to discover evidence Game Freak made any changes that would impact Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's performance. That's in line with the patch notes, too, since Game Freak is apologizing for continued performance issues. While it's not impossible that some of the bug fixes issued may have improved certain aspects of the game, any hope of widespread performance improvements seems misplaced.
It just goes to show that Pokemon fans seem to want to remain positive regarding the current state of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. It would be easy, and more than fair, to see the two games' performance purely in a negative light. It may be a while before Game Freak is able to actually fix Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's performance issues. It's unlikely to be an easy fix, but Pokemon fans will certainly be looking forward to it in the meantime.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now on Switch.