Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were released with controversial performance issues. Problems with graphical glitches, frame rate drops, hard crashes, and even save file corruptions plagued the game's launch.

While some of these issues can only be fixed through updates and patches released by Game Freak, some of the problems you may be experiencing with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet can be eased relatively simply.

So if you want to try and improve the performance of your copy of Pokémon Scarlet or Violet, we're here to help.

The Most Common Issues You May Experience With Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

The most common issue affecting your copy of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, as reported by Gamer Journalist, is a memory leak causing a slow degradation of the game's performance as you play.

Functionally, a memory leak is where your software attempts to process a surplus amount of information instead of removing and replacing data it is already carrying as you play the game.

For Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, this means that as you play, the game is progressively attempting to process more data, exacerbating the performance issues you experience and making them more frequent and intrusive.

A screenshot using the camera function within Pokemon Violet highlighting the first open area of the game

Luckily, some quick and easy fixes could help alleviate the issues caused by Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's memory leak and frame rate issues.

How to Improve Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Performance

While most of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's performance issues are ingrained in the game and require full patches and updates to permanently fix, there are a few quick and easy ways you can troubleshoot and improve your game's performance.

1. Reset Your Game and Refresh the Memory Leak

As simple as it sounds, resetting your Pokémon game will force the stacked data from the memory leak to completely reset. This effectively means that by resetting your game, the game no longer has to work as hard to run, and you should see general improvements in how well the game runs and loads.

To reset Pokémon Scarlet or Violet, you simply follow the steps required to reset any Nintendo Switch software:

  • From your Nintendo Switch's Home Screen, highlight Pokémon Scarlet or Violet and press the X Button.
  • Then select Close from the displayed prompts.
A screenshot of the close software prompt for Nintendo Switch with Pokemon Violet highlighted

After fully closing your software, once you load Pokémon Scarlet or Violet back up again the memory leak will be wiped and no longer drastically affect your game's performance.

However, while this temporarily fixes the issues caused by the memory leak, if you were to go on to play for a long time, the memory leak would continue to affect performance. For longer periods of play, you may want to periodically reset your game to avoid poor performance.

Alternatively, if resetting your game fails to improve performance, you may need to reset your Nintendo Switch to guarantee your console isn't at fault.

2. Force a Loading Screen to Refresh Frame Rate

For frame rate issues, just like the memory leak, an overload of data can drastically affect the frame rate of your game.

Luckily, you can alleviate frame rate issues without the need of resetting your entire game and can improve frame rate by simply loading into any area within the game itself.

To reset frame rate performance in-game, follow these steps:

  • From any outside area within Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, press the Y Button to load the Map.
  • With the Map loaded, move your cursor to any discovered area and hit the A Button.
  • From the displayed options, select Fly here.
  • The game will then ask you to confirm whether you want to fly to the selected location. Select Yes.
A screenshot of Pokemon Violet with the fast travel prompt displayed and Yes highlighted

Your game will then fade to black, and you will be transported to your selected location. More importantly, the game will reload any over-world data that may have been affecting your frame rate.

Just as with the memory leak, however, if you play Pokémon Scarlet or Violet for long periods you may need to periodically re-load the game to limit bad performance.

If none of the above quick fixes help your game's performance, your issues could be caused by the location of your game's data. In this case, you may want to use your Nintendo Switch data management options to move the data from external sources, like an SD card, to your console's hard drive.

Make the Most of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Despite Its Performance

At their core, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are great open-world Pokémon games let down by their quality of performance. Hopefully, with the above easy tips and tricks, you can alleviate how intrusive the performance problem is to your enjoyment of the games.

Alternatively, if none of the suggested fixes help to improve your experience, it may be worth double-checking your hardware by troubleshooting the most common issues with the Nintendo Switch.