Ok like many of you I am pretty much effed up with lag completely ruining this game...

Before I start let me give information about my character.

50 hours in
lvl 31
11MB save file.

So, as you guessed i cant continue playing this character because the framerate is really PATHETIC to say the least. So I decided to do some testing, since Bethesda does not give a damn about testing it seems.

What I did was saving my main character in Whiterun. Then I create a new character starting a brand new game. I go to Whiterun and I save my game on the exact same location at the exact same time of the day with my main character. This save file is 3MB. I completely shut down my PS3 ( I play on a brand new 320gb slim btw).

I boot the console and load my original character who is level 31. The game lags and stutters a lot but not as much as if I continue playing for 30 mins or so. If I do that the game becomes simply unplayable. Whenever I walk by a char that talks the game stutters. Whenever something is streamed in the distance the game stutters. In other words the game stutters pretty much all the time. Now while in Whiterun, I go to the menus and I load my new character's 3MB save file.

The game continues to stutter but considerably less. It still stutters though and it is not normal. What I do now is I shut down my console entirely. Now I boot the game and this time I load first my new character (3MB save). And ALAS... the game runs pretty much perfectly... No more stuttering, no hiccups, no lag, no crazy framerate, nothing. I even went outside Whiterun and the game run just great... Now through the menus, I load my normal save file. Stuttering, lag appear again... (like I said not in the worst of conditions but that is just a matter of minutes to become unplayable)

I repeat the entire process without any changes 2 times and the results are always the same.

If I load my normal character first then the new character will lag as well. If I freshly start with the new character the game runs smoothly until I load my normal character.

Seriously I dont know what the [censored] is going on, I just wanted to share with you my findings...

goo testing, just more prove of Bethesda's mistakes, that could have easily been avoided.

yeah, well if u load your old character first and then load your new one without reseting your ps3, maybe it acts the same because your system cache is full. if you restart your ps3 and load up the newer character first the system cache will be free up

^^ Yeah thats what I thought as well, but why does my normal character mess my cache so much form the beggining? Doesnt make sense...

well they officially said that this patch were waiting on has a fix, lets hope it works

funny how you should have previewed post before posting it.. More proof that testing is ESSENTIAL!

I did a similar test and had the same results.

But I'll be honest. Even in the beginning of the game with a file around 3000, This game still has hick ups and frame rate drops at times.

Skyrim from day one doesn't run as well as Oblivion on day 200...

of course where all going to get small hiccups in a game like skyrim across all platforms, instances of drop in frames leading to the odd jerky movement and all that,.. its not exclusive to ps3

"but why does my normal character mess my cache so much form the beggining? Doesnt make sense... "

Well think of it like this. You load up your laggy normal character save which contains information such as which doors you left open, which weapons and armour you left on the floor, where your position is, the quest settings and how many you have, the unique items you have in your storage box etc

The PS3 memory is flooded almost instantly with this info and very little is left to process the game.

Now memory remains until the PS3 is turned off and essentially cleared so your clogged up memory remains clogged up even when you load up your normal character. The hardware is poofed out and a reset gives it the space it needs.

So basically Bethesda need to limit the amount of data stored in the PS3 memory.

^^ I see what you mean, but bethesda said that you can continue with your old save. How will they make my laggy 11MB save file that overloads my PS3's memory work after the patch? Do they mean they will allocate memory and resources in different ways?

Sounds kinda complicated to do that work in such a short time doesnt it? Sorry if I sound pessimistic, but it seems way too complicated to fix this -especially considering bethesda's practices- so fast...

But I hope... I really do... cause damnit.... I want to play....

MWAHAHAHA maybe everything in a house/room/dungeon will just reset after a certain point. Endless looting!!!! (realize this is insane and I am just acting like a kid.)

Yes I'm wondering that too. Quite frankly it could be something very simple that is stored in our saves. For example the patch might decrease the time it takes for loot and bodies to be deleted so as soon as you load up your save and resave it should in theory lower the filesize. That's my theory anyway. Also the game seems to get worse the more hours per session which might also suggest a memory leak where something is continually asking the PS3 to compute something over and over when it shouldn't so the memory slowly gets filled up until it collapses.

Same theory with my PC. I render certain maps for my 3D models and my PC only has 3GB memory and quite often the demands of the rendering slowly increase and fail. It's not until I close the program and retry does it work because there is more memory cleared.

There are some cheap ways they can hide the problem such as disabling certain effects, turning off v-sync but if a memory leak is present that would only delay the problem. I'm hoping that isn't the case.