I have been playing skyrim since release day. My husband is playing on PC and I opted for the PS3 version.
The game was great at the start like most state and I was having a great time. My lag did increase over time and also with length of play. I started shutting the PS3 down and giving it breaks (good for me too )
BUT lag is just the START of the issue. I started noticing quest and NPC bugs. During the last quest at the college the staff did nothing to the eye of magnus and I was just stuck in the room. I reloaded a save and went back in it was ok.
As I went on this type of thing would happen more and more often. If I could get an NPC to speak to me the conversation would normally lead to nothing.
Quests won't start or end.
My save is over 8MB at this point...
At one point I tried getting into Riften. I intimated the guard and he says he will open the door. and......nothing. he stands there...no way in. So i paid him. nothing not even money removal....
I made a new save of that. apon loading everything happened at once. Money was removed....he unlocked the door and another batch of money was removed by another guard I tried and I got a speech skill up!!!!
ALL that after JUST LOADING THAT SAVE AND DOING NOTHING!!!
The old save sometimes lets me in and sometimes not. Sometimes the brawl at the stables will work sometimes not. If you are experiencing lag now it is just the start. It apparently leads to this!
Please post here with similar issues beyond lag. I put up with the insane lag but now I just can't play. I've had dragons that won't give up their soul as well. I have tried the not playing too long at one time and resetting when i find a glitch.
Nothing seems to help and it seems I can't play. I'm pissed watching my husband play his Steam version as I miss out!

How long have you been playing straight? I've found that restarting the ps3 helps these problems. I see a lot of people complaining and I've been playing since day one and havent had any issues.

Also, are you using the old fatboy ps3? or the new slim?

I'm using the slim if that makes any difference...

svcks but your husband should let you play the P.C. version....much betta

How large is your game file?
I haven't played for really more then 2-3 hours straight. I tend to shut off the PS3 make calls, go out etc. (not like my husband who can stay at his computer for hours!) Shutting it off does help the issue with lag and such but as the file size grew so did the issues. There are several articles of people who would shut it off after an hour and be ok but over time this was not the case. The issues would be there at the start. I had that and did not mind shutting it off here and there. I don't like running the PS3 super long and noticed some lag but I wasn't complaining about that. I would be ok with a little lag....but It's gone far beyond that. I can't even play a half hour without "issues"...(glitches, bugs, extreme lag)

Memory leaks. That's when the software (the game) allocates part of the memory cache to be used for a certain action but then doesn't give the command to release that same memory back in to the system when the action is preformed, so the memory never gets recycled and every time the game needs to repeat that same action it will keep consuming more and ore memory until it finally runs out. That's what is causing the lag issue on Skyrim, a bunch of memory leaks that keep taking up all the memory and causing performance to degrade as you play it. That's why quiting and restarting the PS3 helped improve things, because the PS3 would flush all the memory and the process would have to repeat itself.

So my guess about what happened to you was that the game could not allocate more memory to preform the actions you wanted because the memory leaks already got most of it and something else was pending.

I get the save function causing the lag and was ok with it getting choppy but...
If the only issue was the memory cache... after resetting the system their would be no issues....the cache would be clear....yet the issues remain even when the game is left for hours and then turned on.
Length of constant play does lead to lag but something else is leading to problems bigger then that the farther into the game you are.

how big is your save and how many hours in are you if i may ask

My save is over 8MB at this point...

From original post. Not sure on play time.

I hear ya! I am only 7 hours 48 minutes in with a save file of almost 4mb and I can't even choose my magic menu without it freezing up! I haven't turned my ps3 on since wednesday, I load up the game go straight to my magic menu and boom it freezes the game and ps3. Turn it off, load it up, boom same thing, this has been happening since this past Sunday. Ive even tried playing it for awhile and then choosing the magic menu, not like i should have too, and still nothing. Ive had minimal lag issues, nothing I didn't alraedy expect, and now this. Game is not even playable with this big of a handicap. Oh and i just looked at my save files and there was 4 auto saves, shouldn't there be just one?