So I know everyone here is having problems with lag and frame rate, which I am also having to a minor extent when I am in cities, but I also seem to have a separate issue that I haven't really seen anyone make mention of.

I am on my second character and the problem that plagued me on my first playthrough (forcing me to quit as it just became too tedious) is present yet again about 23 hours (6mb save) into the 2nd. Here is the problem:

I will be running somewhere previously unexplored on the world map and, out of nowhere, my game will start freezing every 5-10 seconds to, presumably, load new textures. It doesn't appear to be a frame rate issues, as the game runs (in most instances) just fine for the 5-10 seconds that I am able to freely run around...and then it just freezes for about 5 seconds. Rinse/Repeat. Sometimes I will be running around an area, and all of the textures are just plain and bare (no grass, plants, texture detail, etc...) and then the game will freeze for a few moments and everything will suddenly appear. It just comes out of nowhere 20+ hours into the game any time I try to explore the world map. Seems my game just suddenly starts having difficulty loading textures or something. I dunno.

I have also noticed that certain triggered quests have stopped working. IE: When you first walk into Solitude and the man on stage is about to be executed for aiding Ulric Stormcloak's escape. Well, he never gets executed in my game. The guard/executioner gets about 3 dialog sentences in, and then everything stops. The crowd stops talking, the people on stage stop talking, the scenario fails to continue and everything remains lifeless. Makes no sense.

Oh, and the game takes absolutely FOREVER to load when I first load my save file from the continue option at the main screen (3-5 minutes every time).

Anyone experiencing issues like this?

I don't have any autosave functions on. I have tried a fresh install numerous times. Tinkered with all the PS3 settings people have mentioned here. There doesn't seem to be anyway to avoid this.

Did you erase the old autosaves??

Also don't have more than 3 save files on your game..

The first play-through when I first started having these issues, I only had 3 save files, and whatever auto-saves were created.

I'm starting to wonder if it's a problem with my actual disc. I took my most recent character (the one that I was having the problems with) and fast-traveled back to Riften where I had spent a good portion of the game and then explored some of the previously unexplored portions of the outer wilderness with no issues. So then out of curiousity I loaded a previous save file (level 4 character, only a couple hours into the game) and traveled to the areas where I seemed to be experiencing the problems (mostly the central and north-western portions of the game world) with him and started having the same issues yet again with my level 4 character.

I'd be concerned that it was a hardware failure, except that the problem only seems to happen in those particular areas. I'd ponder the chance that it might just be yet another glitch on Bethesda's part, except that nobody else seems to be experiencing this issue. So now I am starting to think it might be a faulty game disc.

Eh?

I am having simliar problems it started after my first character had the frame rate drop issues. I started a new character and it continues everywheres other then in cities the graphics do not load correctly like they did when I first started playing and just appear for example rocks and trees dont appear until im really close and the game takes time to load them or they dont load at all also details on rocks showing cracks or the lines on buildings do not appear correctly im guessing quite a few people are experiencing this and are more concerned with the frame rate drop right now with good reason but I hope this is fixed also instead of just fixing the frame rate drop and calling it good for now.

49 hours game play, level 40, my game crashes when I load anything. Before that, it had a slippery slope into 1-2 fps.

That's another thing, I saved my game outside of Solitude (where a lot of the texture-loading problems were occurring) and now I can't even load that game file...last night I literally sat there for 10 minutes trying to load the game, and it just sat there hanging. I could still interact with the load screen, and the music was still playing, but the actual game never loaded. Now this happens every time.

I feel bad for having to take the game back, but I am going to tonight after work and try to exchange it for a new copy. I hope they don't give me the whole spiel about all the framerate problems that people are having and try to reject the exchange, because obviously, that isn't the problem I am having. I only hope this fixes the issue, because otherwise, I have no clue what to do.

So, took the game back, got a new copy - and the same problems remain. I can explore all of the eastern game world with ease and comfort. I have no problems. But pretty much anything west of Whiterun is completely broken and I spend most of my time staring at a 10-second frozen screen.

Nothing makes sense anymore.