I'm 40+ hours in at level 17 and haven't done a lot of quests.
My game still runs fine but only once I experienced very bad FPS in Whiterun. When I tried to quit the game via XMB the PS3 seemed to take longer than usual.
I think that the problem is very real and it affects everybody. I'm sure it will get progressively worse because my save file is only 5,8MB so far.
I also think that there is something in the game or a combination of things that trigger the problem, that's why people experience it in different instances.

i dont know how 2 respond to your inquirey cuz i run my copy on 2 ps3s 2yr old and offline no mod and 1 brand new less than month old online the new with update lags old 1 no might not be game im 50 hr in lvl38 with both

Just thought I'd pop back
I am now 10mb Save File - 40hours in and still no framerate problems, and Solitude is fine and I have done probably 10+ quests in solitude
The game occasionally pauses for a second when doing an autosave (which isn't very often)

I am not saying (and have never said) that you guys are not having problems, its obvious you are. But Not everyone is or will.
And I re-iterate to me this is obviously a problem with the hard drives, and how the game caches scenery and graphics on the harddrive.

And to prove I'm not "An Apologist" (and wow I hate that word and everyone idiot that uses it) I will say the problem that some of you are getting is the fault of Bethesda as I they didn't expect:
1) The battered state of some of the hard drives. (they obviously thought all ps3s could handle the amount of caching and disk access in skyrim - they were wrong)
2) The way some of you are playing the game. (I'm guesing the guys who first got the problem explored pretty much everywhere in the first couple of days, thats a lot of cached graphics!)

Please note the following:
1) Please everyone, give it a rest about the size of the save file - nothing to do with it. 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 Mb save files are nothing, they could be loaded so quickly the ps3 wouldn't even twitch.
2) The game caches graphics as you go along, if you've been pretty much everywhere round the map it would be storing a huge amount of data which slows the game down.
3) Please stop the "You'll get the problem soon enough" wow thats getting so irritating now. Some people will NEVER get the bad framerate because they have better hard drives or play the game differently.

It may be helpfull to the people that have got major problems, to detail the following for Bethesda so they can make future improvements in following patches.

1) Size of Hardrive in your PS3
2) How many times have you filled it up and had to uninstall games, demos, movies, music, etc
3) How long have you had your PS3
4) How did you play the game: did you just do a massive explore or just where quests take you.
5) Objects in the game, do you leave them lying around in the open or do you pickup everything and sell it all.

As I said I have not yet had any major problems and I think its because of the state of my harddrive and by the way I play the game.
I will probably never get the problem as I'll probably end up getting the patch before I get to the point where it starts to slowdown.

Finally to the people who say "why are you on the forums if your not having any problems".
I'm here to check for bugs in the game, and when I see the repeated posts which are obviously just wrong and are people jumping on the band-wagon. I feel I have to try and help out the mis-informed.
Some of you guys are acting like childish bullies and people checking these forums are staying away from a great game because you are having problems, they like myself are not.

I disagree with you.
If the problem was focused on HDD state, type or speed, people would notice bad performance in their other games.
I have only experienced really bad frame rate just one time in Whiterun. When I tried to quit the game via XMB the PS3 almost froze.
I have also noticed input delay in fights. While the frame rate doesn't seem too bad I lose the timing of my attacks. Sometimes when I press the attack button my character doesn't attack at all and other times the animation of the attack delays.
I don't know if the file size has anything to do with it. I believe something triggers the game to become unplayable after some time but it's not the same for everyone. That's why people experience it in different instances.
I think that you'll be back posting once you start experiencing this, unless they can actually fix the problem with the patch.

False logic, you are assuming Skyrim was written to work in the same way as your other games, written by other game companies, it obviously is not.

Other games, don't utilise the Harddrive as much as Skyrim does. Watch the HD light flicker when your playing different games and with Skyrim.
Other games load content off harddrive only when changing levels or areas, Skyrim seems to stream it almost constantly as you are moving around and playing.

hell if you guys are unhappy with the game give to me and ill disc crack it and see whats up.

There are strict guidelines in the way developers build their software in closed architecture systems like the consoles. If the architecture allows them to use the HDD streaming as much and often as they like, then the PS3's hardware can definitely take it without problems because it was designed this way. If we were talking about the PC, that would be a different story.
You can't claim that Skyrim is the most intensive game on the HDD ever made either, at least not without some data.

Lets not forget it happened in Fallout, New Vegas, and Oblivion. Though not as harshly.

I didn't claim that Skyrim is the most intensive game on the HDD ever made, that is you exaggerating on what I have written.
I'm only going on my observations of the problem and hard drive activity (looking at the ickle flashing light).


I agree, but you can't have it both ways, you can't say my theory is invalid because they follow strict guidelines, whilst other naysayers are saying the game is broken because they haven't tested it.

Fact: There is a problem with the game slowing down, and It effects people at different times, from a couple of hours of play into the game to seemingly not at all.

I'm just looking for another answer that isn't a pathetic theory on 6Mb save file. (people are now saying it has to be over 12Mb, the number keeps getting bigger to counteract people passing the "threshold" )

Some people on this forum are worse than that Harold Camping (end of the world) guy.
The world ends on May 21, 1988
The world ends on September 6, 1994
The world ends on May 21, 2010
The world ends on October 21, 2010
No the world is still here and i'm still playing skyrim.

I'm not attacking you, neither did I claim that your opinion is wortless, I just disagreed with it.

Fair point, many people have said this.
I also have played these games and like Skyrim have had no problems with them.

Bethesda didn't write the game specifically for the PS3.
Maybe the PS3 (in some of its different sizes of harddrives) is just not up to the task of handling it the way it is written with a lot of harddrive activity.
Maybe they should have cut down the PS3 version, to cope with peoples overworked PS3 hard drives.
Maybe they shouldn't release games on the PS3.

Any other theories anyone?
and I mean realistic thories, not "it's just broken" or " Bethesda"

I for one are glad they did release it on ps3. (as my PC would never have handled it, lol)

OK, so you ARE calling myself and everyone who claims to have no issues beyond a 6mb save file a liar then. Nice. You are basically saying that is a software ONLY issue, and completely independent of everyone's different hardware (different style PS3s, different size hard-drives, different age machines and HDs etc). Therefore EVERY person must be experiencing it at the EXACT same file size which they are not. Some are noticing it as early as 5-6mb, others not until 10-12, and others still are in the 12 mb range and have seen no issues whatsoever.

Oh yeah, that's right all the people that claim they aren't having issues are lying or don't notice the gradual drop in FPS. I have been gaming for like 20 years, I'm pretty sure I know what a frame rate drop looks like. I am also no apologist, as I have had plenty of issues with Bethesda in the past (mostly their marketing practices). Yet I am at a 10mb save file and no issues yet. So there you go. I'm not saying I won't have an issue, but as of right now I do not. I could just as easily call you a liar, since my game is fine, so apparently there is no issue whatsoever with the software, and you must just be whining about nothing.

Look this IS obviously a software issue, BUT I believe it is handled differently depending on the machines, that is why there is such a discrepancy in the rate and frequency at which it occurs. Calling people liars and apologists is not going to solve the issue, but everyone giving honest feedback IS.

Im at about 105 hours, 12 MB, the lag is deffinately there, it happens alot when im sprinting in the wilderness or in the cities, i havent froze yet, but turning off the auto save when traveling helps alot for me it seems. Im level 52. PSN: DarkSoldier308 if you need the proof or what not, im praying that this patch fixes this lag, sooner or later it'll be unplayable.

I hate it when people start calling others liers and pointing out stats survey results and other nonsense incorrectly.

One thing to note before I go further is that the poll done by IGN isn't scientific so when it says that 75% of respondents are having issues what it is saying is that 75% of the people interested enough in the article to take the poll answered the survey had problems. People who are experiencing no issue at all would have less interest in an article about Skyrim being glitchy then people who are having problems.

However, the poll does show something about the issue in general. 25% reported having no problem at all but 38% reported having save files less than 6 mb. A large portion of those with small file sizes must be having the issue if it was related to the file size alone. Also, 38% report playing less than 20 hours and the same logic holds that if play time was the only issue then it should also be showing up on a significant number of players who haven't played very far into the game. Therefor play time and file size cannot be the direct cause of the issue.

A good predictor of whether or not you will have problems seems to be if you have a stock PS3 hard drive or not. People who have opted for SSD drives like myself seem to have no real issue with the lag. Sony also has changed the hard drive over the life of the system. The old 60gb drives on the backwards compatible system are different from the 40gb versions a year later when backwards compatibility was removed to "save money".

This would also be the reason as to why it was possibly missed in testing. Hard Drives and Ram are usually the first to go in any computer, and it stands to reason that their testing team doesn't buy new ps3's for every game launch so they just keep reusing them. If they've replaced all their systems HD with ether faster 7200 rpm HDDs or Faster SSDs then they would have a low chance of ever seeing the glitch and might not of drawn any conclusions on what was causing it on the systems that had stock hard drives. This stands to reason since their IT departments would have been the ones to replace the hard drives and they have no motivations to track down old 1.5 SATA 5400 rpm drives. They probably only pick up 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 and SSD drives when they shop which are more powerful then the ps3 needs or can even use.

I don't want to debate this issue of the topic title but just share my experience.

I started out great, not one glitch or bug which suprised the heck out of me.

I didn't start to notice any problems until my file was over 7meg, then I had a quest seem to start but I couldn't get the dialogue to work. I thought I had a glitched quest but soon every NPC was the same. I quit and restarted and they went back to normal for 30 minutes. Then it just got worse.

Now I am about level 23, and 25 hours into the game with a file size about 8500kb. If I enter Solitude for the first time, the opening script does not start. No one says or does anything. If I jump up on the stage area, after a few seconds I am attacked, even with no weapons drawn. A guard will come up and try to arrest me, but since I cannot interact with him, I have to push the square key and he just grunts and walks away.

This happens regardless of how long I have had the game running, be it 1 minute or 1 day (not that I've had it running that long).

damn!, your doing well enough getting that much play time in, does the mini freezes and jerky, stuttery-ness (not a real word^^) of the gameplay not ruin it for you ??, and has the textures stopped loading properly for you yet(or not load in at all?),
im on something like 72 hours played, i might try and get afew more hours out of it(if the textures load properly 2nite), but i really want to just wait for the patch, and just hope it brings back the smooth fluidness that was there at the start..

The only logic I've read in this entire thread lays right here
The largest problem people are getting is defragged hdd's from common use

I have 60+hrs in skyrim now, and I leave my ps3 on ALL the time with skyrim running(when I go to sleep I just turn my tv off so when I wake up I dont have to load the game); I experienced 1 huge lag spike; why? because my ps3 was over heating; I've explored almost all of skyrim(main areas) and am now just finishing up the thieves guild quests; I haven't gone deep into the main story line; my save game is around 8mbs which as stated before doesn't mean anything.

How did I fix my lagg spike? hmm.. restarted my ps3! then waited an hour for it too cool down and then I dusted out the insides with compressed air
and what do you know; I haven't experienced any lagg since then WOW!!

What do you expect to happen form a huge game like this? it work perfectly when it first comes out? I've never once heard of a game as large as this with as many aspects as this to work perfectly on launch; Give up your [censored]ing, what is it doing other than making you look stupid? Honestly wait a month for an update, its not like your going to be finished this game in a month anyways I'm sure we will all be playing skyrim for a really long time after this

Getting a SSD is never a bad idea and not just for skyrim an SSD will increase load times amazingly for every game and ward off against defragmentation, should you get one for skyrim? why not its also good for every other game so its money well spent.

I actually started to see problems with my game about a week of doing about 8 hours of Skyrim on my PS3 everyday. The framerate isnt that bad I just learned to not play it so often to keep the issue from being a major problem. I do think my game can handle until the patch comes out and this isnt the first time I heard problems about Skyrim. I started hearing problems over Youtube videos with tips for the game, people commenting would love to try the tip out but their game was having issues and they have to wait for the patch. But its apparent the longer you play the game the more likely you will see problems with the game like framerate issues. Last time I was only on the game for 2 hours before I started seeing problems, but of course I did have the system on a few hours before playing Skyrim because I was playing Assassin Creed Revelation online before Skyrim.

Why should have to play like that?Its pathetic of what I'm hearing from you how to play a game without it messing up.Brushing the problem under the carpet...Really..

Troll/Liar

You're a [censored] idiot.If you don't have a problem.Which I honestly don't believe.Then don't post on a complaint topic, which is EVERY [censored] topic in this forum!!!!!Show me your trophies as well. Plus for the "I don't see what everyone is complaining about'', why don't you [censored] search on youtube and SEE WHAT THE [censored] PROBLEM IS THAT EVERYONE IS HAVING.

I'm around 45 hours in with my main, level 27, got 53% of the trophies, a large amount of lag when outside.

Nah it doesnt really ruin it, when the lag gets bad I'll turn it off, and restart it becuz it seems to work, truth i i love this game tooo much. It's so addicting, and I also try my best on not locating new spots all the time just so it doesnt get so bad.. The textures still load, but kinda like Fallout 3, & Oblivion like it'll pause for a sec and load the area, so I avoid spending so much time out in the wilderness, i've completed the main quest, the thieves guild and the Colege of Winterhold, now im doing the Dark Brotherhood. Im just really hoping this patch js fixes everything, but I have alil hope it will.

You're theory could be right as I noticed the same things as you with the HDD.But are you serious?So really there isn't any problem solution for this and its my PS3?So tell me now.Should I just return it for a 360 copy?My PS3 is the Limited Edition 80 GB Metal Gear Solid 4 pack that has backwards compatibility.I bought at least 4-5 years ago.

Whoa dude.

Take a breather. I posted my PSN id. I stopped playing with my Thief character after going through the civil war and the Dragonborn stuff, plus the thief quest. I've seen and heard people having problems, and I am sorry to hear that. But I was just saying that not everyone is having these problems.

I am sure that Bethesda will fix the problems. I'm not an apologist or a Bethesda really devoted fan. I didn't like Oblivion. Had Issues with lots of Fallout (loved New Vegas however)

Everyone should just keep cool and keep their chins up. Games of this size are almost impossible to release knowing all the bugs or errors. It looks like some people are experiencing some pretty big bugs, but no one in my circle of friends has had any of the major problems people are describing.

I know they exist, I'm just saying not everyone is having them. So be patient, have faith. They'll get it all up and running soon.

Just remember to Love and Tolerate each other :3