Look what I've noticed...
I've tried deleting my Game Data... It had 4638 MB.
When I reinstalled Skyrim, it had 3634 MB...
Now, after deleting it and reinstalling again, it has 2756 MB.
What the heck? I thought it needed 5.5 GB of Hard Drive Space...
Anyone noticed that before?

after u reinstalled it, and it was 3634mb, how much did you play before deleting and installing again to get 2756 ?
last time i checked mine was 4638mb.

Mines always been the same, strange

I didn't play anything... I just thought it was weird going from 4638 to 3634MB so I reinstalled and it went down again...

lol, did you try and reinstall again after it went to 2756 ?,.. how was performance on your save file after all that ?

I'm gonna test it right now... Kind of afraid the whole world will come down on me though...

Someone else has mentioned this before on these boards... I'm beginning to wonder if this might have something to do with some people having/not having problems with lag.. maybe the installer is wonky and may be part of the problem?

i TOTALLY have the same problem with you tc

so i had these ridiculous lag,and i try to rebuild my database and reinstall the game again,everytime i install my installation size is the same as you,it keep on dropping,so i just play the game when the instlal size is small,and suddenly the install size getting bigger back again

I did the same as you, just rebuilt my database before reinstalling, and the install file was smaller...
Yours got bigger after a while? Well that's strange...
Well I've played a little and didn't notice anything different, I had little lag before, I think I have a little less lag now... Not sure if placebo effect or not...

I wonder the same thing...
Well I didn't notice any difference in my gameplay...
But I just played for like 15 min... Worried of what may happen.

yep

because after i install the game the 3rd time, i quit it sraight away and go to xmb to check the file,its state around 2,xxx gig i think,and then i go back into the game,load my save,play for a while,it rise to 3,xxx gig wtf,then i play a while again and its back to 4,xxx gig,weird

im not sure whether it install the game 4,xxx gig the 1st time when i insert my new game,because i didnt check at all the 1st time i play

Yeah I didn't check the first time I played either...
I looked right before rebuilding database (I thought it would be interesting to compare the sizes).
Didn't expect a real change though...
Going to try to reinstall tomorrow and see what hapenns!

for me it makes no difference,since mine is a slim 320 gig 1 year ps3

Yeah it makes no difference for me either. I've got the Slim 160GB, it's like 2 weeks old...
It's still curious though...

I installed the game 3 or 4 times, hoping to fix texture streaming issues that way. 4,6GB each and every time. I wondered about the 5,5GB vs 4,6GB thing too at first, wondering if 1,1GB of high res textures were cut from the game. However, lag is kicking in bigtime by now (9,5mb save file).

Well Fallout 3 installed game data in the background during the beginning IIRC, so Skyrim might install most things like textures and then install some other stuff in the background after you start.

It's strange where this 5.5GB came from.
The actual game is only slightly larger than the Xbox360 version.
And for the Install, 2,5GB is the size of all game files without any voice file which would fit with the smaller install size and voice files vary around 1,8GB which would explain the 4GB+ install size.

I wonder if there are regional differences if some have 4,6GB right from the start.
I have the US Version and my game was after the install something between 2,5 and 2,7GB either. Probably all game data installed and voices read at first from the disc and installed later during gameplay. My install is now 4,3GB, as well.
Maybe the EU Version installs the voice file at the beginning?

the initial game install is about 2.7gb. during that long laggy carriage ride of self discovery the ps3 is either copying more data from disc, creating a hdd cache, or a little bit of both. you;ll find that once you get to the chopping block your game data should be somewhere around 4.3gb

Well that may be possible. Mine is also the US version.