Longer loading screens for a working game is a small price to pay.

None of this excuses Bethesda. They've known about this problem with the gamebryo engine for years. Yet they continue to use it. Not only that but they've tried to make people think they're using a "new" engine for Skyrim. It's reprehensible.

They did say that they rewrote the renderer but kept the same engine in the interviews, the information was there for those who cared.

But your right its not an excuse, yet without gamebryo we wouldnt have skyrim for the next 5 years. Writing an engine to do what beth has converted gamebryo over to doing will take an immense amount of time purely because gamebryo was designed as a "do everything to a good standard" engine. Its not like unreal which has been designed as a "do scripted games amazingly". Gamebryo was designed as an engine that can be used both by educational institutions as well as games houses to chuck out any type of game you can think of without all the problems involved with a specialised engine.

The problem was.. it was never meant to be used on a PS3, as i said above, it works far more efficiantly on C# than it does on the variant of C that the PS3 uses with its coding. By rights...beth shouldnt have brought this game to the PS3, as doing so theyve had to chop this engine to bits to get it to run.

With Gamebryo I'll likely never have Skyrim. I learned my lesson after FONV.

If the technology doesn't work on the PS3 then they should just admit that and not release the game on the PS3. Putting out yet another game on that platform that they know full well is going to be completely crippled for many users shows a complete disregard for their customers. It's nothing but a cynical money-grab at this point.

I used to be a big fan of Bethesda's back in the day. But their behavior on this issue leaves me with nothing but contempt for them.

If Bethesda doesn't fix this i'm switching over to the PC version asap since i'm building my first rig today.

See, that's the problem. That's probably what Bethesda hopes will happen. People will get rid of their console version and opt for buying the PC version.

The only truly horrid experience I have had so far with Bethesda was the Fallout 3 Game Of The Year edition which would crash constantly. Since that was a GOTY edition, Bethesda washed their hands of it and we never saw a fix or patch.

Since this is a newly released game, I am hoping that they will address the issues and take some pride in their work.

I didn't install the day one patch, and I have not experienced these huge lag issues. Save file is currently at 5.6MB. Granted, the game is running in the mid 20s and low 30s most of the time. IMHO, we need a new console generation. That's the biggest issue. Users should have demanded it last year. All the people saying it isn't needed, while most new releases struggle to run properly, just shows the nature of the systems. It is very difficult, close to impossible, to make these games run well on this old hardware.

There's nothing wrong with the hardware. Have you played God of War III, Gran Turismo 5, or even the Ratchet and Clank or inFAMOUS series? When games start having quality like those and have problems, then we need a new generation.

You are right, there is nothing wrong with the hardware. However, the game will NEVER run well on the PS3. It will always be a sub-30 FPS game because the hardware, no matter how much you optimize the code, simply can;t run the game well enough. That's a fact. Get used to it for the next two years until new systems come out. When you start seeing what those systems are capable of, you will laugh at the novelty of the PS3/360. Truly, aged hardware at this point. Nothing can make them do more than they are capable of. The games you've listed all run sub-par as well, or, in the instances they actually work decently, they are on rails (Same with Skyrim, some dungeons work flawlessly at 40-60 frames).

Lol. How do users "demand" a new console generation? These machines aren't made overnight.

Eh, I'll stop the conversation here. My main point is that the PS3 and X360 will never run Skyrim well. The game will always have instances of lag, stutters, and low FPS. The real solution? Remove content to free up system resources. That's not going to happen though. To answer your question, the gamers in this console generation have been rather apathetic and passive. Since many players don't want a new system, indicated by sales, then systems get put off to later dates. So, instead of seeing a new generation next year (the Wii-u is looking good, however - it's got more juice than the x and p) we're seeing that it's going to be a late 2013 early 2014 release schedule. That's pathetic, imho. Designers are very limited by the hardware at this point. Anything their tools allow them to create must be fit into low Memory, GPU, and CPU requirements. There's only so much that can be done before diminishing returns on optimization occur. That's just the fact of the matter. Skyrim has hit this point. You just can;t do much more because there's no room to fit the better animations into memory, not enough CPU power to keep the FPS up while calculating AI of NPCs, etc. We've hit critical mass. Just accept that fact and the game is far more enjoyable. No patch will solve the lag issues.

You're pinning the blame on the system, when the problem is in how the game itself was developed. Bethesda has seen how their games run on the PS3, and have made no effort in making them more compatible.

The reason that no one is demanding new systems could be:
A.) We are PERFECTLY satisfied with the current consoles.
B.) Not everyone has $300+ to shell out every 2-3 years for new hardware.

And Skyrim is no where near the pinnacle of perfection. There are much more elaborate games that handle more than Skyrim, and play much better.

I disagree. Skyrim is very impressive from a technical standpoint. It does a LOT with very low memory, low CPU and GPU power. When you see a game with better graphics, it's because the game has stricter rails. You follow a predefined path which allows the developers to make the path very impressive. Unlike Skyrim, where there is a lot more going on, no rails, and no way of knowing what the game must process at every possible point. Thus, the game runs into hardware limitations. They can definitely fix the crashing and the bugs, but the performance isn't going to change much. That's a fact.

Considering that Skyrim is a port on the PS3 of a game built for the Xbox, I disagree with you.

For instance, L.A. Noire was a game built on the Xbox and ported to the PS3. It was one of the most visually pleasing games I had ever played, and supported open world exploration. While the world in that game wasn't as big as Skyrim, it certainly had more in it, with each building being hand made (no copy-pastes). The difference then and now is that L.A. Noire used a LOT more space on the disc to store data. It was 3 DVD discs on the Xbox, while a single Bluray disc on PS3. Skyrim is a single disc on both systems. So L.A. Noire certainly had more data to it and it still ran better.

Simply, no. GTA4, RDR, Infamous, Arkham City, all games that have open worlds with better graphics than Skyrim and run buttery smooth on the PS3 and don't even require load screens. It's simply bad coding on a bad engine. There's no excuse for memory leaks aside from laziness.

God, I wish we could like posts on this forum.

I would also like to point out that if it was a hardware issue the 360 would have problems too and it doesn't. It's buggy yes but I have seen no reports of framerate issues on the 360 it's only on the PS3 that this is a problem. It's shoddy programming pure and simple.

From a technical standpoint they are different. That's the truth of the matter.

GTA 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhA2h8Edmqw

Graphically inferior in many ways and still experiences lag.

RDR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drftoCiia-o

Graphically inferior, desolate environments with nothing in them, and still lags from time to time.

Infamous:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2nI3e7u8yU&feature=related

Same story, over and over. Lag and graphically inferior in most ways.

Arkham City:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4cgTLEPiAw

This is about as good as it gets on this hardware, and it still lags.

Skyrim:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D-82B0UVCw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWiMufFPRtM&feature=related

Is very impressive in comparison, has better graphics, and runs pretty well.

Still, hardware is what slows down the frames. If it wasn't, we'd see Playstation 1 and Regular Xbox games looking like Skyrim, but they don't because there are hardware limitations. The fact of the matter is that we need new hardware. Some optimizations might make the game run a bit better, but even 10% FPS gains will only equate to 3-5 FPS difference. That's all you can expect. They may be able to smooth some of the experience over, but it's always going to lag because the hardware is literally being maxed out. Fact.

I've personally played all of those games, and have NEVER seen lag, stuttering, or hiccups of any kind. And before you say something like "you didn't play them enough," I get Platinum trophies and 100% all games I play. Except Arkham City, haven't finished that one yet.

And posting low-resolution Youtube videos doesn't prove anything about visuals either.

Ok, if evidence isn't persuasive, then nothing else will be either. Just keep expecting the miracle patch that will make the game run better.

I know there will be no miracle patch. I'm aware of it. I've known since New Vegas.

I was arguing that your statements regarding the hardware of this generation being dated were complete nonsense. This game is faulty, not the systems.

You are correct, hardware that is almost 7 years old (if you look at when the tech first arrived) isn't old.

I have the PS3 version myself, and I have been pretty impressed so far. Compared to Oblivion, this game is far better. I've run into a few freezes and graphical glitches, quite a few frame rate slow downs, but over all the game is mostly running well. Even if they switched to a Crytek engine, the game would still be struggling to run well. That's my point. It's a hardware limitation, not a coding limitation. They aren't going to magically be able to improve performance 30%+ (Which is the only way you're going to notice a real difference) because the hardware simply cannot do it.

Edit:

Note that Dark Souls also has many frame rate issues. In fact, many of the recently released games have frame rate issues. The hardware is maxed. MAXED!

What I've been trying to tell you is that there is nothing wrong with the hardware because the game itself is horribly inefficient at using the hardware, not because the hardware can't handle it. Bethesda's game are the ONLY games that ever have problems of this scale.

Hell, even Dead Island, which had very similar problems on release, managed to fix a majority of flaws, thanks to being made with more effort to utilize the hardware properly before release.

The hardware is not maxed. And GTA4, RDR and Infamous are not at all graphically inferior to Skyrim. Nobody, would ever, ever claim that. It's bad programming, pure and simple. When you have the most beautiful games of this generation (GoW, Uncharted, Killzone 2 & 3) running on the PS3 without a hitch then it's bad programming. The first party developers for the PS3 put out drool worthy games. Friggin' KZ2 & 3 have a million effects on screen ON NETCODE. It's simply doing a lazy port that causes the issues we're seeing on the PS3.