Yea right I would rather wait for the patch then shuck out almost $200 for a Solid State Drive.I think I'll just wait for the PATCH instead of relying on other peoples hopes and and conspiracy methods.

My understanding is that the media that is being read has to be formatted in FAT32, which I do believe limits you to 32gb worth of space. If you have an external harddrive that you don't mind reformatting just for this, I think it would work. I aslo am not sure if you can have ANY other files on it. However, if you have a CD burner, just burn a disc. It totes just worked like a charm for me when neither of my flash drives worked. It's installing as I type.

How do you format them, which OS do you use?

It is important to USB drive to be using MBR (Master Boot Record, some kind of legacy method of storing partition info) to contain its partition table. Not GUID table.
I dunno how to check it in Windows, but in Mac you may choose which one to use in "Partition" tab under "Options" button in Disk Utility.

Also, FAT is usually the shortcut to FAT32 since FAT16 and other older file system are obsolete these days. So it's ok that you formatted it in FAT. The problem is with your partition table (I suppose that Windows 7 automaticaly markups partition with GUID, not MBR). I met the same problem and it was solved with reformatting using MBR under my Mac.

I am using Windows 7, and just right clicking on the thumb drive to format it. In the options list there is a "FAT(default) and a seperate FAT32". I didn't see any advanced options for how to partition. Either way it worked with the DVD-R, so no harm. Currently though, I just tried to restore off of the 32gb thumb drive and the PS3 is frozen on "estimated time: counting" and the O for cancel doesn't work. Not comfortable with rebooting the PS as it says not to but if it is indeed frozen... Looking through PS forums for info on that one.

Just making sure here, you're on the PS3 right? From experience, I endured similar symptoms throughout most of Bethesda's RPGs. From what I can tell by playing Skyrim, an SSD would improve your overall gameplay experience with FO3.

Correct.

Yeah I'm on a PS3, and I don't know what else to call it. On computers I'd call it mouselag, but yeah here I guess it's pointerlag? lol.

Update on getting the PS3 back up: I had to force a turn off by holding the power button for 20 seconds when it froze on the restore. Then it came back up claiming corruption so it reformatted. I then went to do the restore again, and this time it started up fine, but failed partway through. It rebooted itself and claimed corruption again, then reformatted again, but this time said it had recovered a bunch of stuff and put it under the same username but with a * in front of it.

It looks like it got my savegames, but not all of the game data or downloaded games I had.

For this reason I would probably suggest to anyone that the only things you use the backup/restore for are savegames or things you can't get again. Like delete your game data cause the discs will reload it, and delete downloaded games like the two we got for free during the PSN debacle, cause you can download them again for free.

Started up FO3 and it's attrocious at the moment but I chalk that up to the disc reloading the entirety of the gamedata in the background. Since I only had a fraction I went ahead and deleted it.

Wondering though if it would be better to plug in the old hdd, delete all that stuff, and do a different, smaller backup. Then put the SSD back in and try the restore again, seeing if I can get it clean.

Any thoughts on if that would work any better? I also don't know if you plug your old hdd back in if it asks you to format it, cause a new/different PS3 than your original would apparently.

Waiting on that vid francais!

I just recorded one (girlfriend finally got off the PS3 since she had a late night lounge evening to attend) and it's uploading to youtube now.

Might I just say for the record that recording and playing Skyrim at the same time is bleedin' difficult? Didn't hold the camera myself last time, which I had to do now.

The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2phwyq1sIyE

EDIT: Of course I forgot to film the bleedin' save window this time around, but I hope you take my word for the playtime being bigger than the last one I shot since it's the same char . Savefile size is at 11 megs and playtime over 50 hours, uptime is from where my g/f started playing the thing in the afternoon, so a good few hours at least.

its called controller input lag, ps3 suffers it bad in bf3(almost as bad as kz2), only fix so far is to play at 576p

Hehe.. Asuka's done the job pretty well I'd say. Sorry, I'm very preoccupied with my studies.

Cant thank you enough for making this video man!! You are absolutely great! The game runs simply with no hiccups at all. And ofcourse I believe you that you have lots of hours spent. lvl 32 and all these locations opened on the map prove that. My game plays NOTHING like this...

You really had bad lag before like I am describing in my posts?? Because man... this is how the game should be made bny bethesda in the first place!

Again thank you so much for this, tomorrow I am going to buy my SSD

You can chug your old HDD back in there. It retains all the data and settings the PS3 needs so unless you modify the contents by hooking it up someplace else, you can always return to it.

You'd definitely want a clean backup, not a corrupt or fragmented one. Instead of popping the old drive back in, I'd just delete all game data from the game data directory in case it's borked and relaunch the old games (such as Fallout and Skyrim) which should trigger the "installing" dialogs and get you some clean content on the new drive.

Thanks to the guys presenting and testing this solution.
wtf was sony thinking by putting in 5400 rpm drive in a game system? That was a mistake. But getting an xbox is an even bigger mistake. Enjoy shelling out $60+ a year just to be able to play games online. Last time my xbox red ringed (2nd one), I got PS3 instead and could not be happier. Think of it this way, playing online for 2 years with xbox gets your PS3 a new SSD... f microsoft.

I'm quite content with Sony's PS3. The BlueRay is a big plus in my book. The free online play is what seals the deal. With the 5+ years I've had a PS3 I've saved just about $300 CDN. I don't mind forking over half of those saved dollars to improve my system with a component that I can reuse later.

the hdd provided by sony is just fine. What did you expect them to put an SSD drive in there? They would have to sell the console at an even more expensive price that people complain all the time. The hdd ISNT the real problem here people... just because an SSD drive solves the problem that doesnt mean its the main reason.

No the blame is towards bethesda. If they are incompetent of programming decently for ps3 then thats their problem not the HDD drive's. We have seen noumerous open world games that run perfectly on the system. Bethesda cant bother to do it? Thats their fault and their problem. If they optimised the game properly for ps3 the 5400 hdd is more than enough...

but bethesda just doesnt give a crap about ps3....

Price difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm is next to nothing, but the performance difference is rather substantial.

I do agree that shame on bethesda for not optimizing the game. Don't think that they hate ps3. PC users say the exact same thing. Sounds like gamesas were hell bent on releasing the game on 11/11/11, before it was finished and ready for release. That is just poor form.

You guys remember Planescape Torment? After they patched it, it was a great game. But because its initial release was loaded with bugs and not really finished, game mags gave it terrible scores. Why did no publication do this with Skyrim? Probably so they could rush out their reviews on 11/11/11... ha.

funny thing is Skyrim is going to win GOTY yet again which given the circumstances of the release on Ps3 and even pc and less 360 i find preposterous.

not because the game is not good, it is a masterpiece but it is SLOPPY... way too sloppy for journalists to award it such high marks given all the problems it has (at least ps3 version)

When you are talking about an AA release you factor in everything. From the technical polish to the story to the size and the gameplay. Skyrim might take top spots in gameplay size efc etc but its polish is simply pathetic and I simply cannot accept a GOTY game that is simply unplayable on my system of choice because if incompetence and negligence.

Bethesda should get hammered and not win any awards so that they get the memo finally... you need to release a properly functioning game for once, not a broken one.

But you see everyone just doesnt care. Ps3 version is at 95/100 on metacritic... i mean if a game that becomes unplayable gets 95 and a GOTY award then why should bethesda even care to improve and respect the ps3 community. They got high marks they got goty so they wont give a [censored] once again next time...

we are to blame simply....

This.

I would have 100% backed this for game of the year, until the massive lag started. I have played many many games on my PS3 and never had this problem. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to just go out and buy a SSD for my PS3, but I still think it's ridiculous I had to do that. Most people cant just do that, and they shouldn't have to. They are in turn stuck with a terrible experience for another week.
I definitely think Bethesda should be held to task for this decision. To say they were unaware of this issue is either complete incompetence or complete [censored], either way they don't deserve the award. Floating mammoths and the occasional world glitch can be overlooked, but not releasing something with a 100% game breaking issue like this. I'm very disappointed overall.

This sounds great but I can no way afford a solid state drive. Can anybody confirm that just replacing the ps3 hard drive with a 7200rpm one will also help the problem?
That's my only real option I can afford.

Skyrim save at 49 hours Running on 2010 pal ps3 slim with 160gb 5400rpm Hitachi drive. Tried deleting cache, full restore etc... but it's still running like [censored] after only 15 minute playtime's . I'm skeptical of the patch since I do not want it overwriting or not being compatible with my save file.

Ok, I just installed an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD drive in my PS3.

Before that, I started having some stutter, especially in Whiterun (as usual). FYI, my save file has been over 8mb for quite some time, and the game was playing fine up until around 50 hours playtime.

Anyway, I intended to put a new drive in (since I had the vanilla 40Gb for PhatS3), and intended to buy an SSD knowing it helped getting faster load times on installed game.

So, yesterday, I played for 4 hours, using my brand new drive and boy ! The difference. The only stutter I get is when the game autosaves on changing areas. I emphasize on "ONLY".
Before that I noticed other stutters I used to have from the start, mainly loading the skill trees, loading the map, loading the voice and dialog options for character companions... I didn't mind then, but now that I see how much more smooth the experience is, I couldn't go back.

So, well, I know it is expensive, and lucky me I can allow myself to afford it, but for those who can, yes, it makes a biiiiiiiiiig difference.

Another happy SSD user!

Out of curiosity, how big is your save file?

Just over 10mb dude

How does this one look? Very good reviews, only 64g but very reasonable on price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441