[Jeff Turner]

I just don't know what will happen if patch 1.4 doesn't fix the serious problems plaguing this game. I'm sure the forums will get flame-worthy with angry users, and then another patch will come, and if that doesn't fix things, what then? I wasn't around the forums for the previous three broken games, so I don't know the pattern, but I assume after a while a heavy silence descends on the forums, as disgusted users just leave. The silence is only interrupted occasionally by the desperate and naive, pleading for help, but their begging is met with more useless platitudes from Bethesda, until one day a mod tells everyone nobody is working on the game anymore.

Is it something like that?

If you are wondering, just head over to the FONV:ps3 forums.

[Lori Joe]

It's probably worth mentioning the PS3 version uses V-Sync and the 360 version does not. Disabling V-Sync certainly would make a significant difference in terms of performance.

[Emily Shackleton]

It's probably worth mentioning the PS3 version uses V-Sync and the 360 version does not. Disabling V-Sync certainly would make a significant difference in terms of performance.

Disabling Vsync certainly could help a bit but it doesn't solve the problem and the difference would be rather slight than significant.
Those drops down to 15fps would still be at or below 20 and pretty noticable and in exchange you get annoying screen tearing.

[lolly13]

Good Topic. This problem shouldn't get ignored either.
These moments with down to 15fps feel very choppy and this effects responsiveness of controls as well.
But I fear the only realistic solution to this problem would be a reduction in graphical quality like remove objects or effects to make this scenes less demanding. Proper optimization for the engine afterwards when the game is already released is not very likely.

And while we're at it, please fix this horrible Anti-Aliasing. The image quality suffers so much from this overly aggressive implementation and it's sad when you sometimes can see (for example sometimes at the end of loading times AA is disabled for a brief moment on the floating objects) how sharp textures actually are just to be blurred and loose details during gameplay caused by the AA.
By now I would even prefer zero AA.

As you've explained to me, toning down on the FXAA would not only increase texture detail, but also improve performance a bit, right?

[Liv Staff]

I suspect you will never get a video showing no lag at all. Mine has a little, but it is nowhere near unplaybale. Just a small sputter here and there. I have 3 characters now 2 over 100 hours and have run into bugs, but nothing game breaking at all. I do not think you will see a video because for those who the game is working fine, there is little to no motivation for anyone to take the time to produce the video. Taking the time to document bugs and glitches is quite helpful... but showing a video of mostly normal gameplay is not as helpful. It has little effect on me, so I am just providing a perception.

[Kelsey Anna Farley]

As you've explained to me, toning down on the FXAA would not only increase texture detail, but also improve performance a bit, right?

FXAA needs slightly above 1ms so any changes are neglectable small for the performance and unfortunately wouldn't help with the fps problems.
But fixing this overly aggressive implementation would in any case improve the graphical quality significantly without any negative impact on the performance at all.

[celebrity]

FXAA needs slightly above 1ms so any changes are neglectable small for the performance and unfortunately wouldn't help with the fps problems.
But fixing this overly aggressive implementation would in any case improve visual quality significantly without any negative impact on the performance at all.

That's a shame... as is the implementation of the AA itself. Why did they set it to be so aggressive? It's just painful to compare 360 screens with PS3 screens, sometimes. How could they not notice the blurring? How does FXAA cause this, anyway, when set to be so aggressive? I thought this post-process AA method was set only to target aliased edges, not to draw samples from the surrounding textures or add a full-screen blur filter.

[djimi]

Now, the saved data file correlation is perfectly real and my thread is not concerning that, but contrary to what people are claiming, this game doesn't just have issues with larger saved data file sizes. No matter how far you are into the game, this game has fps issues on the PS3 and the saved data file correlation simply exacerbates and spreads the issue. It has been proven by both lensoftruth's and DigitalFoundry's digital anolyses that the PS3 version inherently suffers from a fluctuating fps whereas the 360 version does not.

This is a clear and ominous indication that the game engine is, from the very onset, not as well optimized for the PS3 as it should be. Now, in the less demanding areas, where it fluctuates between 25 and 30, it is still not really stable or a smooth 30 fps as some falsely claim, but it is relatively smooth, if not a bit choppy or sluggish, occasionally, but then in more demanding areas such as the fog-covered marshes near solitude, the fall forest, the area surrounding Morthal, inside cities, and inside many interiors (usually dungeons with any shred of size, lighting effects, and/or mist effects), the framerate never reaches 30 at all and seems to fluctuate somewhere between 15-25 because the game engine was already scraping the bottom of the barrel and struggling even in less-demanding areas.

This game is not as well-optimized for the PS3 as the 360 regardless of any saved data file issues and it has lag regardless of those, as well. Longer play-times and larger saved data files are only further proof of Bethesda's negligence and they only serve to take the issue to an unplayable level, for many, but then I wonder why people don't seem to recognize this. Perhaps they misdiagnose this inherent lagging as being a part of the saved data file issue, but it isn't and if it isn't brought up, specifically, as being inherent, we're pretty much stuck with it.

There is not a single person here who has a stable framerate on their PS3 version of Skyrim regardless of saved data file size and that is a fact. Whether they choose to dismiss the very noticeable impact this lack of optimization has in the areas mentioned or not is beyond me, but I've conducted tests and video anolysis sites and groups have conducted tests. "Lag" is inherent to the PS3 version and if someone isn't having these issues in the areas I mentioned, I'd very much appreciate video proof because as of now, there is none. Please comment on what you think of this or if you've noticed it or not.

You have nailed what is wrong, I have said the same things over many post but you sum it up very well.

[Jay Baby]

There is not a single person here who has a stable framerate on their PS3 version of Skyrim regardless of saved data file size and that is a fact.

I already knew this, I just couldn't figure out why people kept saying their game runs great without frame rate issues, etc. Really, so they never had a brief pause where the game starts to load a new area or stutters? I remember someone mentioning that they rode their horse from area x to this other area x with no slow down and my face was like this:

I tried walking across the map and for the most part I had very little issues, but every once and a while I had stutters or hiccups, lets not talk about during certain combat...

However, I think the biggest problem is calling this a lag issue when it is clearly a framerate issue, O the internet..

If you are wondering, just head over to the FONV:ps3 forums.

I'm scared now

Fortunately I do not have any game breaking issues, I mostly lurk here looking for help with the game freezing.

[Carlos Vazquez]

I have had untold problems with Skyrim and my playstation is crashing at least three times a day and corrupting the save data on my console, not to mention that i can not complete missions due to enemies not turning up or quests not being completed because characters won't acknowledge me when they need to for me to progress. I have enjoyed Bethesda's work but its always been at a cost. So my point and case is what will we do to help prevent this happening in the future? These forums clearly show Bethesda to have an intellegent fan base and together we could ask a few questions and keep asking until we get an answer (after emailing untold times Bethesda have never answered me).

First question -
Why release games that you know to have extensive playability issues. (the list is endless)

*For the people who say all games have issues on release I agree however Fallout 3 GOTY edition came well after the original and it crashed so badly I had to stop playing it, New Vegas has been out for some time and is still experiencing glitches which slow the gameplay down and often crashes the PS3 and so on...

Second Question -
If your PS3 becomes corrupted to a point where it needs repairing or replacing due to Skyrims glitches and bugs will they help recover the lost data or even replace broken goods?

Sony obviously wont put right what damage the game MAY cause to our consoles, my PS3 has had to reboot at a minimum of 30 times and warns me that I may permanently loose data, I know Skyrim has corrupted my save files so I have had to delete them, this goes for save files for Bioshock 2, Fallout New Vegas and a handful of Skyrim save files. (I have not checked my other content, such as PNS downloads etc, so cant be sure if anything else has been corrupted)

- Other questions should be included by the game owners for the PS3 and then put to Bethesda in a new thread signed by anyone who agrees, we need to ask these questions or things wont change and more importantly we deserve answers and actions from Bethesda - they have the money but we dont have the goods (in my opinion)

- To make this post unbiased i want to say that i appreciate as I'm sure most do, that Bethesda have provided a patch and are working on another however what I am saying with this post, and I hope you agree, is that patches are good for games that work and could use additional tweaking, not for games that are unplayable. We don't need to have patience in this situation and deserve to be treated with respect as a paying fanbase.

Bethesda should be happy to know that we all do love their games and want to enjoy them with minimal fuss.


(Finally I suggest as a third question we should sign an online petition to Sony and ask for a full expination as to why they have let Bethesda release this game onto the PS3 console when it obviously lacks the basic requirements to allow for an owner to play the game without major interuption to the gameplay, particularly the glitches which prevent you from completing the main quests and completing the game. (Which I certinaly have not been able to do and can prove it with video footage or anyone from sony or Bethesda coming to my house and looking)


If the next few replys are in agreement with this post I will start a thread (on wednesday 04th jan) and we can begin asking the questions. Thankyou for reading this and I hope it gets you thinking about solutions from our perspective and not the marketing team at Bethesda.

[Lewis Morel]

I am sure posts like this will help Bethesda improve Skyrim on PS3. Keep it up!

Fortunately I do not have any game breaking issues, I mostly lurk here looking for help with the game freezing.

Just to check - when you say the game freezes for you, do you mean "Skyrim freezes your PS3 requiring a restart of the console?". If so, that's what I get and would firmly put that in the "game breaking" category...

[Jonny]

Great thread Seti.

Bump for justice

Moderator: Do not bump threads for "justice" or otherwise.

[Nick Swan]

I found the FPS drops most noticable in the area surrounding Morthal, and also during the intro sequence. Disappointed as I was, I could just about stomach these.

However, at 40 hours into the game, I'm now frequently looking at a 'frozen' screen, and literally getting a slideshow in cities most of the time. It varies between 'unenjoyable' and 'unplayable' but either way it's unacceptable.

One has come to expect inferior PS3 ports from Bethesda, but this just takes the you-know-what. At least I was able to finish FO3 and New Vegas, including all DLC (quest bugs aside)... there's no way to do this in an enjoyable fashion in Skyrim. Perhaps the dev team should have tried actually playing the game as intended instead of doing stupid speed runs.

As for Sony's certification process - I don't think they actually play the games to completion, that's the developer's job, they just test the code for issues that could allow exploits in their OS (Twilight Princess, anyone?) or allow people to cheat in online games.

[Stat Wrecker]

Thanks for putting the frame rate issue in its proper context Seti. Looks like your concerns about the lack of any PS3 info prior to the release date were more than justifiable, you pegged it sir! If Bethesda has any integrity they would do a PRODUCT RECALL to all original PS3 sales purchases of this game title once a properly optimized game version is completed and made available. I've serious doubts that band-aid patches are the solution here. May not help their finances short term, but unless they fix this, they WILL sink back to second rate status as far as a game developer. They contracted out the GOTY version of OBLIVION, they should get a proper job done again. Then, spend some time and money getting good staff who SPECIALIZE in PS3 (soon PS4) language, for future titles. SONY will be breathing down their necks as it is with this [censored] job...

[Harry Leon]

Thanks for putting the frame rate issue in its proper context Seti. Looks like your concerns about the lack of any PS3 info prior to the release date were more than justifiable, you pegged it sir! If Bethesda has any integrity they would do a PRODUCT RECALL to all original PS3 sales purchases of this game title once a properly optimized game version is completed and made available. I've serious doubts that band-aid patches are the solution here. May not help their finances short term, but unless they fix this, they WILL sink back to second rate status as far as a game developer. They contracted out the GOTY version of OBLIVION, they should get a proper job done again. Then, spend some time and money getting good staff who SPECIALIZE in PS3 (soon PS4) language, for future titles. SONY will be breathing down their necks as it is with this [censored] job...

I don't think a recall is really in order, this is the age of the internet and code-related patches are often fairly small anyway. If a fix does happen, it'll be a patch. If they don't/can't fix it, then a recall would be on the cards I suppose.

The last game recall I can remember was 'WWF No Mercy' for N64 (PAL version only). The saved data would self-destruct every couple of days, and customers were able to return their copies to any game store, even without a recipt, since a new barcode was issued for the fixed product.


Regarding Vsync and FXAA, from a programmer's perspective:

Vsync is unlikely to cause drops of more than 3fps, for purely mathematical reasons. I'd much rather it was left on, since screen tearing is just unbearable.

The FXAA looks fine to me, I think the texture quality issues stem from bad Ansitropic Filtering and Glowmapping. See how bad cave walls look when you're holding a torch - this problem was present in Oblivion too, even on the PC. The FXAA itself does a pretty good job of masking jaggies - much better than the X360 version. Look at the iron gratings outside Dragonsreach or any other semi-transparent texture and you'll notice the PS3 versions look much better.

[Kayleigh Mcneil]

I totally agree and have said this from the start the lag/framerate issue is there from the start of the game then gets worse as you play it. So dissappointing.

[Davorah Katz]

I have had untold problems with Skyrim and my playstation is crashing at least three times a day and corrupting the save data on my console, not to mention that i can not complete missions due to enemies not turning up or quests not being completed because characters won't acknowledge me when they need to for me to progress. I have enjoyed Bethesda's work but its always been at a cost. So my point and case is what will we do to help prevent this happening in the future? These forums clearly show Bethesda to have an intellegent fan base and together we could ask a few questions and keep asking until we get an answer (after emailing untold times Bethesda have never answered me).

First question -
Why release games that you know to have extensive playability issues. (the list is endless)

*For the people who say all games have issues on release I agree however Fallout 3 GOTY edition came well after the original and it crashed so badly I had to stop playing it, New Vegas has been out for some time and is still experiencing glitches which slow the gameplay down and often crashes the PS3 and so on...

Second Question -
If your PS3 becomes corrupted to a point where it needs repairing or replacing due to Skyrims glitches and bugs will they help recover the lost data or even replace broken goods?

Sony obviously wont put right what damage the game MAY cause to our consoles, my PS3 has had to reboot at a minimum of 30 times and warns me that I may permanently loose data, I know Skyrim has corrupted my save files so I have had to delete them, this goes for save files for Bioshock 2, Fallout New Vegas and a handful of Skyrim save files. (I have not checked my other content, such as PNS downloads etc, so cant be sure if anything else has been corrupted)

- Other questions should be included by the game owners for the PS3 and then put to Bethesda in a new thread signed by anyone who agrees, we need to ask these questions or things wont change and more importantly we deserve answers and actions from Bethesda - they have the money but we dont have the goods (in my opinion)

- To make this post unbiased i want to say that i appreciate as I'm sure most do, that Bethesda have provided a patch and are working on another however what I am saying with this post, and I hope you agree, is that patches are good for games that work and could use additional tweaking, not for games that are unplayable. We don't need to have patience in this situation and deserve to be treated with respect as a paying fanbase.

Bethesda should be happy to know that we all do love their games and want to enjoy them with minimal fuss.


(Finally I suggest as a third question we should sign an online petition to Sony and ask for a full expination as to why they have let Bethesda release this game onto the PS3 console when it obviously lacks the basic requirements to allow for an owner to play the game without major interuption to the gameplay, particularly the glitches which prevent you from completing the main quests and completing the game. (Which I certinaly have not been able to do and can prove it with video footage or anyone from sony or Bethesda coming to my house and looking)


If the next few replys are in agreement with this post I will start a thread (on wednesday 04th jan) and we can begin asking the questions. Thankyou for reading this and I hope it gets you thinking about solutions from our perspective and not the marketing team at Bethesda.

I would gladly sign a petition and support your ideas 100%

[Cameron Garrod]

Great topic here. Informative and everyone visiting this part of the forum, it should be mandatory reading.

I am actually kinda surprised that there hasn't been some kind of lawsuit filed against Bethesda yet. I am not sure about sales of the Ps3 version, but I am sure it's close to or over 1million. And given the state of the game, Everyone has or at some point will encounter all these problems. I thought for sure someone would have by now.

[Stat Wrecker]

My question is how are they going to fix this problem with the obvious "lag" in framerate for us PS3 users?

[Lori Joe]

I have played the 360 version and yes they're are fps issues present. I also noticed that missing chunks of terrain are more present on the 360 more than ps3, but really I would take a few well expected graphical bugs over game breaking fps drops and crashing. And compared to the 100 or so times it has crashed on my ps3(restart system, recover corrupted data), it has crashed only twice in half the time on the 360 making it congruence with all the evidence spit up presently.

I am appalled at all the negative energy towards this horrific port. It just really does not do any justice to the newcomers to bethesda RPGs(like me) that we need to face all of this. Yes I knew of the bad releases past beth games had on this console talking to other people, but did NOT expect all of these bugs to occur on such a high level. Certainly this company has lost millions in future funds because of this and is a shame because they do in fact make great games, but do not follow through with their swing. However I am still svckered in, waiting vainly for some miracle to patch these occurrences however long it may take. I will not spend an extra 300 dollars for a new console for a game that so clearly broke my expectations, so I do not see why anybody would waste any more money in this matter.

[RAww DInsaww]

That's a shame... as is the implementation of the AA itself. Why did they set it to be so aggressive? It's just painful to compare 360 screens with PS3 screens, sometimes. How could they not notice the blurring? How does FXAA cause this, anyway, when set to be so aggressive? I thought this post-process AA method was set only to target aliased edges, not to draw samples from the surrounding textures or add a full-screen blur filter.

Post-process-AA is applied to the final image so it doesn't know where are polygon edges and what are textures and tries to find the right edges just by anolysing the image to smooth the right ones. If it's too aggressive it will smooth everything that looks slightly in need of smoothing
I'm not sure why they did it, the PC suffers from the same problem but there you can just deactivate FXAA and use only traditional MSAA instead. Maybe they didn't know better, or didn't care about image quality

The FXAA looks fine to me, I think the texture quality issues stem from bad Ansitropic Filtering and Glowmapping. See how bad cave walls look when you're holding a torch - this problem was present in Oblivion too, even on the PC. The FXAA itself does a pretty good job of masking jaggies - much better than the X360 version. Look at the iron gratings outside Dragonsreach or any other semi-transparent texture and you'll notice the PS3 versions look much better.

I agree, the AA used in the 360 version isn't really good either. Some edges are nicely anti-aliased but it skips a lot with transparencies which gives the whole image an uneven look with smooth edges next to zero AA jagged edges. On the PS3 it's much more consistent and jaggies are less a problem.
But textures indeed suffer from the FXAA. In the comparison from digital foundry are some screens that show the problem:
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/360_aa.bmp.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/ps3_aa.bmp.jpg
Same texture quality just blurred on the PS3.
The same happens on the PC version if you enable FXAA.
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/pc_aa1.bmp.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/pc_aa2.bmp.jpg
or further down on this german page:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,854009/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-Tipps-fuer-optimale-Kantenglaettung-FXAA-und-mehr-Grafik-Detailstufen-im-Vergleich-Tipps-des-Tages/Rollenspiel-Adventure/Test/
nice for the otherwise aliased foliage but so much details lost and the ground just looks blurry...

[Antony Holdsworth]

Post-process-AA is applied to the final image so it doesn't know where are polygon edges and what are textures and tries to find the right edges just by anolysing the image to smooth the right ones. If it's too aggressive it will smooth everything that looks slightly in need of smoothing
I'm not sure why they did it, the PC suffers from the same problem but there you can just deactivate FXAA and use only traditional MSAA instead. Maybe they didn't know better, or didn't care about image quality


I agree, the AA used in the 360 version isn't really good either. Some edges are nicely anti-aliased but it skips a lot with transparencies which gives the whole image an uneven look with smooth edges next to zero AA jagged edges. On the PS3 it's much more consistent and jaggies are less a problem.
But textures indeed suffer from the FXAA. In the comparison from digital foundry are some screens that show the problem:
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/360_aa.bmp.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/ps3_aa.bmp.jpg
Same texture quality just blurred on the PS3.
The same happens on the PC version if you enable FXAA.
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/pc_aa1.bmp.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/2011/articles//a/1/4/2/0/9/8/5/pc_aa2.bmp.jpg
or further down on this german page:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,854009/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-Tipps-fuer-optimale-Kantenglaettung-FXAA-und-mehr-Grafik-Detailstufen-im-Vergleich-Tipps-des-Tages/Rollenspiel-Adventure/Test/
nice for the otherwise aliased foliage but so much details lost and the ground just looks blurry...

Honestly, the difference between the PS3 and 360 textures seems more pronounced than between the FXAA PC and MSAA PC textures. I see it having a similar effect on the PC, but not to the same degree.

[Donatus Uwasomba]

Honestly, the difference between the PS3 and 360 textures seems more pronounced than between the FXAA PC and MSAA PC textures. I see it having a similar effect on the PC, but not to the same degree.

Yes I didn't meant that the image quality looks the same on PS3 and PC with FXAA. Of cause the PC version looks still better.
I added the PC comparison just as an indication that but both suffer from the same effect, that FXAA decreases the image quality by blurring it too much.

[Jonathan Egan]

Thanks for this thread seti18
That should do Bethesda to fix this disaster?

[Breanna Van Dijk]

spot on, its an ambitious game but a careless port...there is not a single person i know who does not have a frame rate issue with this game...it cannot even be called a beta version