Bethesda has already released a patch, and they'll soon release another, which will hopefully solve all the freezing and lag issues reported by those playing the PlayStation 3 version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim .
But if you don't want to wait for the new patch, or you're not convinced it's gonna work well, Reddit might have the answer. Maybe you can save your controller and your sanity: just disable the auto-save option and delete all corrupt saved data. Here are the comments:
"Just trying to help everyone know. I can finally play this game again. My file size was 13 MB after 140 hours clocked (granted, I have the bad habit of leaving my PS3 on while not playing) and it got to the point where the game would actually just freeze up without fail if I tried to wait, sleep, load a new area, or just leave my character idle. I was afraid it would f**k up my ps3, so I stopped playing for 2 days, until I read a few comments on various forums."
The solution? Well, it's pretty straightforward, actually.
"First, before you start the game, make sure all corrupted files are removed. From the XMB go to the Game menu, and scroll up to Saved Data Utility (PS3), from there you should be able to see files simply labeled 'Corrupted File,' delete that sh**. Then load up Skyrim. Go to system options, then settings, then gameplay, and make sure to disable all 5 auto-save options."
Just remember, if you do this, save often . No joke. You know it's no joke. It would really suck to forget that the game isn't saving squat, play for three hours, and lose all your progress when you die. But anyway, maybe this will help those having problems; we understand how frustrating it can be.
Related Game(s): The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
No gamer should go through all this trouble just to play, though, most multi-platform devs wouldn't go through the trouble of paying extra attention to a single console(unless it's the 360). Sorry to those having trouble.
Last edited by JLB1 on 12/6/2011 10:25:33 PM
I'm officially sick of this crap. There was nothing wrong with the game b4 the patch. There is nothing wrong now. I've seriously logged over 144 hrs on this game & it's only frozen a handful of times, once at startup. Wonder if these kids could've made it back in the ol' days where u had to take out the cartrige, blow on it, wipe it with a cloth, blow on it again, shake the console, do some witch doctor voodoo magic, & finally the damn thing works only to discover all the pixels dancing over the health bar that you can't read anymore. Yeah, much better then.
Ahh, simpler times.
The only cartrige games that i've played were for gameboy advance back in mid-90's. Now that i look back on it, they never had any game patches for pokemon or mario…yes much simpler times PasteNuggs i was only 5yrs old ^_^
Yes, your singular experience with the game completely negates everyone elses problems. The hundreds of thousands of people having trouble with freezing and bugs must be playing the game wrong. You alone are the only person to figure it out….
Get over yourself. The game has bugs and needs to be fixed. Just because you are lucky enough to not run into any doesnt mean other people arent losing all of their save data and dealing with freezes every few hours. If you arent having any problems then great, but dont be a di** and let those with problems attempt to remedy it.
Well some of these glitches make the game unplayable, like how if your over a 6MB save file it runs like a powerpoint.
Wow, good manners. I'm not trying to be anything. Like I stated b4, plenty of my friends own this game & they haven't ran into the kind of problems that people are describing either. So let's see, 7 out of 7 people with few to no problems. You do the math friend. It's one thing to call a game broken when it IS, but when it isn't it starts to tarnish this company's reputation. Maybe you should try programming a game of this scope someday, I'm sure you could do a much better job. BTW, my save file is 14mb.
Last edited by fatelementality on 12/7/2011 12:07:27 PM
All of my friends still have their launch Xbox 360 working so naturally id assume the Internet is full of liars
Last edited by PAKINIPS on 12/7/2011 2:03:45 PM
The perfect pix for cartridges is rubbing alcohol. (Works every time)
Too bad it doesn't work on disks..
Yeah, well I am on my 5th 360. That was a problem that my friends suffered with as well. Do still have 1 friend with a launch model tho.
Well duh… Its not like people who do NOT have a problem will whine about it… lol
So yeah you can say the problem doesnt affect that many people out of the sheer mass of people it was sold too. You can only read a few cases on the internet. Then it gets blown out of proportion and some people will even make up stories about it to bash the game.
So yeah generally the biggest part of what we hear or see on the internet are whiners or problems. Not saying this to bash on people just that if you have no problem you wont talk about it right?
Conclusion: at least 90% of the people have no problems with it or you can bet I would get a few returns at my shop from all the people I sold Skyrim ps3 too… (about 200) And I got none yet. I know thats only one shop and 200 copies but we still yet have to encounter that problem coming from a single client.
Last edited by Neo_Aeon666 on 12/7/2011 9:11:10 PM
This info came just in time for me. My game has been freezing like a Nord's teet atop High Hrothgar.
Need moar patches.
Last edited by Hezzron on 12/6/2011 10:34:59 PM
had same issue but once you're past that, then its much better.
@ vallarta
You say you just got the game and you have had a couple of freezes already. When it freezes on you does your PS3 beep and automaticly reset? Or does it just lock up and you have to hard reset the PS3 yourself? Oh yeah, how big is your save file, and did you download the patch?
I have had it happen both ways. A couple of times when Skyrim has froze up on me my PS3 beeps and then resets by itself. When it does that it makes my worry that something is wrong with my PS3 itself. When Fallout 3 would freeze on me I had to perform a hard reset myself. There were no beeps. Oh well, maybe I am just being paranoid about the beeps.
@PSXE community and Skyrim players(PS3 version)
It seems some gamers are having more issues than others. That got me thinking about why this seems to be the case. To the people who have had few problems…what model of PS3 do you have? Do you still have the original factory Hard Drive in your PS3 or did you upgrade it? If you did upgrade your HD what is the make/model of your Hard Drive?
I also turned all of the auto save options off, but I left the "save on travel" option on and it seemed to work really well. My save file is about 9.5 mb and I have put about 68 hours in. Before I did this the lag was something aweful. I tried turning all save features off, but that was a bad idea. I completed two quests and put in an hour and a half worth of work and was then attacked off guard by a group of mages and lost it all.
The safe thing to do is save every 15 to 20 minutes with a Bethesda game.
Removing corrupted files is something you should do anytime you see them.
Turning off the autosave features has unforutnately been common sense with all of the other open world games they have done(Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas)for the PS3 at least. This isn't a solution, just something a bunch of players have to go through when they play a game from Bethesda.
And I know we'll get the "I haven't had these issues" comments but out of the 4 current open world games they have right now I own and have played 3 of the 4 in depth. And I have experienced just about every glitch, freeze, slow down, frame rate, you name it. And I still plan on buying Skyrim next year when the inevitable GOTY edition comes out.
''And I still plan on buying Skyrim next year when the inevitable GOTY edition comes out.''
Gonna do the same.
So you can turn off the autosave on FO3 and NV? I didn't know that. I've had serious problems with NV as I like to pick up EVERYTHING and sell it. It's at the point where it freezes atleast once everytime I try to play it. Maybe the autosave feature could save me that pain in future.
I still havnt got to see a backwards flying dragon…
And that's why you're not supposed to buy a Bethesda game except for on the PC. They just can't make it work for anything else, though for some reason I'm slightly sure this game was made around the 360 (the pc version has a really crappy menu design that seems pretty console based so..) so…yeah..
Wow, glad I held off buying Skyrim. Hopefully by the time my copy arrives in about two weeks all this mess will be sorted at last. Hopefully by then I'll have earned my Platinum for Dark Souls too and I can actually take the damn disc out of the PS3…and have my life back!
The new patch(1.3) will not address the PS3 specific issues. PS3 users are going to have to wait. I saw an article on CVG about this subject. Bethesda has spoke out again on the ongoing issues with the PS3 version of Skyrim. Despite the most recent update, it appears that stuttering issues among other glitches still continue to plague the PS3 version of Skyrim.
Here is what Bethesda had to say: "While update 1.2 has fixed the long-play issues for most PS3 users we are aware that has not been the case for some. We've been reaching out to a number of PS3 users to collect saved games so we can take a look at their specific issues. Right now we know it is not one thing, but a combination of smaller ones that some folk are seeing but others are not. Some seem to be when the PS3 is auto-saving(that can be turned off) in the background. Some may be do SPU AI updates, and some may relate to dynamic memory allocation."
Bethesda went on to say: "These fixes WILL NOT be in update 1.3 that is currently undergoing testing but will be in future ones. We understand how frustrating it is when your game is having issues."
Okay, Bethesda is working on the PS3 lag problems, and other PS3 specific problems. They have acknowledged that PS3 users are still having problems despite the update. They also noted that some PS3 users were having problems while others were not. That definitely seems to be the case.
Obsidian(New Vegas) commented about the problems PS3 users were having in Skyrim and said it was a problem with the game engine when dealing with memory contraints cuased by the PS3's partitioned memory. They also said it would not be an easy fix.
As for this possible fix…corrupted data should always be deleted but somehow I doubt this is a true fix for most users. This reminds me of what PS3 users went through in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Those two games had some serious stuttering and framerate issues as well. Patches were released but they never did fix it. PS3 players had all kinds of ideas about ways to cope with the games. Turning off auto-save was one. Some claimed opening up space on your hard drive might help. Anyways, it was a mess. I would note Skyrim runs way better than Fallout 3 and New Vegas ever did up to a point.
I truely hope they do fix Skyrim. Since Bethesda has said the PS3 specific fixes are not going to be in patch 1.3, I have went ahead and applied patch 1.2 even though it appears there might be some drawbacks in doing so. I guess I might be seeing backwards flying dragons soon. 🙂
Bethesda needs to be more careful when dealing with the PS3 in the future. No doubt, the PS3 community is going to remember this one for awhile.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 12/7/2011 2:28:01 AM
I already try this temporary fix and every other possible temporary fix that's out there, it still has problems. It's getting so bad that my ps3 actually freezing more than it's ever has. Having to hard reset a lot isn't good at all. I'm going to stop playing till a patch that actually works comes out.
or take it back and get the PC version, a much better solution.
definitely would not disable autosaves though, i mean especially with all the other bugs in the game like clipping.
how infuriating would it be if you lost 2 hours of progress because you magically grew the ability to walk through walls, then magically lost the ability.
happened to me oh so many times!
i just cant understand how bugthesda keeps getting away with this, i mean how can you release one game have these issues, then release 2 other games with the exact same issues?
this was built on a whole new engine, or thats what they tell us.
so why is it using the same structure as the fallout 3 engine?
they could of easily modified the memory management when they were building the engine for this so the save issues present in fallout 3 and NV would not be present.
but they dident, there too lazy, and here we are.
so they have no one to blame but themselves because they could of easily avoided this but were to dam lazy!
if your building a new engine why the ^%$# would you use the same structure you have used in previous games that has given you countless headaches?
seriously!?
Is it really this bad? I can't say I have ever heard these constant problems from any over developer but Bethesda. I remember Fallout 3 would Freeze frequently on my PS3, Probaly the only game that has done this gen. Why is this? Are these games just not built for consoles? Bottom line is this nonsense should have been sorted before the release.
So, play a game without an autosave option? My goodness how nostalgic that is, oh wait, for any JRPG gamer, it's not that nostalgic since we live with the issue of saving at every opportunity since the dreaded 'game over' screen can easily swallow several hours of careful play.
If this is all it takes to work around the issues with Skyrim – manually saving the game frequently – I can't honestly see the issue.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 12/7/2011 10:41:34 AM
If only things were as simple as performing a manual save. The reason PS3 gamers are advised to save and save often in the PS3 version is not only becuase of the lag, but also becuase of the crashes. Once the lag starts the game can lock up at anytime. It can lock up at anytime even when there is not any lag. Pulling up the save menu when it is lagging badly can make the game crash. So your best bet is to save often and try to to get a save off the second you notice the game lag.
I decided to delete my saved game data and just start over. I did try the update last night to see if it helped out on my old saved data but the lag still came back for me eventually. I will continue on my new playthrough, and keep my fingers crossed about a true fix. It's not all bad becuase I want to try some new things in the game. I accidently killed my warrior companion Lydia last time. This time I won't let that happen. I also heard there is a temple in Riften where you can get a pendant that allows you to eventually get married. It will be my first time getting married in a videogame. 🙂
Most of all the major lags got fixed. At least for me and my brother. Occasionally though the game does have a slight lag from hours of play, but nothing that really makes it unplayable. I hate to hear that some others are still experiencing tons of lag and freezing though. Hopefully Bethesda can sort this mess out with the new patch before they get into DLC.
I started having some issues, and while I did everything described here, I also remembered a trick I did for Fallout 3.
I played signed off from the PSN. If any of you are having issues, try that.
So glad I bought the PC version!! *Special thanks to Geobaldi and Oxvial for the input on an earlier post!!
And this is why I don't want to get the ps3 version. I'll wait until i save up enough cash for the pc version.
I shouldn't have to do this to make my game work properly. I'm not playing the game again till that damn patch comes out. If that doesn't work, I might try this, if only to finally be able to play it semi-properly. Although I still won't be happy about it.
Personally on the old games when you had to take the cartridge out and doo all that crap
I went straight for a crazy Witchy Voodoo stuff
and it worked everytime…
So far voodoo hasnt worked on skyrim
atleast not yet