This is not your typical "OH NOES! GAME IS CRASHING!" thread. Please read fully and see if you can offer actual, meaningful advice.

Now, I've gotten used to the game locking up on me, requiring me to turn off the PS3 and turn it back on. It svcks, but I enjoy the game and it doesn't happen nearly enough to truly disrupt the game experience for me (perhaps once or twice in a 3-4+ hour game session). However, it's happened enough for me to try and figure out what's going on and why it's slows to a crawl and freezes up. And here's what I've noticed:

1) It's happening more as the game progresses. Whether it's the environments I'm in, or the actions going on or what, I don't know. But I'm pretty far into the game... level 30, have done TONS of side quests and visited EVERY place on the map. My save file is close to 1 GB and I've noticed it's gotten bigger as I've gotten further into the game (not surprisingly).

2) It happens more when I'm in 3rd person than in 1st person. Probably not a significantly greater amount, but still.

3) Happens when I'm running.

4) Happens when the scenery is loading/people are being inserted into the scene, etc

5) Lately, has happened when I tried to loot the bodies of enemies. The game chugs to a near stop. Pause and PS buttons lead to a big lag before the menus pop up.

All this has led me to believe that a lot of this happens when the game or the PS3 has too much going on, rather than some actual bug or glitch in the exact spot of the game's code. So, if I enter into Freeside (where I experience a lot of freezing, IMO), the game is auto-saving, and if I start running in 3rd person, while the game is also loading the environment, the atmosphere (smoke and fire) and the people...well... not surprising that the game crashes, is it?

Anyway this brings me to my actual question... is there any way to maybe turn down the graphical settings? I know you can do color or brightness, but to maybe make it so the game isn't trying to render too many things at once? I honestly wouldn't mind if the environment in the far distance wasn't in high resolution, if that meant my game didn't crash so much.

Otherwise, I'll have to stick with my temporary solution of running with a rifle to slow myself down, and pausing every few seconds to let the game/PS3 catch-up.

It's also related to the size of your save file. I kid you not. The bigger it gets, the more hickups/crashes you'll get to see.