1. Plug a USB stick or any sort of generic mass-storage device into your PS3 and copy your saved-games.

2. Go to [Playstation Network] -> [Sign In] -> [Account Management] -> [System Activation] -> (Game) -> (Deactivate System).

3. Go to [Settings] -> [System Settings] -> [Restore PS3 System].

4. Choose (Quick Format).

-- Once you're back inside the XMB --

5. Follow [Step #2] above again; choose (Activate System) this time.

6. Go to [Playstation Network] -> [Account Management] -> [Transaction History] -> [Download List] -> re-download your game DLC and install it.

7. Insert your F:NV game disc and let the game download the Official Patch. Afterwards it will immediately install the F:NV "Game Data" onto your PS3 HDD.

8. Quit the game and return to the XMB; plug in your USB stick and copy over your F:NV saved-games.

9. Go to [Settings] -> [Network Settings] and (Disable) the Internet Connection, then (Disable) the Media Server Connection.

10. Go to [Settings] -> [Power Save] and (Turn Off) both System and Controller Auto-Off features.

11. Go to [Settings] -> [Display] and (Disable) the Automatic Screensaver.

12. Go to [Settings] -> [Date and Time Settings] and (Disable) the Automatic Time Update.

13. Go to [Settings] -> [System Settings] and (Disable) the [Display: What's New] feature; (Disable) the [Disc Auto-Start] function; (Disable) the [Notification Messages] feature and (Delete) the [Predictive Text Dictionary].

14. Go to [Settings] -> [Accessory Settings] and (Disable) the Controller Vibration function.

15. Start F:NV and load your saved-game, (it wil NOT display any sort of "missing content" warning if you followed each step properly); use the in-game WAIT command and let thirty (30) in-game days pass so that the Map Cells can cycle fully, In fact, this step alone usually shaves 100kb - 500kb off of the Save-Size.

16. (You should ALWAYS use the Create New Save option. Never save over previous saves). Save your game and Turn Off your PS3 system.

17. Enter the PS3 Safe-Mode (incredibly easy and takes less than 5 seconds to do, but to keep this a bit shorter refer to Printed Manual that came with your PS3 Console and/or visit the Official Sony PS3 website); choose the [Restore File System] option let it finish (same as Check Disck function in Windows), and lastly (you must re-enter Safe-Mode one final time) choose the [Rebuild Index Database] option and let it finish. Note: Neither of these options affects anything already stored nor do they delete any game-related data.

Enjoy lag-free, freeze-free, slowdown-free play with one of the truly best RPGs ever made!

(100% sincere; the fact that I do not mind in the least doing this procedure once every 3-4 MB's of Save-Size should be enough to prove that I truly believe this is one of the best video-games ever made).

OPTIONAL FINAL STEP THAT WILL PRETTY MUCH GUARANTEE HOURS OF CONTINUOUS GAME PLAY WITHOUT YOUR PS3 RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY AND FREEZING:

1a. Buy any SSD HDD and use that instead of the factory-default HDD pre-installed with your PS3 Console. Halves F:NV loading times and by itself eliminates (non-professional guesstimate) around 40-50% of the performance issues in Bethesda/Gamebryo Engine games.

2b. Play F:NV with only one (1) companion instead of two (2). Josh Sawyer himself has stated in Formspring that your companions are the single biggest system-memory and system-resource hogs out of all the possible things that might be going on at any given moment of gameplay.

I choose to still travel with two (2) companions... since I own an SSD HDD and I do every step in this guide once a month or so I rarely need to stop playing due to performance issues. When I stop playing the game it's usually because I have to go to work or because it's my girlfriend's turn to play. Nice change of pace, eh?

I just did the steps outlined above (literally, just now) and my girlfriend's saved-game which was at 11.3 MB's shrunk down to 10.1 MB's. The difference with in-game performance, such as speed of Pip-Boy usage and Inventory Management is amazing.

P.D. Forgot to mention:

- Lower the [Radio Volume] in the F:NV game settings to zero (0). The Radio Music/Stations should always be turned off as they are another memory/resource-hog for the PS3.

Thank you for reading and I hope this will help you gamers and fellow Fallout series lovers out there enjoy this great game even after your save file crosses the 10 MB barrier. It took me many, MANY hours of testing and fiddling and, I can't lie, reading on these very forums and on the Wikia in order to compile this guide. I cannot guarantee that your game will not GLITCH on your due to bad code or misfiring scripts, but I can assure you that if you follow every step on this guide, and especially if you buy an SSD HDD: your PS3 copy of F:NV will NOT freeze or slow down due to the console's horrible memory architecture.

P.D.D. Forgot to mention:

- The Singles-Most-Important-Step (!): TURN OFF AUTO-SAVES. All of them. Use only manual saving. Always!

Would this also work for the Ultimate Edition?

The Reason I am asking is because your solution appears to be for F:NV the normal version and not the Ultimate but I will give your solution a try along with a few tips from another member about reducing the number of lags you get

Tried to do this with UE but it will not let me back up my save games. This is the case with 90% of the save games on my ps3 and I'm not willing to lose all those saved games to get one game to work. PSN plus cloud saving is out of the question because the space allotted is far too small to get at least one save from every game I'd like saved. Thanks for the guide though. Maybe if I get too fed up with the slowdown and hourly freezes I'll consider this again.

Is OP still around? If so, I'm wondering if just replacing the HDD wih a SSD would fix most of the issues without going through the whole reset process?

I cant get past a 5MB gamesave without it [censored]ting it'self
i play on a 160GB HD
i have over 90 unused GB
Dis [censored] is unacceptable

Is the "Official Guide" part of this title "official"? does this have some source within Bethesda?

While I have not reformatted my HD, I have done the "delete game data and re-install thing" to NO avail. Had exactly the same behavior but I am desperate enough to try these steps once. It is quite a lot to do, basically reformatting and rebuilding your PS3 from scratch routinely. Downloading the DLC can take a long time due to PSN slowness and easily go over night, so this is a several hour to full day turnaround. Just to play a game.

As far as the SSD: a eurogamer article (can't post links) indicates a clear advantage on an un-patched Skyrim.

Post-patch, performance difference disappear. My guess is FNV has exactly the same problems as Skyrim, but with Skyrim they actually fixed some/most of it, so FNV is like the unpatched Skyrim and the SSD may help.

Further line of reasoning is the lags have all the appearance of a memory leak(s). Behavior is fine upon first load. But as NPCs transition in a busy area or you move from area to area (fast travel, go through a door, ... ), FPS noticeably and permanently slows. At the same time disk activity increases. With each transition the FPS steps down and the disk activity steps up. It is almost certain the software has a memory manager that swaps areas of physical memory that are less likely to be accessed to disk to make room for things that are right in your face, a common software "trick" to make the main game think it has more memory to work with than it does. But due to programming error, physical memory is leaked on each transition to a new area, until after some number of transitions it is gone and the game crashes. At each area transition more disk is utilized to make up with the disappearing physical memory. The slowdown, is most likely just due to the game running at "hard drive speed" instead of "physical memory speed" which is orders of magnitude slower.

Given the above, It seems like an SSD may be able to offer a less severe slowdown but it would not fix the problem. At some point the physical memory all leaks out and the game dies. But it is enough for me to try it, I always wanted to see what it would do. Even though I've seen some online reviews that show it does almost nothing for many games.