I now have Skyrim, Dawnguard and Dragonborn installed on my PS3. They are currently the only things on it.

The problem is I've noticed my savegame is lagging terribly even after 20 minutes or so of play. The only thing that seems to temporairly fix this is restarting the ps3. I have a feeling this is due to the amount of time I've been playing the game which causes a lot of memory to be used remembering completed quests, items etc.

When I start a fresh game it seems to run smoothly in skyrim or solthsteim as it should, however my actual savegame running so slow is really annoying me as the lag makes the game unplayable at times. Bethesda obviously think this is acceptable and quite pathetically are unable to fix it even after 3 long years.

Can anyone please offer any advice on how I can speed up my game? I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling skyrim and the 2 dlcs and also creating a new savegame slot to no avail. I have heard that sometimes by waiting 30 days in game, then saving to a new slot before turning the ps3 on and off again and loading that savegame will help. Has anyone tried anything similar?

Thanks.

I used to have this problem as well. By the time I was playing for an hour, my game is running laggy as hell.

My advice is to create a new save file every time you save. My theory is that save over your older saves stacks unnecessary data on top of itself that maybe your save file doesn't need anymore. IDK if that entirely true or how to check it but ever since I started doing this, it has run better as a whole. The trick is to start a new game doing saves this way. If you ever saved over an older save, even a new save file will act the same.

How large are your save files? It could just be that your particular playthrough has a pile of bloated data in it. That was one of the very first issues patched by Bethesda after release, but you might have a related issue depending on how old your current character is.

Make a new save every time. Periodically go trough and delete old saves. Never reload from in game. Always reboot if you are going to reload. This is because Skyrim does not completely clear the memory when reloading from in game, which can lead to corruption.

In addition to following the above protocols, another thing I did with my PS3 was install an SSD. That significantly reduced load times and lag.

Thanks SkyMirror. Yes I pretty much do that already unfortunately. Not every single time but perhaps that is worth a try.

Thanks Breves. My current character is a few months old but was started on the latest patch and has done pretty much every quest on skyrim and dawnguard. The save files are currently 15 megabytes which seems pretty big to me.

Firstly, the 15 mb is a key sign your save file is somewhat unstable. It svcks, it really does.

Seriously do it every single time going forward. Before I start Skyrim up now, I go through and delete most of the saves from the session before. I of course save a few saves before to insure my game but other than that, I'm constantly saving new files and cleaning up old ones.

Also, if your PS3 is older, it may be killing itself just to run Skyrim. Just another idea.

Hey Gazz,

I'd suggest doing a hard save of your game (save to a new slot) and the go into one of your houses and wait for 30 days (30 x 24 hours). 30 days should be enough time for the various cells in your game to reset (random cups on the ground, weapons from dead bandits lying around, etc...). Then do another hard save of your game and compare the size of the file. If it's dropped significantly in size and your game perks up, then she was just likely a save bloat issue.

Thanks Turija. Problem is I've already got to the point where I am now. Is there anything I can do to speed up my current save game do you know? Do you happen to know if waiting 30 days will help as I've read?

That may help some if the problem is save bloat since it should reset all the cells. Problem is a lot of stuff in Skyrim does not clean up properly when the cells reset. But it couldn't hurt to give it a try.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Respawn

That'll give you an idea of the respawn/reset schedule for Skyrim. 30 days-worth of time in an isolated cell should clear out the majority of the clutter in your game.

Thanks Breves. I'll try it now and let you know.

Turn off autosaves and use hard saves, creating a new save each time and deleting old saves. Also playing janitor and picking up loose weapons then storing them in dead bodies helps keep save bloat down.

That's a new tip for me. Hopefully my files never get this bad but in case they do, I can try cleaning up my game.... quite literally.

It's a well known tip for old tyme players. The problem of clutter items bloating your savegame existed in prior games as well. There is a mod for Oblivion that automatically cleans stuff up like loose weapons and shields, and certain junk that the player drops or repositions (i.e., bumps into), so you don't have to worry about it.

ha well you don't have to pick up everything that's lying around but if an enemy dies and the weapon isn't attached to their body then that will add to file size. The way to tell if it's detached is if you can pick it up freely, if it's still attached to them (even if it's loose away from their body) then it will respond the same as their body when you highlight it or click it.

I don't go crazy cleaning my game but I never drop any unwanted items while adventuring, I'll store them in the dead bodies of something that I just killed or a respawning container.