According to A developer who worked on Fallout New Vegas, the lag issues in the PS3 version of Skyrim are intrinsic to both the game’s engine, and the way that the PS3 has to handle so much gosh darn data with its split memory pool.
Bethesda says that’s nonsense.
Bethesda’s Pete Hines had this to say of the dev’s claims:
“No, it isn’t true. He brings up issues we solved long ago.”
“Josh Sawyer did not work on Skyrim nor this engine and his comments don’t reflect how the current tech works,” he added on Twitter, spotted by OPM
At this point, I don’t think PS3 players give a flying fiddle what the issues are caused by, just so long as they get fixed, and soon. The situation as it stands right now really is inexcusable.
In the mean time, Bethesda’s suggested the following for struggling PS3 gamers who’re waiting for the issue to be resolved.
As we continue to work on updates for PS3 (as well as Xbox 360 and PC), here are some helpful pointers that can help the game’s performance.
- Turn off auto saves. This can cause temporary stuttering since the PS3 saves these files in the background. This is most noticeable with large saves when fast traveling to a new area or entering a new area that auto saves.
- Clear space on your hard drive. Skyrim makes heavy use of the hard drive, and freeing up space on here seems to help many people. Hard drive speeds also differ in PS3 models. Some users have reported increase performance by upgrading their drives.
- Waiting for time to pass. Many things are running in the world depending on what quests you’ve done or places you have visited. Using Wait or Rest options, passing time will clear up some of these. It depends how long you wait, it may take up to 30 days for some items. Saving, resetting, and loading after this will have the largest effect.
Last Updated: December 8, 2011
