Playing Skyrim on PS3 in 2026

Ajouté : 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Welcome to another video. Now today we're being brave and playing Skyrim on the PS3. This classic cost me just £150, but from what I've read online, it could very well be the worst 150 I've ever spent. This version is infamous for being one of the most technically flawed console ports to date. Though over time, updates have mitigated the absolute worst gamebreaking bugs. From save file bloat to stuttering, and hard freezes, Skyrim PS3 had it all. I said that really weird. It sounded like I was reminiscing about the good times, but honestly, all of my sky [ __ ] was done on the 360 back in the day. So, I've had very little experience with this version until last week. The most documented issue with the PS3 port had to be regarding save file size. The bigger the save, the more overwhelming Skyrim became for the PlayStation's split 512 MGB memory architecture. 256 MGB is reserved for VRAM. So 256 MGB of system RAM has to handle all the game logic, NPC tracking, and world loading.

[00:01:07]Whenever growing save data started to eat into that memory more significantly and jamming things up, performance got worse. These issues weren't exclusive to Skyrim. Fallout New Vegas is apparently the worst offender. Though the sentiment amongst some is that it's best to avoid all Bethesda games on PS3. The notorious complexity of the conso's architecture certainly doesn't help. But that isn't going to stop us. Not today. I'm running the base game here, which has been updated. And from this point on, anytime I play Skyrim, it will be on the PlayStation 3 because I plan to make an update video later in the year after I put over 50 hours into it. that will give us a much better idea of how this port holds up today. But for now, let's play a little bit of Skyrim on the PlayStation 3 and talk about the initial experience.

[00:02:01]So, Skyrim on PS3 and Xbox 360 runs at 720p and targets 30 frames pers, though rarely will it achieve that, especially on the PlayStation 3. This version also looks blurriier than the Xbox 360 release, and that is still noticeable when running on a modern 4K TV. I've played both of them side by side over the past week. The 360 version also performs slightly better from what I've seen. This obviously was ideal. It's quite ironic because the text says, "We're escaping. You're not stopping us this time." Well, actually, the PlayStation 3 itself is stopping us. the whole game just locked up and I had to switch the console off at the back and play through the start of the game again. So, we're finally escaping now.

[00:02:46]As you can see by the frame rate in the top left corner, the game is holding up fairly well so far, but we are indoors.

[00:02:52]Oh man, I used to hate these spiders.

[00:02:54]They still make me a bit itchy now to be honest. Never been a fan of spiders. I only have to see one inside my house and it makes me want to move. So, the color palette is a lot more muted than I remember. not as saturated as the special edition that came out on the PlayStation 4 and whatever the Xbox equivalent console was at the time. That was a more colorful representation. But I have to say I still like how the OG Skyrim looks. There's certainly a charm to it. And I remember at the time the visuals absolutely blowing my mind. As we approach Riverwood now, our frame rate starting to drop a little bit, but it's still holding firm at above 25 FPS, higher than I was expecting to be honest. So, we're on the path to white run now. I forgot how limited this game was in terms of draw distance, but of course, pretty old now. 2011 is when it initially came out. It's just that looking back after playing the PS4 version, and it's quite a surprise to see how limited the detail in the distance is. So, we're going to wipe out these Imperial guards. I spotted a prisoner up ahead. We're going to see if we can release him. I'm like level one still. Haven't done any other side quest so far. I just started making my way to White Run straight away. Am I going to get wiped out or can we kill these guards? Okay, give them a quick bash there. All right, it's going to be a tough fight. A couple more swings with the axe should do it. There we go. There we go. I think there was another one.

[00:04:24]I'm actually playing this without sound because I have it hooked up to OBS via the PC and I don't have my headphones.

[00:04:30]Oh yeah, there's definitely another one some Oh yeah, an archer that I missed.

[00:04:36]Right, so here we are. As we can see on the path to White Run, a lot of bushes and grass and whatnot is popping up straight in front of us. Again, I think this was more noticeable on the PlayStation 3. A lot of frame drops as well in this open area. Let's just do a quick loading screen test. How long is it going to take? Now, we haven't actually progressed that much into the game. I think my current save file is like 2 megabytes, 2.5 megabytes, something like that. But we're so early on, we shouldn't be experiencing any issues. And of course, the game is patched as well. I remember seeing these chickens a hell of a lot back in the day when my loading screen got longer and longer. This brings back so many memories. Discovering White Run for the first time. I must have spent so much time here just doing side quests and walking around and probably at one point just attacking all the villagers as well. So, we're on route to Bleak Falls Barrow. Going to go and try and find the golden claw. This was always one of my favorite parts in the game. Let's just wipe out these bandits here. Oh, I've seen the classic Skyrim helmet there.

[00:05:46]We're going to have to get that. That is absolutely iconic. Let's just wipe this guy out. Look at that for a view. That still holds up really nicely. I still really like the lighting and the weather effects here. Even climbing up towards Bleak Falls Barrow now with the snow, the wind sort of blowing it across the screen. I think it looks great. And here we're actually seeing 30 FPS, something that we haven't really seen at all up until this point. But bear in mind, there is barely anything going on. Yeah, as these enemies start to rush us now, we're going to see some immediate dips to the low 20s there. In fact, I never really played this in third person. I was always a first person person. Oh man, another horrible spider. I'm still such a low level. I'm probably going to get wiped out here. Let's just throw a big fireball at him.

[00:06:36]All right, so a couple of attempts later and we finally wiped it out. I remember this guy as well says he's going to give us the claw and then just runs off. So we're going to blast him with a ball of fire, too. A quick couple of hits with the axe and he's down. The further we make our way into Bleke Falls Barrow, the better the frame rate is actually getting so far anyway because these are indoor levels. And although there are a few enemies popping up on screen, there isn't much to load in the surrounding areas. Even here, we're still getting 30 FPS. As we get into certain rooms or certain little areas, perhaps there's water flowing or a lot of different lighting, like here as a perfect example, then that frame rate might start to dip a little bit. I think it's fire as well. Whenever there's flame or fire effects on the screen, that is when our frame rate starts to dip even further. I haven't played Skyrim properly, as in sat down and played it for a couple of hours in years. So, it's actually really nice to get back into it. Even on PlayStation 3 here, I'm having a really good time so far. And I do hope that with all the patches installed, it's going to run okay or at least let me complete it. Perhaps we can put a good few hours into this without any problems. But like I said at the start, I'm going to try and put at least 50 hours into exclusively on the PS3 and update you as to how well it's running post patches in 2026. Oh, look at that for a finisher. Lovely. All right, so more fire on screen here. We're going to try and wipe out a dragon. Now, this goes back to what I was saying before.

[00:08:10]fire effects on screen and you're going to start seeing perhaps low 20s, maybe even high teens in terms of the frame rate. Uh, dragons of course do breathe fire, so that is not ideal for our frame rate. We're looking at Oh, that was that was quite a dip. What I will say though is that these dips aren't long and drawn out. They're very sudden, quite common in occurrence, but I haven't actually seen any dips yet that are prolonged, like four or 5 seconds of low frame rates. You just get dips of like two or three FPS every so often, and it doesn't honestly feel that bad to play. I've certainly played a lot worse, but we are still pretty early on, and I'll have to keep you up to date with how it goes.

[00:08:54]But that is Skyrim on the PS3. Another lovely scene here to end the video. Let me know if you played this back in the day on this console and if so, did you experience the performance issues? Thank you as always for watching and I'll see you soon with another PC hardware video.