Skyrim Issues? Duh, of course, but has the smoking gun finally been found?

[Euphoria14]

Alright, it seems that a forum goer may have figured out what Bethesda for some unknown reason could not.

A Memory Leak.

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DISCLAIMER: I admittedly have no established programming skills, only what I've learned by being an avid gamer, and realize this is basically all conjecture at the moment. I'm not in any way claiming to know the cure-all, and I certainly don't deserve any credit for any fixes down the road by Bethesda, nor credit by users on this forum or otherwise. I love the Elder Scrolls series as much as the next person and I'm only trying to conduct some cause-and-effect research to see if I can't somehow help Bethesda narrow down the issues that exhibit CTD or lag. Apologies if I am inarticulate as compared to true programmers, if things are slightly obscure to you, or if I am otherwise deficient in your eyes. I didn't realize this thread would become such big news as it has and I certainly don't want any recognition associated with it. Thus, please remember I'm only trying to help and please stop sending me mass hate mail telling me I'm a [censored]... Cheers.

Bethesda,

The Large Address Aware fix (LAA) seems to have completely alleviated any issues after a 15-hour test (breaks in between, but .exe remaining running in background) pushing from 2GB Ram limitation to a 64OS, Intel Core i7, 16 GB DDR3 Ram setup (graphic card is a 100314SR Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit X2 ). The game CTDs regularly without LAA after pushing near the 2GB mark as identified by task manager. It pushes to 2GB with regular zone transitions in and out of dungeons (seems to hold stable in the overworld, for the most part). I know another poster speculates that the dungeons do not refresh. I didn't kill anything in the dungeons, merely entered and exited and did this with several such dungeons and noticed regular increases to memory use in the task manager. Whats funny, is after going into 10-15 dungeons the memory use increase in the Whiterun barrens regardless of anything I'm doing. I had the character run around in wide circles avoiding wildlife, but encountering a dragon, and the memory use increased by 400Kb for seemingly no reason—I did "encounter" three new territories, including the cave in the middle of the barrens with the cavebear, the giant's hangout near the south mountains, and the cave with the Akivri (spelling). Pushing the LAA fix, the most the memory usage pushed up to was approximately 3.8 GB after repeatedly entering dungeons and exiting.... I also rested in the overworld for 30 days and then 60 only to see the memory use drop a marginal 100kb. Tested several dungeons and none reset (because I didn't kill anything, all I did was dump some weapons in chests/floor and knock a few items around near the entrances, they remained except for one dungeon that appeared to reset to my character's level—I don't know why, I think it may have been a misc quest target) The LAA completely stabilizes CTD issues, but I think this may be a bandaid in that the memory never maxes out within the game (3.8/15.6 GB is the most I saw).

If these issues are similar to the Xbox/PS3, I think you definitely have a memory leak on your hands that would seemingly be MASKED (not cured) by use of a SSD or LAA fix (console/pc).

Hope this steers you in the right direction.

EDIT ON "SAVE FILE" SIZE CONCERN: I don't believe the issue to be the size of the save file. It makes sense that the save file on PS3 should increase with world participation—which wouldn't directly equal using virtual/cache memory of the PS3 whereby issues seem alleviated by the use of a SSD. Instead, I think the Save File Size concern is a sufficient proxy for finding a memory leak in that the larger your save file, the more world participation, and thus the more likely you've stumbled into a situation triggering a memory leak. Note that the save file size is not time related, but participation related. If you stand in Skyrim doing nothing for 50 hours, the save file remains the same and there is no discernable lag.... It's world participation, presenting more opportunity for causing memory leakage (whereby the save file size represents world participation).

EDIT SPECULATION ON WHY 360 DOESN'T LAG: Because the Xbox 360 has 512MB RAM in comparison to PS3 of 256MB, it causes freezing rather than lag because virtual memory is not accessed as early. Essentially, when the memory leak pushes the threshold to the limit, the system merely freezes. This would be the same with the PC which is artifically capped at 2GB RAM without LAA. However, the PS3 must access virtual memory earlier than the other two systems, thus, we sit in the realm of virtual memory which would essentially abrogate any threshold. You don't hit 512MB or 2GB and merely CTD or freeze at that point. Instead, you are in the realm of virtual memory whereby you can keep increasing total memory usage, theoretically, to a point where the PS3 simply cannot access the HDD fast enough—resulting in lag rather than crashing. This explains why the SSD seems to alleviate the issue for awhile, but it would still hit a point somewhere where the PS3 can't access fast enough. Thus, all suffer from the same memory leak issue, but have different resulting effects due to the early access of virtual memory on the PS3 (skipping the theoretical threshold of 360 and PC)... I'm not a computer mastermind, so note this is pure speculation.

EDIT: In fact, this makes sense. Rebooting the system will clear the memory out temporarily, but entering-exiting dungeons, tossing items around, mass-killing villagers, etc. would invariably increase the memory issues yet again. It's just an artificial limit that, once reached, equals lag or CTD. The time element is relevant only in how long it takes players to influence the game world to a degree that the memory maxes out. It should be dumping irrelevant information and yet doesn't, for some reason, and thus causes issues. I'd encourage people to try and do everything in their power to tax the system's memory (cause havoc) and see if this doesn't pan out. Restart the game, and see if the intervals between CTD or lag get shorter and shorter as the residual memory increase... Eventually, with 1,000s of items, dungeons enter-exited, etc. you should be running into the issues far quicker. This also makes sense why some experience it more than others, everyone has different pack-rat tendencies. Something, somewhere, in the game refuses to be properly released back to the OS. Memory leaks are the leading cause of software aging, which is what everyone seems to agree is happening given their descriptions—If I were you Bethesda, I'd start there... Trying to monitor people's play tendencies (like a heat map) and see if you can't spot the leak (or leaks) that way. If it is truly variable, where not everyone has the issue, then a behavior chart (sorta like a heat map) should show you where the memory refuses to be released in that given situation. You need reproducible sequences of information to detect the presence of dormant memory leaks. If a heat map detects faults in the building of a game map, a heat map of player tendencies in relation to the creation of lag-inducing events would likewise point to programming faults.

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1298690-confirmation-of-memory-leak/