It appears the memory and lag problems that many PS3 users who’ve played Skyrim for a prolonged period of time are unlikely to get a permanent solution. This can be deduced after reading through a developer’s clarification who’s worked on New Vegas explaining the problem.

For the uninitiated, Fallout: New Vegas- another title produced by Bethesda suffered from the same framerate drops and lag issues as their newest title The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is.

Answering a question from a user who’s faced a similar lag problem in New Vegas after his save file went up to 14 megs, the developer said that it’s a major problem, especially on the PS3, offering the following explanation.

That can easily be a big problem, especially if you’re on the PS3. The longer you play a character, the more bit differences on objects (characters, pencils on tables, containers, etc.) get saved off and carried around in memory. I think we’ve seen save games that are pushing 19 megs, which can be really crippling in some areas.

Since you’re a developer, you should understand the implication of what I wrote. It’s an engine-level issue with how the save game data is stored off as bit flag differences compared to the placed instances in the main .esm + DLC .esms. As the game modifies any placed instance of an object, those changes are stored off into what is essentially another .esm. When you load the save game, you’re loading all of those differences into resident memory.

It’s not like someone wrote a function and put a decimal point in the wrong place or declared something as a float when it should have been an int. We’re talking about how the engine fundamentally saves off and references data at run time. Restructuring how that works would require a large time commitment. Obsidian also only had that engine for a total of 18 months prior to F:NV being released, which is a relatively short time to understand all of the details of how the technology works.

He further confirmed that these problems are only common with PS3 users as the console has a divided memory pool.

As with Fallout 3 and Skyrim, the problems are most pronounced on the PS3 because the PS3 has a divided memory pool.

it affects all plataforms, more so on ps3.

From your own article...

"He further confirmed that these problems are only common with PS3 users as the console has a divided memory pool"

Also, Runs fine on my PC....Quit trying to get a rise out of people.

Runs fine on my PC. Big boy games like Skyrim should never have been made console anyway.

Right in our own backyards, people get murdered, raped, looted. Abused and mutilated. People do drugs, hate, spread prejudice and lies. The world has many problems. DON'T GET WORKED UP OVER A CODING ISSUE IN A VIDEO GAME. There are better things to fight against and get angry over. Bethesda doesn't need to be ashamed over making a product a lot of people enjoy. The guys who invented things like parachute pants and medieval iron maidens should be ashamed.

If we took all the anger, hate, and annoyance on the internet and used it to fuel spacecraft we could have made it to Kepler-22B yesterday.

Thank you and good night

Right in our own backyards, people get murdered, raped, looted. Abused and mutilated. People do drugs, hate, spread prejudice and lies. The world has many problems. DON'T GET WORKED UP OVER A CODING ISSUE IN A VIDEO GAME. There are better things to fight against and get angry over. Bethesda doesn't need to be ashamed over making a product a lot of people enjoy. The guys who invented things like parachute pants and medieval iron maidens should be ashamed.

If we took all the anger, hate, and annoyance on the internet and used it to fuel spacecraft we could have made it to Kepler-22B yesterday.

Thank you and good night

The solution is to stay away from the PS3

Well, by that logic, Simhq really holds no relevance for you because most threads here are about video games, and not the problems of the world. Maybe you should find another place to post, or stick to the WCE forum?

Updated 12/6: While the 1.2 update fixed the long-term play issues for most PS3 users, we are aware that is not the case for some. We’ve been reaching out to a number of those users to collect save games, so we can take a look at their specific issues. Right now we know it’s not one thing, but a combination of smaller ones that some folks are seeing, but others are not. Some seem to be the PS3 autosaving in the background (you can turn that off), some may be SPU AI updates, and some may relate to dynamic system memory allocation. These fixes are not in the current 1.3 update that is in final testing, but will be in future ones. We understand how frustrating it can be when your game is having issues, and we thank all of you for your continued feedback and patience. Rest assured we take your gameplay experience seriously and will continue working on this until it’s resolved

what is a ps3? It runs great on my ASUS PC. everything else is irrelevant...

I have had no problems on my ps3... I much rather play this on my large TV and home theater. I find it to be a more visceral experience.