Can Skyrim damage my gaming pc?

Dendio

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I hated oblivion but gave skyrim a shot and love it. I hear about people on pc's and ps3's having lag issues that turn into crashes on save files with long gameplay hours. There is a rumor going around that this problem is due to a memory leak that builds on itself the longer one plays the game. Now I have noticed more lag now than I had at level 1, and I have had a crash to desktop while in mid conversation. Will this memory leak damage my pc through something called thrashing?
Im about 57 hours in.

Thanks
 

King of the Sandbox

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I have no idea what 'thrashing' is, other than rocking out to some hardcore metal, but if a game could damage your PC, I'm sure we'd have heard about it... a lot... by now. Then again, who knows? Maybe you're the flame that lights that powder-keg, but I'd doubt it.
 

Dendio

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Some people on the bethesda forums was saying that thrashing is basically the pc overworking its self to deal with the memory leakage.

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

^ is the guy who thinks that memory leakage is the problem leading to crashes and game lag


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrashing_%28computer_science%29
^ is thrashing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUoDfO1pWto
a vid of the game lag im talking about

it gets ridiculous at times...im lockpicking and lag out of nowhere ( though not at bad as in the vid)
 

King of the Sandbox

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Dendio said:
Some people on the bethesda forums was saying that thrashing is basically the pc overworking its self to deal with the memory leakage.
Hmmm. No Idea. That's why I always play these types of games on console first, so I don't have to worry about such things.

But why wouldn't you ask there? I mean, not trying to be rude, but it seems like you were already there... AND they were talking about it... sooo...
 

Right Hook

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I don't know a ton about this but isn't thrashing just the transfer of too much data? So wouldn't the application crashing end the thrashing? If so I don't see how it could cause any permanent damage once Skyrim is closed.
 

Dendio

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I dont have an account there but i did read many posts. Have an account here and the forums are full of skyrim threads

Figured maybe someone else would have some insight or have seen what im talking about
also checked out the steam forums, which also discussed this

it looks like bethesda isnt going to be fixing this next patch...hopefully after

Good news is that pc gets first dibs

My skyrim has had some oddities and glitches but its still playable, but i dont know if playing is the best thing right now since it apparently worsens the memory leak and may damage the gaming pc according to the linked posts
 

King of the Sandbox

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Dendio said:
I dont have an account there but i did read many posts. Have an account here and the forums are full of skyrim threads

Figured maybe someone else would have some insight or have seen what im talking about
Fair enough. I hope you find something or someone to put your mind at ease. ^_^
 

LordRoyal

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I haven't really noticed very many lag problems.

Sure there is stuttering every so often and occasionally it gets very noticeable. But for the most part not so much.
 

Dendio

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Shotgun Guy said:
I don't know a ton about this but isn't thrashing just the transfer of too much data? So wouldn't the application crashing end the thrashing? If so I don't see how it could cause any permanent damage once Skyrim is closed.
Well people were commenting about memory leaks being a leading cause of hardware wearing out. Just curious about the opinions of my peers on this one.

Edit found a poster response on the bethesda forums:

"Doubtful, it will only force you into a CTD situation (crash to desktop). The culprit is the .exe, not the computer itself. Close the offending .exe and you should be fine (in this case, Skyrim itself). You may have thrashing issues, as we all might have those issues console or PC, which can damage your HDD/SSD I suppose. "

Just a heads up
 

Mr Jack

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Thrashing is what happens when you run out of memory, so the computer stores stuff In the page file instead. The page file will be on your HDD (or SSD) which is much slower than memory. As a result, the disk has to work very hard, resulting in hardware thrashing. This may result in damage to your hard drive. If you have an SSD, I imagines the worst to happen will be reduced performance. If the hard drive access light is blinking constantly during play I would advise that you wait till the issue is fixed.
 

SidingWithTheEnemy

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I know this isn't probably much help, but I'm not having unusual trouble (or some behavioural change in the way my PC works) and I'm playing Skyrim for over 180h. My DualGPU is working hard, but keeps 65° Celsius my Win7 64bit doesn't respond differently and everything else seems fine. (Knock on wood)
Occansionally I'm having pink textures (the first Pink Dragon was pretty gay, I can tell you that), but after relaunching the game they are gone. Nothing unusual thus far.
 

YawningAngel

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Dendio said:
I hated oblivion but gave skyrim a shot and love it. I hear about people on pc's and ps3's having lag issues that turn into crashes on save files with long gameplay hours. There is a rumor going around that this problem is due to a memory leak that builds on itself the longer one plays the game. Now I have noticed more lag now than I had at level 1, and I have had a crash to desktop while in mid conversation. Will this memory leak damage my pc through something called thrashing?
Im about 57 hours in.

Thanks
Open Task Manager while you're playing and tell me how much RAM is being used. While you're at it, tell me how much RAM you have in your system and whether you're on 32 bit.

And no, you should not be able to damage components with non-retarded drivers and specifications just by running a resource-heavy program on them unless the specification says that they can't be used at full load for significant periods of time.

Disclaimer: technically you CAN damage components in this way, but it really shouldn't happen.
 

Dendio

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Mr Jack said:
Thrashing is what happens when you run out of memory, so the computer stores stuff In the page file instead. The page file will be on your HDD (or SSD) which is much slower than memory. As a result, the disk has to work very hard, resulting in hardware thrashing. This may result in damage to your hard drive. If you have an SSD, I imagines the worst to happen will be reduced performance. If the hard drive access light is blinking constantly during play I would advise that you wait till the issue is fixed.
Man I just did some research on that hard drive access light. Thanks for telling me! I do remember seeing it light up but never knew what it was. Most of my lights are blue but the hard drive light is orange when it lights up..does that mean anything? I will definitely pay attention to it when gaming and consider it an indication that my pc could use a break.
 

KarlMonster

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I've used 3 or four different CPUs during the past 10 years. None 'wore out,' all were superseded by better CPUs - and in each case the upgrade was because of problems elsewhere on the motherboard.

I'm curious what sorts of hardware is supposed to wear out from this thrashing. I can't imagine that it would cause heat issues. The last time I had heard of (non-overclocking) CPU heat issues was the last P4 CPUs before Intel worked out the bugs in the 45nm wafer processes.

The areas where wear should be most likely to occur is on the old-school platter HDDs, and SSDs to a much lesser extent. However, I've gone through more HDDs than I can remember from normal use.

You should be backing up your important files anyway. Right?
 

Dendio

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YawningAngel said:
Dendio said:
I hated oblivion but gave skyrim a shot and love it. I hear about people on pc's and ps3's having lag issues that turn into crashes on save files with long gameplay hours. There is a rumor going around that this problem is due to a memory leak that builds on itself the longer one plays the game. Now I have noticed more lag now than I had at level 1, and I have had a crash to desktop while in mid conversation. Will this memory leak damage my pc through something called thrashing?
Im about 57 hours in.

Thanks
Open Task Manager while you're playing and tell me how much RAM is being used. While you're at it, tell me how much RAM you have in your system and whether you're on 32 bit.

And no, you should not be able to damage components with non-retarded drivers and specifications just by running a resource-heavy program on them unless the specification says that they can't be used at full load for significant periods of time.

Disclaimer: technically you CAN damage components in this way, but it really shouldn't happen.
6 gigs of ram windows 7 64 bit
Opening up oblivion...ok just opened it and its reading 725,440
according to the posts traveling to cities and entering homes/dungeons causes the leak

I dont know what to make of those numbers but cheers
 

King of the Sandbox

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Dendio said:
Mr Jack said:
Thrashing is what happens when you run out of memory, so the computer stores stuff In the page file instead. The page file will be on your HDD (or SSD) which is much slower than memory. As a result, the disk has to work very hard, resulting in hardware thrashing. This may result in damage to your hard drive. If you have an SSD, I imagines the worst to happen will be reduced performance. If the hard drive access light is blinking constantly during play I would advise that you wait till the issue is fixed.
Man I just did some research on that hard drive access light. Thanks for telling me! I do remember seeing it light up but never knew what it was. Most of my lights are blue but the hard drive light is orange when it lights up..does that mean anything? I will definitely pay attention to it when gaming and consider it an indication that my pc could use a break.
I'm no techno-wizard, but I think it just indicates that the drive is being accessed. It's not particularly a warning light or anything.
 

taistrv

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Even if the processor has to work harder because of memory leaks (this is likely not the case, more and more memory is being taken up, relying on more and more page file usage) properly cooled, properly volted, non overclocked processors can run indefinitely at 100%. There is no way to over work a computer part being run at manufacturers specs, there are no moving parts, they do not 'wear out' in the traditional sense.

The only part in the chain that thrashing might apply to is indeed the hard drive. As the memory fills up, more and more page file usage is needed, as this is stored on the hard drive, a moving part of the computer, it can lead to wear, but no more then any other read/right operation.

Hope that helped.
 

Lordmurdalot

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yes it can but not in the way you said. It burnt out my motherboard because it put such a strain on my old graphics card it severely over heated. Got a new pc. so yes it can but only if your running on an old pc
 

ResonanceSD

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If it causes you mechanical failure, you need a better PC anyway. what are your specs?