Dev explains why Skyrim lag wont get fixed.

[Deathninja19]

All true, but in the grand scheme of things: If Bethesda is unwilling to make the game work properly on the PS3, then they should not have released it on the PS3.

No one is saying that Bethesda is obligated to release their games on the PS3. They always had the option to not release a broken game on the PS3 and that is the option they should have taken.

True, but then there would be a hoard of people with pitchforks and torches clamoring for Bethesda to be flayed alive for not releasing it on the PS3.

Better that than having a hoard of people with pitchforks and torches angry because they can't play their new $60 game. In the first case, there are no legal issues, in this case though...there may be a class action in the future.

Agreed, then again its playable up to 60 hours right, im guessing people will go for the work around now that they now how to approach it.

More like 20 hours before the lag sets in for the average user. By 60 hours I would think you would mailing your PS3 to Sony. They say that once the lagging becomes noticeable, you should stop playing or it could damage the PS3. I guess constant streaming from the HDD can cause overheating as well as HDD issues.

I thought it was with cumulative gametime and saves, this also happens if you play for 20 hours straight?

In some cases but in mine it happened around 40 hours maybe and while turning it off after about 2 hours got rid of the lag first it kept coming back sooner and sooner turning it off no longer worked and eventually made the game unplayable in cities and the open world.

This bug is kinda weird because people seem to have different experiences with it but it always leads to the same frame rate issues.

 

[Exterminas]

This issue has been around since Morrowind, for christs sake.

Why would they not simply fix it by telling the engine to stop remembering that you dropped an apple in dungeon X after a week of ingame time?

The zones where players can be expected to stash their loot are fairly limited. (Houses, mainly)

 

[thahat]

Ha ha! 8 GB of RAM on my PC. Try and lag me now, sucker! Or, at least try when I get Skyrim for Christmas...

-give you an 8 GB high 5-
home build pc ? jeah those saves will have to get quite ludecrous to slow us down, question though, the 2gyg skylight wont that kill the game before it even starts lagging for us XD? seeing as this is, well, simple put a memory leak XD?

 

[Epona]

All true, but in the grand scheme of things: If Bethesda is unwilling to make the game work properly on the PS3, then they should not have released it on the PS3.

No one is saying that Bethesda is obligated to release their games on the PS3. They always had the option to not release a broken game on the PS3 and that is the option they should have taken.

True, but then there would be a hoard of people with pitchforks and torches clamoring for Bethesda to be flayed alive for not releasing it on the PS3.

Better that than having a hoard of people with pitchforks and torches angry because they can't play their new $60 game. In the first case, there are no legal issues, in this case though...there may be a class action in the future.

Agreed, then again its playable up to 60 hours right, im guessing people will go for the work around now that they now how to approach it.

More like 20 hours before the lag sets in for the average user. By 60 hours I would think you would mailing your PS3 to Sony. They say that once the lagging becomes noticeable, you should stop playing or it could damage the PS3. I guess constant streaming from the HDD can cause overheating as well as HDD issues.

I thought it was with cumulative gametime and saves, this also happens if you play for 20 hours straight?

Not even straight, just 20 hours into your game. I started having serious issues 10-12 hours in and quit playing shortly after. The average, I read, is about 20 hours before the game becomes a slide show. Keep trying to play it like that and you could lose you entire PS3 or so I have read on other forums.

Now that really is a game breaking issue, if enough people forcibly bricked their systems via the game, then there really would be a valid case against Bethesda.

Not really, there have been a few games that cooked PS3's. I remember it happening with Final Fantasy XIII, people complained, blamed it on Square-Enix, SE blamed it on Sony and Sony said it was just old and dying PS3's and they both swept it under the rug. No one really knows for sure if Final Fantasy XIII was a console killer or not. Same thing would probably happen here.

However, a class action for selling a broken game without offering a refund to those affected may be possible.

 

[Anthony Wells]

i play games for the story as well. thats the whole reason i actually bought modern warfare 3. to finish up the story. and look for other comments i have made cause i already conceded that you have a right to complain and so on and so forth. plus im biased against it cause it distracts me. i do plan on finishing skyrim for its story..also using final fantasy 7 as an example...i hate that game with such a passion that anyone who uses it in the same paragraph as one of my favorites....sorry that game is just such a sore spot for me. while i personally dont have a problem with skyrim especially since it doesnt lag very much. but you may very well have a horrible lag that wont let you complete it so there ya go everyone else speaks out of term about it and so do i apparently so you win you do have a right to be mad you are right but if i complained about it i would be wrong.

Dude I'm not harshing on your right to complain about the complainers, you can have your opinions but I thought you were wrong so I told you how I felt. There is no winners and losers here this is about the rights of consumers being sold a faulty product. I agree that while I was playing I was having a blast but then the bug happened it basically ruined my experience to the point that when I look back on my time with the game all I can feel is anger that I wasted all of that time and money.

ah i see. yeah i feel for you and hope they fix it. no one should not be able to play their game. we both have differing opinions on it i think its a little extreme to see it all as wasted time since if they do fix it it wont be. but i can see how it would make one very very angry.

 

[Phoenixlight]

Ha ha! 8 GB of RAM on my PC. Try and lag me now, sucker! Or, at least try when I get Skyrim for Christmas...

EDIT: Ergh, okay, okay, I get it. Skyrim is capped at 2GB. Everyone can stop quoting me about it now. Jeez!

There's a mod to let you use 4GB of RAM in Skyrim
http://n4g.com/news/892959/skyrim-fans-rejoice-here-is-a-4gb-tool-that-is-compatible-with-skyrims-latest-drm-version

Also, does anyone know much much RAM the PS3 has for processing?

 

[Treblaine]

I think considering how bloody long they spent on Killzone 2 it might have looked better on 360.

Are you serious? I though KZ2 was one of the best looking games ive ever seen

Are YOU serious? Killzone had some terrible textures and those faces:

Spoiler

I fail to see what is so wrong with those faces.

Ah well. I guess beauty IS in the eye of the beholder.

To me the face at the top from Killzone 3 looks horribly flat and low detail, it just doesn't look right. And as someone who is studying games development in college I can identify that they are clearly working within greater limitations of the system.

That and look at his armour! Super-low textures there, you can see what should be defined ridges smeared over the model as if its operating from a 128x128 bitmap. A HIGHLY compressed bitmap at that!

And this is a bit jarring for me to find in a video game from 2011 specially made for supposedly the most powerful console of this generation, when a whole 7 years earlier in 2004 we had faces like this to set the standard:

Spoiler

That's Two Thousands and FOUR! Three years before the PS3 would even be available to purchase in UK.

And don't get me started on animation. So intricate and complex in 2004's Half Life 2 yet simplistic in 2011's Killzone 3.

 

[faefrost]

I read Digital Foundry's analysis [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-ps3-skyrim-lag] of this problem on the PS3 and it's pretty bad, dropping to 0FPS at times, but apparently if you only play for a maximum of 30 minutes then save and restart your PS3, the game is just about playable.

On the bright side, since the game and engine is fundamentally broken and can't be fixed (and it will just get worse and the game progresses and more content is added), anyone who bought it for the PS3 should be entitled to a full refund (under UK law and the Sales of Goods Act, Skyrim on the PS3 is technically "unfit for purpose").

Considering that these issues have existed since FO3, why have Bethesda 1) not fixed it. or 2) bothered porting the game to the ps3 when they know that the way their game works will almost definatly cause the game to degrade to a point of unplayability?

I think the reason they haven't fix it is because they can't. Todd Howard has admitted there are some things about their engine that they just can't figure out or fix, so instead they just avoid the problem (e.g. they couldn't get ladders to work, so there are no usable ladders in their games).

As for why they bothered to release it on the PS3 in such a broken state, perhaps it just didn't get picked up by the QA team. After all, the problem only manifests after a substantial amount of time and the QA team were doing 2 hour speedruns.

You can't really expect them to test a game for as long as any customer might play it, not when they had so much to do in so little time. Remember Skyrim had to be released on all 3 platform on 11/11/11 otherwise it wouldn't be special.

That article is a very interesting read, since it gives a better explanation that i did, ive edited it into my first post just incase people dont see your post.

And okay, they cant test the game as much as millions of players can at home, but surely if this would have come up? It took me 20 hours to get my save to 6Mb (reportedly the point at which problems start happening).. surely someone must have played for at least 20 hours?
And even if they didnt these problems have been recurring since FO3. My Ps3 Goty FO3 (wow alot of acronyms there) save file ended up somewhere in the region of 24mb, and alot of the DLCs i had to struggle through at 10fps (i was determined to play what i had paid for)

If they cant fix or change the engine to solve this problem, they really shouldnt be selling a broken game.

It may be as simple as slight differences in the Platforms that they use when they do internal testing. Do they use PS3 development units or actual production units. And more specifically, as part of their testing environment how likely is it that they swap various hard drives with test builds etc in and out?

here's why I ask. I am running on a PS3. My save file is 13 Mb. I get virtually no lag or fps drops. Just some very minor stutters right after zoning into a city after an extended playsession (6+ hours of the game running). The weird thing about my PS3. I had swapped out the stock Hard Drive for a larger 7200 RPM one some time back. The PS3 makes up for that restricted memory pool by paging against the hard drive. A faster Hard Drive data path lets it do that faster and possibly as a result less lag and frame drops in Skyrim.

I think the Obsidian dev may be talking about a piece of the puzzle. But I don't think it is the entirety of it. I also still think that there is a memory leak in there somewhere. The fact that play seems to deteriorate over the time of a playsession and not just overall game/save life seems to hint towards that.

 

[JET1971]

To all those having trouble, I'd recommend limiting plays to less than an hour. If you want to go over, restart your system every hour or so. Its annoying, but it should help a little. Just imagine you are playing the PC version and crashing to desktop or something.

Well thats a workaround, and i can say my game on PC does have the crash to desktop issue and it seems auto save related for the most part Ive gotten used to saving before zoning. but it also happens at odd times for no apparent reason when just exploring the countryside so I save often while traveling.

 

[Deathninja19]

i play games for the story as well. thats the whole reason i actually bought modern warfare 3. to finish up the story. and look for other comments i have made cause i already conceded that you have a right to complain and so on and so forth. plus im biased against it cause it distracts me. i do plan on finishing skyrim for its story..also using final fantasy 7 as an example...i hate that game with such a passion that anyone who uses it in the same paragraph as one of my favorites....sorry that game is just such a sore spot for me. while i personally dont have a problem with skyrim especially since it doesnt lag very much. but you may very well have a horrible lag that wont let you complete it so there ya go everyone else speaks out of term about it and so do i apparently so you win you do have a right to be mad you are right but if i complained about it i would be wrong.

Dude I'm not harshing on your right to complain about the complainers, you can have your opinions but I thought you were wrong so I told you how I felt. There is no winners and losers here this is about the rights of consumers being sold a faulty product. I agree that while I was playing I was having a blast but then the bug happened it basically ruined my experience to the point that when I look back on my time with the game all I can feel is anger that I wasted all of that time and money.

ah i see. yeah i feel for you and hope they fix it. no one should not be able to play their game. we both have differing opinions on it i think its a little extreme to see it all as wasted time since if they do fix it it wont be. but i can see how it would make one very very angry.

Yeah it wasn't wasted time as I did have fun but this experience made me feel that it was. It's not the same but it kind of feels like when you break up with someone badly and that kind of affects your memory of the relationship. I loved the game but I just cannot belive that Bethesda is getting away with selling a faulty product with the majority of people either ignoring it or siding with the company that has wronged a whole section of their customers.

 

[EvilMaggot]

What lag ?.. i have yet to experience it.. PC version

 

[Treblaine]

Not even straight, just 20 hours into your game. I started having serious issues 10-12 hours in and quit playing shortly after. The average, I read, is about 20 hours before the game becomes a slide show. Keep trying to play it like that and you could lose you entire PS3 or so I have read on other forums.

Hmm, so complete an Elder Scrolls game in as short a time as possible?


Challenge accepted.

 

[PS3gamerman]

You can cut down on your game save access speed, and size by following some or all of these rules.

1. Don't pick it up if you don't really need it.
2. Keep like things in containers in your house.
3. Sale off extra stuff to NPC. (You can reduce game save size 4-6mb by doing this.)

Mixed up containers seem to lag more in Fallout3 than in Skyrim, but ever since I discovered my lag was controllable in Fallout3 by policing what items were kept together in a container in my house, I've played Bethesda games in this fashion, so I can't tell for sure.

Also you can modify the frequency and conditions of autosave. I've reduced the places where the game saves for me, and it seems to cut down on extra lag.

 

[boag]

Ah well. I guess beauty IS in the eye of the beholder.

To me the face at the top from Killzone 3 looks horribly flat and low detail, it just doesn't look right. And as someone who is studying games development in college I can identify that they are clearly working within greater limitations of the system.

That and look at his armour! Super-low textures there, you can see what should be defined ridges smeared over the model as if its operating from a 128x128 bitmap. A HIGHLY compressed bitmap at that!

And this is a bit jarring for me to find in a video game from 2011 specially made for supposedly the most powerful console of this generation, when a whole 7 years earlier in 2004 we had faces like this to set the standard:

Spoiler

That's Two Thousands and FOUR! Three years before the PS3 would even be available to purchase in UK.

And don't get me started on animation. So intricate and complex in 2004's Half Life 2 yet simplistic in 2011's Killzone 3.

I am going to have to take your word for it, cause the only real difference i am seeing is a smoother face on the girl, and wrinkly bits on the guys, clothing textures seem fine on both and I cant really tell the difference.

I will say something about animation though, animation is hardly the an issue of hardware limitation, and its more of an issue of the Animator doing the work, and if Mocap was used at all.

 

[faspxina]

I used to think Skyrim was great, then I took an arrow in the knee.

 

[Epona]

You can cut down on your game save access speed, and size by following some or all of these rules.

1. Don't pick it up if you don't really need it.
2. Keep like things in containers in your house.
3. Sale off extra stuff to NPC. (You can reduce game save size 4-6mb by doing this.)

Mixed up containers seem to lag more in Fallout3 than in Skyrim, but ever since I discovered my lag was controllable in Fallout3 by policing what items were kept together in a container in my house, I've played Bethesda games in this fashion, so I can't tell for sure.

Also you can modify the frequency and conditions of autosave. I've reduced the places where the game saves for me, and it seems to cut down on extra lag.

In other words, walk on eggshells to try not to upset the game which isn't very stable. How can this be Game of the Year?

How absurd would it have been to say: Final Fantasy VII is the greatest game ever but you need to be sure you never collect more than 50 pieces of materia and if you do then trash the excess, don't sell them because they won't get deleted from RAM if you sell them. Don't equip the Ultima Sword because it's bugged and will cause the Gold Saucer gondola to stop working. Also, restart the Playstation every hour or so because the game has a memory leak. Greatest game ever!

 

[Casual Shinji]

And this is a bit jarring for me to find in a video game from 2011 specially made for supposedly the most powerful console of this generation, when a whole 7 years earlier in 2004 we had faces like this to set the standard:

Spoiler

That's Two Thousands and FOUR! Three years before the PS3 would even be available to purchase in UK.

And don't get me started on animation. So intricate and complex in 2004's Half Life 2 yet simplistic in 2011's Killzone 3.

I think this is more of an issue with the developer creating the game then it is with the hardware it was developed for. And it's not exactly fair to compare Guerilla to Valve, is it?

Sony pushed Guerilla to be their Bungie, but Guerilla just doesn't have the experience or talent to pull off major blockbusters. It also simply isn't in their mentallity because they're Dutch.

I also don't really get how because of the lag issues with Skyrim the PS3 is suddenly back to being the worst console ever conceived.

 

[faefrost]

Ha ha! 8 GB of RAM on my PC. Try and lag me now, sucker! Or, at least try when I get Skyrim for Christmas...

EDIT: Ergh, okay, okay, I get it. Skyrim is capped at 2GB. Everyone can stop quoting me about it now. Jeez!

There's a mod to let you use 4GB of RAM in Skyrim
http://n4g.com/news/892959/skyrim-fans-rejoice-here-is-a-4gb-tool-that-is-compatible-with-skyrims-latest-drm-version

Also, does anyone know much much RAM the PS3 has for processing?

The PS3 has 512 Mb total, with it split and dedicated. 256 to processing/programs and 256 to graphics. The XBox 360 has 512 as well, but it is in a single shared pool that can dynamically shift it between processing and graphics.

 

[Treblaine]

Ah well. I guess beauty IS in the eye of the beholder.

To me the face at the top from Killzone 3 looks horribly flat and low detail, it just doesn't look right. And as someone who is studying games development in college I can identify that they are clearly working within greater limitations of the system.

That and look at his armour! Super-low textures there, you can see what should be defined ridges smeared over the model as if its operating from a 128x128 bitmap. A HIGHLY compressed bitmap at that!

And this is a bit jarring for me to find in a video game from 2011 specially made for supposedly the most powerful console of this generation, when a whole 7 years earlier in 2004 we had faces like this to set the standard:

Spoiler

That's Two Thousands and FOUR! Three years before the PS3 would even be available to purchase in UK.

And don't get me started on animation. So intricate and complex in 2004's Half Life 2 yet simplistic in 2011's Killzone 3.

I am going to have to take your word for it, cause the only real difference i am seeing is a smoother face on the girl, and wrinkly bits on the guys, clothing textures seem fine on both and I cant really tell the difference.

I will say something about animation though, animation is hardly the an issue of hardware limitation, and its more of an issue of the Animator doing the work, and if Mocap was used at all.

Well if you honestly can't tell the difference, then you agree (in this example at least) PS3 has failed to be the exceptionally powerful graphics console Sony promised it would be to justify the 50% higher price tag! You DO realise in the first spoiler box of the two pictures the one on top is from the game Killzone 3 (a PS3 exclusive) and Crysis 2 on Xbox 360. The bottom one is NOT a PS3 game! If you missed the context of which I was replying I think you could see.

It should be self evident just how awful the top example (of killzone 3) that "the pretty" has not been delivered but the dollars most certainly have. It seems I paid so much more to get early access to the Blu-ray movie pilot program that is not actually important for gaming and by itself is no impressive.

(animation IS a factor of hardware when you are limited by how many polygons/CPU-time you can work with, I'll tell you that. And Half Life 2 facial animations as far as I know were not automatically-done by mo-capping but by hand animating each expression and transition.)

 

[thahat]

I have only had notable lag once on my 360. Fighting a Forsworn with his heart ripped out. It lagged so badly I died three times.

oh, a briarheart. if you look closely its a flower stuck in an injury. why anyone would want this is beside me XD