Dev explains why Skyrim lag wont get fixed.

[Johnson McGee]

Wouldn't they need to do that for every single item and every single item location in the game? Not a programming wis.

Well, I'm assuming they already have tables that set what items are in the chests initially which they could reference. Presumably you could just get rid of items left in the open in visited areas and lampshade it as bandits taking them or something.

Well, wouldn't that mean that if you take an expensive sword from a chest you can reset and keep taking it? Not that I care about an exploit like that but maybe that's why they won't do that.

You could exclude certain things from respawning pretty easily, but even if you could exploit it it's still a single player game, it wouldn't be much different from using the console.

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

And this is why the PC is the superiour platform. Because it can have the power I want it to have, I am not limited to 6y old hardware, I am not depending on the big brands to release a console when 1/3 of the playerbase has already surpassed them by far in terms of hardware.

See, here's the problem with your argument... the PC is not "a" platform. Your PC is, I'm guessing, a custom-made, continually upgraded piece of hardware, which is identical to no others that are being used... sure, the game works fine on your system, but if I tried to put it on my piece of crap laptop I bet it wouldn't even load. Every PC game out there has a lot of customers who buy it, don't have a strong enough computer to run it, and are then not entitled to a refund because, at least on the surface, it's their own damn fault. Oh, and because they already opened it and could have copied the information, because in this day and age I have to prove I'm a paying customer and not a thief even though I paid them my money.

This is why people use consoles... My PS3 is the same as every other PS3, INCLUDING the one they should have tested it on. I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 dollars for it, and I'm fine. I'm up to date. I know the games I spend my money on are going to work, without me having to shell out for another video card and a new motherboard that can handle the sheer power. It's a single unit, as opposed to the millions of possible computers out there, some of which can handle the games while others can't.

So yeah, there are definitely limitations you accept when you buy a console... but the reason you do that is so that things will WORK without you having to stay six steps ahead of the power curve and hope. The fact that they didn't make the game work under those limitations, which were known to them... it's a bit unforgivable.

 

[ResonanceSD]

lololdoldol

To you and every other console person.

You shouldn't be playing this game for a long enough time period that the RAM deficiency makes an appearance.

Also come on, do you people do no research at all? If it happened in FONV and Oblivion, why did you guys think this would be a new experience? It's not a new engine, it's an upgrade of Gamebryo.

 

[Risingblade]

I don't care about framerate just fix the new patch!

 

[Conza]

Sorry if this has been posted before, i did a search but didnt find anything.

Here's the Link http://www.gamersmint.com/ps3-skyrim-lag-problems-unlikely-to-be-solved-dev-comments

(EDIT: For the benefit of anyone who might see this post and not read into the replies, heres another link user Jamash posted that also goes into detail and has vids of the lag in question
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-ps3-skyrim-lag
It basically proves the game is broken, they load a 65 hour save which at times gets 0 fps, then a completely new save which is completely fine)

So basically a dev who worked on FO3 and FONV has shed some light on the memory issues that are causing alot of problems for players, especially on the ps3.

For those too lazy to go to the article i'll try and sum it up as best as i understand it:
Basically everytime you interact with something, the game makes a note of that change, whether its picking up an apple to murdering a guard, This is why save files increase so much over the course of the game (mine is currently at 15mb).

This is a problem because the game continuously keeps track of and loads everything in the game world even when you're not in the area, so all of your changes are draining ram meant for actually just playing the game.. meaning you lag.

He explains this probably wont be fixed, because like in FO3 and FONV its an engine issue, they'd have to completely redesign the game.. which wont happen in a patch.

The PS3 is also particularly susceptible because unlike the 360 which has 512mb ram which can be used for anything, the ps3 has divided ram, half for graphics half for processing. Meaning that a patch isnt going to fix the PS3 problems, and the game will stay broken for anyone who's put any time into it.

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 love Bethesdas games, especially Skyrim but i dont understand why they keep putting out fundamentally broken games and getting away with it.

I have a theory that its linked in with this console generation.

You're explanation is perfectly logical, the 360 has twice as much 'page file' ram (for simplicity, I know its more complex than that), so basically the game is constantly memory leaking, and they don't know how to fix it. It's actually really tragic, I'd hate to have the game on PS3, so glad I have a PC, where my 10meg saves just take up lots of hdd, but don't cause problems.

Why don't they try reducing the size of the detail of each action? I thought a good save file size was like, a couple of 100kbs, I don't understand why what they're doing, takes so much memory.

 

[ace_of_something]

Wish I hadn't jumped the gun and bought the thing. I'm enjoying the hell out of it but I'm just waiting for the knife to drop. Really tacky and trollish for people to take potshots at those who bought it on ps3 acting like it's 'their own stupid fault' or something.

It's the developer's fault. They made the damn engine and game.

Also annoying is that it'll get escapist's game of the year despite all these problems.
At the risk of getting slapped with a warning. The escapist very heavily favors Xbox360 in their multiplatform reviews. (as you can tell by the videos) I can't think of the last time they chose to review something on the Ps3 or PC if it was available.

Though I haven't watched the skyrim review so maybe...

 

[Ragnarok185]

and here i was about to buy Skyrim. may as well pre-order mass effect 3 or Final fantasy XIII-2. at least Bioware and SE don't release buggy games.

 

[brainslurper]

While I doubt a complete fix is coming for the PS3 version, I also kind of doubt this problem is truly impossible to solve. Things like this are unfixable only until they get fixed, if you take my meaning.

No, they actually are unfixable in this game, if you want to have the freedom that you still have. If you wanted to give up that freedom (have items not exist outside of inventories, enemies disappear when they die) then the problem is very fixable. I don't see why bethesda continues porting their games to PS3 when it's obvious it can't handle them.

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

lololdoldol

To you and every other console person.

You shouldn't be playing this game for a long enough time period that the RAM deficiency makes an appearance.

Also come on, do you people do no research at all? If it happened in FONV and Oblivion, why did you guys think this would be a new experience? It's not a new engine, it's an upgrade of Gamebryo.

But Sir Troll, it seems to me that this issue isn't about playtime, but about the degree to which you interact with and change the world. It sounds as if, because the game foolishly tries to keep track of every useless item I move in RAM, I could break this game pretty darn quickly just by picking up everything I saw and putting it back down again in a slightly different location. So if I can lag this thing out without even leaving town, how exactly am I playing too long?

If I'm not supposed to do that, then why are all these items moveable as opposed to part of the scenery? Obviously the redecorating and the like were intended, as otherwise it would be a lot easier just to draw the pictures and lock the useless items in place.

Stuff isn't supposed to stay in RAM for hours and hours at a time and build up, that's not what it's there for. Get it in, get it out into longer-term storage, and make way for the new stuff.

Your argument is that we should have known the game would be fundamentally broken, and that the upgrades to the engine and the massive upgrades in hardware since Oblivion wouldn't fix the lag problems?

If you're arguing that we should have known all this, but the game developers had no obligation to know this and design accordingly, then you are wrong. Just wrong.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

ATTENTION ALL LAG SUFFERERS

Try this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.330193-Temporary-solution-for-Skyrim-on-PS3-A-fix-for-PS3-lag#13426790

wait 30 in game days, this apparantly resets all the non essential crap that gets stored, and reduces save game files considerably! slightly annoying but if it works its less annoying than the lag!

Good Luck!

 

[Nfritzappa]

I'm only 25 hours in Skyrim on the ps3, does this happen to ALL users around 50-60 hours/10 or more mb? Or just a couple?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I'm only 25 hours in Skyrim on the ps3, does this happen to ALL users around 50-60 hours/10 or more mb? Or just a couple?

36% of PS3 users voted that they experienced lag in a poll that IGN conducted. I think that around 26,000 people answered the poll. So a 1/3 of users roughly.

 

[MidnightSt]

While I doubt a complete fix is coming for the PS3 version, I also kind of doubt this problem is truly impossible to solve. Things like this are unfixable only until they get fixed, if you take my meaning.

as i read it, there's one possible simple "solution" - make things non-persistent: corpses would disappear, dropped objects too, manipulated/taken objects would reset after some time/after leaving the location. that way, the game wouldn't have to save those changes permanently.

other than that, there really is no way*.
(i'm a programmer, so i know what they're talking about, and i know what i'm talking about.)

*well, yes, there is, but it requires quite extensive changes to how the engine works, what loads when, and generally probably what the games based on it are capable of, to some degree.

but generally, this problem is unavoidable for any sandbox game that wants to have persistent world. the impact of the issue can be toned down in some ways, but it can NEVER really be removed. and i absolutely positively mean NEVER. every persistent-open-world game will have this problem and whether and to what degree it manifests depends only on size of the world vs. hardware power ratio.

not releasing for PS3, and stating this reason up-front would be The Right Thing?, but that's different (part of the) issue.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I'm only 25 hours in Skyrim on the ps3, does this happen to ALL users around 50-60 hours/10 or more mb? Or just a couple?

Hard to tell. *Most* of the people in this thread playing on the ps3 have said they've had issues...but then they're more likely to post i'd imagine.

Its not guarrenteed to have problems but it does seem like it can happen to just about anyone.

 

[Aeonknight]

Fraud.

.

designed for consoles?

To all of you, if you feel particularly hard-done by, go ahead and sue them. Go on, I'll wait. You can claim that the game was sold and wasn't fit for the purpose advertised.


To Crono the 38 year old, I did know. I thought it was a good wake up call that Bethesda was letting everyone know that consoles are fundamentally obsolete, and included that message in the architecture of their game. I also knew that they kept full PC mod support in the game.


To all of you, know why there isn't a console gaming master race meme? Because it's not even slightly plausible =D

The easy response to your last line there would be to start throwing out console exclusives that your silly PC platform doesn't get... but that gets us nowhere. We could go back and forth all day with that line of arguement.

You may feel content to ignore or spit on the console gamer demographic, but luckily it's a large enough demographic that most developers quite literally cannot afford to ignore. There are exceptions of course (Valve and Blizzard), but the console market is just as big, if not a bigger part of the industry than PC gaming. You know that all too well I'm sure.

So regardless of what you think, cross platform developers DO need to keep consoles in mind when developing games, regardless of how obsolete they are. Other developers can do this (Activision, EA, Valve, etc.) so why can't Bethesda?

Although last I checked, your dragons still fly backwards just like mine. At least for a little while longer.

 

[MidnightSt]

I'm only 25 hours in Skyrim on the ps3, does this happen to ALL users around 50-60 hours/10 or more mb? Or just a couple?

it depends purely on how thorough you are with exploring/looting the world. the more you loot/drop and pick up the stuff around/kill stuff, etc., the more probable it is that it will happen, and the sooner it will happen.

 

[neverarine]

Hmm I've put in over 30 hours to Skyrim on the 360, all is still well. Good to know 360 kicks so much ass.

Guess I should feel bad for PS3 users. Well maybe...

N' way to go Beth, you've made another problem, it being worse than any previous I believe.

many PS3 users mocked the 360 buyers of the game, I find this whole thing rather amusing considering how the ps3 owners looked down on me before, and now them with their so called better systems cant handle the game...

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Hmm I've put in over 30 hours to Skyrim on the 360, all is still well. Good to know 360 kicks so much ass.

Guess I should feel bad for PS3 users. Well maybe...

N' way to go Beth, you've made another problem, it being worse than any previous I believe.

many PS3 users mocked the 360 buyers of the game, I find this whole thing rather amusing considering how the ps3 owners looked down on me before, and now them with their so called better systems cant handle the game...

I never saw one instance of that happening. Online or irl?

 

[neverarine]

Hmm I've put in over 30 hours to Skyrim on the 360, all is still well. Good to know 360 kicks so much ass.

Guess I should feel bad for PS3 users. Well maybe...

N' way to go Beth, you've made another problem, it being worse than any previous I believe.

many PS3 users mocked the 360 buyers of the game, I find this whole thing rather amusing considering how the ps3 owners looked down on me before, and now them with their so called better systems cant handle the game...

I never saw one instance of that happening. Online or irl?

irl talking with people i knew, and the night of the release in the line, some of the poeple i talked to who was gettting the ps3 version and heard i was getting the 360 outright told me that they felt sorry for me not being able to get the "good" version...

 

[vgmaster831]

The obvious answer is to stop releasing the Elder Scrolls game on consoles, and stick to the PC. Maybe the xBox could have some love too, but seriously, Skyrim isn't the first Bethesda game to surpass the limits of the consoles. Honestly though, it's not that hard to exceed the paltry limits of the consoles these says.