Bethesda commented a number of times how big skyrim is versus their previous games. My guess is that combined with their radiant storyline are the differences.

Although that's a good idea, don't just contact game mags and sites, leave negative reviews on any site you can, like Amazon, GameStop, Walmart, Target, etc. Maybe negative reviews will keep others from buying the game.

This is the exact reason i havent bought a game for my ps3 in a long time, if its not a ps3 exclusive it pales in comparison to the xbox version, you only gotta look at black ops and mw3, both run nearly half the fps and at a lower resolution.

I dont even think its a limitation of the system ( apart from this case) more that the devs dont want to waste the extra time/cash.

@solemnoaf

lol really? each individual npc has its own scripts?

ok there must be something wrong with my copy then because i am pretty sure i have killed like 7371847184 completely IDENTICAL dudes in the game down to the same clothes appearance and voice...

yeah skyrim suddenly is so unique and amazing... npcs behave so realistically and their scripts are so awesome...

an NPC child is killed and he grieves and when you talk to him 1 sec later he is like "oh hello how may i help you old friend!"

most npcs in the game are completely r3tarded] and the way they behave is nothing sort of ridiculous... so their "scripting" is pathetic to say the least, so there is no point to actually use this as an excuse. Nevermind the voices lol and how often they repeat... 8 out if 10 npcs are voiced by ezio auditore from assassins creed lol... not only that, even when the voice is different everyone says the exact same words! Male or female!

"some may call them junk I call them..." lol script my ass..

absolutely 100% immerssive bulshlt... so yeah... you can delete all that crap if it means the game runs smoother and better. it is pretty [censored] anyway to have so many dead imperials or bandits who look exactly the same, have pathetic loot and generally add shlt in terms of realism.

you people sound as if the npcs in this game are like some kind of videogame reveleation, when in fact they are downright r3tarded to say the least. So my tip to Bethesda:

"less r3tardness, more frames per second."

It doesn't matter how many times they say Skyrim is huge or if it even is bigger than, say, Oblivion (which I frankly do not really believe it is, or at least not by that much), I'm not exploring any faster in Skyrim than I was Oblivion and my saved data file size 30-40 hours into Skyrim should not be larger than my 200+ hours saves for Oblivion. Both games have them start out at roughly the same size, but then Skyrim's grow far more rapidly... ridiculously quickly. Discovering the very small town of Winterhold increased my saved data file size by roughly 160 kbs. Discovering all the various parts of the much larger Imperial City in Oblivion didn't increase the file size by anything close to 160 kbs. There must be something different with the way Oblivion manages its data... something more efficient.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1213924p1.html

This doesn't explain why bethesda seemingly ignored how the ps3 handles memory. This article explains the differences between 360 memory and ps3 memory but it doesn't explain why the ps3 version of skyrim is broken. The ps3 has dedicated memory so that is why skyrim performs horribly? Bethesda should've known this about the ps3 from the start. They can't claim ignorance....not that they have. All this does is prove bethesda is either incompetent or careless.

^^ they are both actually and then some...

Well, I can't really comment on how the PC version runs compared to the 360 version. I've never seen the 360 version, and likely never will as I do not own a 360.

The PC version is far from flawless though, it will crash to desktop after extended periods of play. It's not as bad as the PS3 version, obviously, but it shows that Bethesda did not spend as much time polishing the game as they should have. Usually though, a CTD on the PC is a minor inconvenience as it takes a few seconds to restart the game and load the latest quicksave. But still, the game and the engine is flawed.

The biggest problem with the PC version though is that Bethesda isn't even using the platform very well, and it's painfully obvious it's a console-to-PC port. The texture resolutions are fairly mediocre, the game does not utilize system resources effectively (especially on 64-bit systems) and so forth. By all standards, Skyrim doesn't belong in the current generation of PC games, but the one before that. While I do own a PS3, and would love to play Skyrim on that system. I've decided to get the PC version for one simple reason: Bethesda has previously shown they are quite incapable of creating stable games for the platform. Anyone who has played the two Fallout games must have expected Skyrim to be equally flawed on the PS3.

As sad as it is, Bethesda are good game designers, but fairly mediocre game programmers. Their games in the Elder Scrolls series have always been, from a design point of view, almost revolutionary or at least cutting edge. But they have always been technically flawed, at least since Daggerfall. Personally, I have little faith in them ever releasing a flawless game on the PS3, unless they get a third party game engine or outsource the development completely.

@valkyre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4W6Ujcwuj4
this shows a video of someone using batch files to plant AI NPCs into the game to watch the AI fight. The engine does a lot of things that are unique, whether you think it's revolutionary or not, and I'm not going to take the time to explain. There wouldn't be so many people upset that their game doesn't work if it wasn't fun to play.

My game froze twice today, necessitating hard resets. I've been scanning this and other forums for a couple weeks and to anyone who's been paying attention, the overall picture looks very, very grim. If the game, by its nature, deteriorates past what any patch can fix, we need to know this. Also, we need our money back. I'll be Googling the phrase, "Skyrim and class action suit," for months to come if my game keeps tanking.

At least the game is cleaning up after itself much better than before. Vendors and bodies are resetting way faster. The problem is still there, but I think most people should be able to do every single major quest line with little hitch.

I watched the digital foundry video on the 1.2 patch. Their 12mb save was nowhere near unplayable post patch. The problems were there but the game performed drastically better than the prior patch.

I agree the DF video didn't show how bad it actually gets, or could get. Mine is much worse and I'm still pissed I can't even complete the main quest the way I want to!

I'm not going to disagree, but there was quite some stuff in JC2 that the game needed to remember. Like there was a lot of things that could be destroyed in order to cause chaos. Surely up to 1000 objects which were not restored. And there were crates like weapon parts or money you could collect. All of this had to be remembered. Which vehicles you drove also comes to mind, villages and army bases you cleared 100% (even though this didn't have a fundamendal impact on the game world). Sure, JC2 didn't have as much "substance" as Skyrim, but it had quite some content (meaning stuff to do) in a huuuuge world.

Hey Gstaff, I see you're looking at this thread atm, I wonder what you think about all this. Any points to add in?

guess not....

He was indeed - I saw his red name down the bottom as well.

Public Relations man - are you unable to make relations with the public?

Heh well atleast we know someone important on these forums gave it a skim through.

Don't expect the community managers to communicate with the community. I know, crazy isn't it...

i feel duped into buying an inferior port of a highly anticipated game for 150$...

edit: it is pretty bad when a fellow developer is remarking on this. what the mods/bethesda are not able to comprehend for some reason is that despite the fact that the game is 'huge, and worth the money,' it still costed some of us 150$ for the limited edition copy. If you charge that much for the game, you should understand that if it is THIS MESSED UP, you should either issue a statement regarding the screw up, or better yet, recall the game on PS3. Oh wait, that won't happen cuz just think of the black eye on your company's face.

Glitches are okay, but when the game is unplayable, it's not a glitch. It's Embarrassing.

You'd think that by now Bethesda would understand how the PS3 works.

/rant

Alright, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

i support a more aggressive clena up system, for one, if i knock over a cup, or plate in my house, DAMNIT i want it put back in it's freakin proper place! why in the hell do i have a housecarl if she doesn't DO anything?

nextly, corpse cleanup, Dear god we need this, and they body should be removed within a days time, heck, maybe even add in a animation sequence of a body burning for "proper" burial, but after that, delete that corpse!!! if i wipe a dungeon, give it a two day reset, after thta any "bodies" i stored stuff in will be removed, and i'm just SOL then.

nextly, they could run the engine in a "open defualt" mode, whereby, there is a seperate file containing ALL DEFUALTS! and any interaction within these defualts, resets the defualts, and gives them a unique reference ID when you save the game so when you load your save game, it loads the unique reference ID page file and reloads up all defualts, as if they are original defualts, this will ALSO reduce memory usage, and it does not need to reference since, as you react, the defualt is reset to it's new "position", and the old defualt is removed.

but still.. corpse clean-up and house clean-up man seriously.. after whackin some baddies i want to come back to a properly organized house, where everythign is set nice and neat, Damnit

Or they could lower the cell reset time? It's 3 days in Oblivion, and it's 30 days in Skyrim, maybe one of the reasons why we never got a swollen file in Oblivion was because everything that we did was quickly reverted back. And In Fallout 3, things did not respawn in the dungeons, so everything that we did was left to bloat the save file since we started killing and moving things in the game, I also believe that there was No reset in New Vegas, not so sure though.

If they can fee up some memory the problem should become better, maybe for most playable but probably not really fixed, as the problem could occur again and again, the more persistent data is saved and needs to stay in the memory. And with additional DLCs it might even get worse.

I don't know. Unfortunately we don't know what Skyrim thinks is so important to always keep in the memory what Oblivion didn't. It's hard to say whether there's much unneeded stuff that Bethesda could free up or if most of it is important for the game and Bethesda can't do much about it or if it's just bloated with useless clutter where a simple clean up would be sufficient.
I don't think there's something fishy with the comment of the New Vegas developer. Makes sense and would explain the problems perfectly and he has worked with the engine already and should know how it works and he would gain nothing by telling lies about the engine
The only fishy thing is that with a engine that works like this, it should have been predictable that memory problems will occur. And release the game without making sure, that there is a limit on how much data is saved, so it will always fit into the memory is unjustifiable.

Never played Just Cause, but Ubi did a really great job with the new Assassin's Creed as well. Looks beautiful and runs very nice

Just to point out - i didnt read the whole thread as it got WAY to big.

But the point is:

This is and yet is not a memory leak. Its more a "deliberate" memory leak. They are loading things into memory and leaving them there on purpose because that is how they programmed it in. There is ways around alot of the reasons the dev there mentioned, they just didnt do them as it would require rewriting the whole game from scratch, which lets face it, they didnt do, they just took the same architecture of the previous uses and changed its theme.

My point is, Obsidian were given the gamebryo custom engine by Beth for NV. FO3 however, is probably the most recent configuration of this architecture, since that was the last time the gamebryo engine was radically changed by its creator emergent.

Now the overall thing i wanted to point out, and il bold for those who dont read paragraphs:

This problem does not make it a game deliberately designed for the Xbox Thats the key point i want to get across, the reasons:

1. Gamebryo was always designed soley for the PC. Ive been using gamebryo's engine for nearly 5 years now, ive ported it over to the PS3's "enforced" Variation of C, as well as used it on C# of the Xbox. It runs better on the xbox purely because the xbox runs the closest you can get to a microsoft based PC running DirectX, whereas the PS3 requires alot more changes to even get it to run at all. Emergent have helped on this front, or at least tried, but even they willingly admit that it was never designed to be used in the way is required by PS3 usage.

2. Perhaps the most important reason: Both the PC and the Xbox Will eventually run into this issue. Look at it this way, on systems with finite memory this is always an inevitability. Two things will happen, either the game will run out of items to commit to memory, or youl run out of memory for the game to commit to. Most high end PC's will be hit by the former, having far more memory then is needed. The Xbox however will hit the same problem the PS3 hits, as i truly believe the size of skyrim (as in resource requirement) is larger than the Xbox's limits. The only difference is the Xbox will hit it far later than the PS3 (due to the reasons explained in the first post).



Overall, its a fundamental flaw of the engine, known from the outset that eventually this method would hit this problem, its how most of the recent TES and FO have all been programmed. They had the choice of changing this but that would take considerably more time, Far more time than the budget probably would have lasted. Lets face it, bethesda may have considerable power behind this brand, but their open world games have reached their limit on this engine, they had on oblivion. So instead of waiting 2-4 years longer than we have already to program a new engine, source a new architecture and program the game essentially from scatch, they spent considerably shorter, programming atop of the FO3 architecture and re-writing the render.

Its commendable that they managed to pull what they have from this dieing beast of an engine, an engine whom Emergent have recently decided to cease development and begin again on a newer more powerful approach,however at its core the same flaws exist. The new render is there to cover up its aging graphics capability, the somewhat archaic systems at work in skyrim work to keep it going, hiding most of the flaws quite well. However theres no covering up a limitation imposed by the programming itself.


Bottom Line:

This isnt a problem that cant be fixed as its a feature of the engine itself. Patches can only minimise the load and hope to "put off " this problem as long as possible into the game, however ultimately the issue will happen. As said in the first post, the addition of DLC will 99% eventually involve the removal of content from the original game, as part of the story sure, but the fact is there wont be enough room to handle any large DLC (as promised) on the current format.




oh and to all those who chime in with " i have xxxxx time.. level xxxx... ive got no problems!!!!!111one"... You will, the deciding factor is not your ps3's model, your consoles age, it is purely down to the size and speed of your HDD. Alot of you without issues will find you have copious amounts of space left on your HDD< slowly being eaten by the PS3's VRAM. Dont forget, your HDD size onscreen is calculated based off of whats stored there, not whats taken by other processes, those with 10GB wont have that 10GB free during the game.






In reference to the above and anyone who thinks like the guy above. No one has ever said it was a new engine, they claimed it was a new renderer, they re-wrote a small part of Emergents Gamebryo engine for skyrim as it was getting quite old. As it is, the core engine remains the same one used in the others.

Thank you for your time writing that up. So, where do we go from here?

It can be completely fixed, they just don't think it is worth the effort. And maybe it isn't, money-wise, since people buy their games anyway despite a long history of problems. If people only had complained more about the Fallouts, with IGN and others chiming in, perhaps they would have decided differently. That's why it is so annoying with people defending Bethesda and instead blaming and shaming the gamers ("stop whining and play something else instead!"), since it is exactly "whining" (criticizing) loudly that is most likely to get Bethesda to do something. If they lose neither money nor reputation by releasing shoddy products they're simply less likely to improve.

This thread is massive, I haven't it all and I probably won't read most of the upcoming posts.

Exactly. This is why people need to complain.