I posted this in another thread but wanted to start a new one to hopefully collect some data. I could be completely wrong but I'm convinced this is a memory leak problem in the PS3 otherwise the 360 and PC versions would be having it. The question becomes is it a problem with the code translation respective to a particular firmware set, hardware combination, etc. To go along with my theory of a memory leak issue and resources being completely clogged; at about hour 2 of this game when I escaped Helgen and then went to Riverwood I was sent to Whiterun. At the brewery right outside Whiterun were a couple Companions fighting a Giant and during that fight two of them were killed. I'm 19h and 19m into this game and those bodies are still laying there! Go over to the western tower where your first dragon encounter happened and those bodies are still there! Extrapolate that out for the longer you play the more bodies the game has to "remember" and you've got a crap-ton of resources being dedicated to this. I do not loot 100% of the things I kill so maybe that's a start. I'm also playing on an original, big 40gb PS3.

Let me know if; A.) You're having this framerate problem, B.) If you have "old" bodies still laying on the ground from early in your game, C.) If these old bodies still contain loot.

Just a theory...

The memory leaks most probably occur from the fact that the PC and Xbox versions are running the engine in C#. Whereas the PS3 requires a "unique" C Derivative solely used by Sony. The leaks come from game producers hacking and slashing C# To use this code, as opposed from programming for it from scratch.


As far as bodies ect, cell reset tends to be an ingame month - 250 days, depending on the cell.

My concern, is can this actually be patched? Any ideas?

I am seriously hoping for an update from Bethesda today.

I wouldnt hold out hope. They can do what they can to optimise and lower the rate of the leak, but tbh, its been here since fallout 3... its not something they can fix quickly.

Yes, if it can be found it can be patched. The question is how much time and effort it requires to fix and will they realistically do it. I wouldn't expect anything today at all. Typically before a patch there are patch notes that are released saying what the patch intends to fix and we haven't seen those.

Starting to seriously regret buying a PS3 after my 360 broke. Anyone else going to return the game? it's such a great game but in its current state it's broken. Might just buy it in a years time or something if its cheaper and fixed. What winds me up is that Bethesda haven't commented yet.

i just find it funny how theyre almost ignoring the problem yet if you look on the xbox forums they got a full post from the staff about how theyre gonna find a solution asap...

PS3 in B list tbh =/

I don't regret buying a PS3 because of this as I still use it for other games that work fine and it doubles as my Bluray player in the bedroom. What I do regret is how poorly Skyrim is performing on my PS3 when Oblivion ran perfect on my Xbox.

The most stupid thing is Bethesda are not talking about this HUGE problem. Wake up say something.

They wont.

The Xbox issue is something they can fix...

Why didn't the problem exist with Oblivion or even Fallout 3 before its DLC? The original Fallout 3 was not broken in such a way. I played the original Fallout 3 with a single character for over 100 hours and never had these problems and the same goes for Oblivion and over 150 hours on single characters. Only the DLC for Fallout 3 caused the problem and what's going on now so rapidly with an original, launch version of Skyrim, why is it now in the original game? This is just inacceptable. It's barely a few days since Skyrim's release date and it only takes a mere 20-30 hours of gameplay to start digging into the truly severe levels of this problem, let alone what lies beyond (if it's even possible to play far enough to reach anything more serious). How could they release such a broken game? It's literally broken... unplayable past barely scratching the surface of the game, and yet it looks great and initially runs very well. How could they optimize the game to take such advantage of the PS3's hardware just to have it be screwed up by this inevitable crap? If they can get al the shaders, physics, animations, etc. functioning well on the PS3, why is a memory leak so difficult to patch and is this even legal?

I played Oblivion on Xbox 360 & PS3, and I never had a lag/performance issue on either.

This. I had no such issues with Oblivion or FO3 on the PS3 and I had multiple 100+ characters is both. If this gets much worse I'm not even going to get to 40 hours before the game becomes unplayable. This is simply unacceptable on Bethesda's part.

I play on the 40gig fat ps3 and it looks and runs great, except for the menu. As for the corpses yep they seems to stay if I leave loot on them. Where do you expect them to go? Seems more realistic if they don't disappear, why would they in a day or so? You sure that's a memory leak and not just the way it's intended?

No, I'm not saying the corpses remaining on the ground is causing the memory leak. I'm saying that the corpses remaining on the ground for extended periods of time use up memory resources all the while there's a leak occurring using up even more. I have confirmed today that at hour 25 of gameplay those corpses I referenced earlier have finally disappeared. Also, after disabling all Autosave options I played today for about 6 hours total. The first in a 2 hour segment and then the second in a 4 hour segment. I didn't experience any of the framerate problems I've had for the last few days. I got the typical issues where it stuttered just briefly when walking in the wilderness in a new area and the objects in the distance were drawn into focus because they were now closer but it was literally just a second of stutter and that was it. I could walk through Solitude and Whiterun with no issues. My one and only save file is now up to 7.2mb.