This explanation makes sense, thanks for it

You are welcome! I think because of this post there are now more threads about memory leaks on this forum. At least it gets some people to look more seriously at the problem. There are many ways to check for leaks, and I hope they figure it out soon. Sometimes tools help by inserting code to reference count before each allocation of data, but the true way to stop it is to know how pointers work. I know for a fact that many programmers don't know (truly) how to make objects from memory, copy it, and pass it along using another pointer for reference, and deleting the original. Then delete the referenced data, after it is not needed. This is especially true when dealing with structured data (pointer to pointer to get at things, and what to do when copying and deleting) Most are confused during the pointer manipulation (& * in C). The leaks usually happen there. During one loop you may lose a few bytes (not significant), but if you play for hours, those bytes add up and it will eventually lead to disk thrashing via cache misses because of low memory.

With the PS3, it is critical because there are only 256MB for data and it gets hit really fast by low memory. Other platforms (Xbox and PC) usually take longer to hit the memory constraint (XBOX has 512, and PC usually 2048) so you may need to play 20 hours or 2 days straight before hitting the lag, but usually people turn off the game and go to sleep before hitting the leak threshold). That is why PS3 (with the low 256 main memory) is getting hit first whereas you don't usually hear about xbox or PC because people are usually too sleepy to play for so long without sleeping (turning off game for next time) and seeing the problems caused by the leaks.

Those interested in the architecture of the PS3:
http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html

Just to add my two cents ;

It was already mentioned on another thread but got me thinking about on other game experiences (FO3 and FONV).

I had to wonder how is that the game manages time within ?

Because since someone notice that kind of just keeps jumping at different times to the next in-game day.

So in a new game it would be barely noticeable, but as one progresses the memory has to keep up with NPCs schedules, player interactions and track of spawn/despawning cells. So if it keeps "time jumping" how is it suppose to "know" when to refresh a cell or a vendor's inventory.

And to add sleep/wait/fast travel (depending on player style) wouldn't that cause to increase tasks for the memory to keep track of, without a proper way to time release/refresh the non required items or even tell how much time has passed?. Thus creating a memory leak.

Since I started noticing that some shops open/close at different seemingly random hours (just ike the games above) NPCs wandering around at odd nightimes. Wouldn't that be the sign that the system is losing it's ability to keep track of it's own data ?

In FONV I noticed that some vendors never slept (because there was no bed available) and never refreshed inventory.

In conclusion could be that the timers are in conflict with one another? and at some point (randomly) the memory gets "jammed" and is unable to tell what to do next ?

Agree,I started a new game and the dragon bug came out in full force.But before i made my new game.I delete everything skyrim that was on my ps3 and reloaded and still the dragons were ape shist bannana's

It should be noted that the flying dragons backwards and the probable leaked memory somewhere are two separate bugs. The temporary solution is to quit your game (and probably skyrim as well), and startup skyrim again and reload your last save. This always lets the game have a fresh chunk of memory to use. You can play smoothly for awhile again. If you don't quit your current game, and load a previous save, the "lag" will always still be there (once it has started, even if the save you loaded was way way earlier with only a few hours of gameplay).

It seems a lot of people here claim they are geniuses in regards to coding and programming video games, especially one as intense and massive as TES series!
So since you all seem to be so godly and gifted why don't you all go work for Bethesda and fix all these issues?

Problems like that are easy to fix on a computer because you have a community devoted to making the game better. The only reason that those issues arise is because Bethesda put a limit on how much RAM the game uses on a PC. Using third party software alleviates these problems. The PS3 version needs to be fixed. I don't know what these guys at Bethesda are doing but what I think it is is that they tried to make every version of the game as similar as possible. Without configuration to the PC version, the game has been dumbed-down by Bethesda. It's like they don't want anybody to experience the true beauty that this game can be and instead traded it for equality over all versions. but instead they broke it.

I think part of the reason the PC version is the way it is, is because they re-used the old version of the engine used in Oblivion, and did not use any new graphical features (at least the latest DirectX 11). I heard they stuck with DirectX 9 used in the old engine, so no fancy hardware acceleration for fancy stuff. But since they bought ID Software, the next Elder Scrolls will probably use that Rage engine (which uses OpenGL exclusively). I have a feeling the next Elder Scrolls will run on touch screens, as Windows 9 and future tablets will be the mainstay. That shouldn't be a problem even if the iPad 4 comes out (it's graphics uses OpenGL exclusively anyways).

I hope to God that never happens.

i went a step further and formated my ps3 and still having issues and these issues keep getting worse and worse every time i restart

The patch probably did not take into account certain game states in the game save when applied to the game. For example, I had a Dragonplate shield in my own home that I forged (near whiterun). Before the patch, that shield was mine. After the patch, it had a red text on it indicating it was stolen. What does this mean? The game uses "faction" flags associated with all objects. A shield that I own probably has a faction dedicated to the forger (me). Sometimes objects have the faction of the house it is put in, and the owner of the house will not get the red text, but others will. That is why when you do favors for someone, objects they have in their home suddenly are free to take (not stolen in red text). It is because you are probably added to their "faction" or "house faction". So how did the shield end up being stolen? After the patch, and loading the game save, the code probably expects data to be formatted or presented in a new certain way, but the old game save is using the old way. When you try to pigeon hole old stuff into new, some "faction" may have been "corrupted", and either placed in wrong place, or not even loaded.

Perhaps the engine needs to have a "translation" step that checks for version of the game save and "translate" old game saves to how the new patch code deals with new data. I have a feeling the new code changed the way certain data were organized, but the old game save was using the old patch, which was stored using the old patch organization. Of course, this is all guesses, but it may help point to the right direction the current bugs. Because who knows, maybe it is a simple bug of allocating new data for faction storage of objects, but there is a memory leak related bug causing the faction data to be stored in wrong place.

I'm not really techy (I understand some basic computer talk though) , so can someone explain to me what a memory leak is? I've heard this running around for a little bit. I'm about 36 hours into my game (and quest locked, bloody Jagged Crown/Season Unending clash) and the lag is only just starting to nip at my heels very slightly. I have had my controls taken out my hands once (I was riding towards a dragon and suddenly nothing I put through my controller would respond on the game, yet everything was still moving. Horse went down a waterfall since I couldn't steer it away from it. Surprised it survived)

Well, I can help explain a few things. A memory leak is basically main system memory that a program allocated, isn't used anymore, but is not put back to be usable by that program or other programs. Allocated memory can be put back for use by freeing it up. It is like you have 100 cups, and you use a cup to drink and put it back into the cupboard for use later. If each day you take a cup from the cupboard to drink, but don't put it back (you lose it somewhere), you will get less and less cups to use from the cupboard. Well, the PS3 may have 256 cups, and many people (programs) are sharing the cups. Now lets suppose there is a memory leak in Skyrim... Skyrim will try to use all the cups and wash them and put them back when it is done. BUT, there is one small code somewhere in Skyrim that takes a cup every 10 minutes and loses it, and doesn't put it back for reuse. So after an hour there are only 50 cups for use, but it needs 100 minimum for smooth gameplay. If you turn off the PS3 and restart it, magically all 256 cups are put back on the cupboard.

Oh, about the losing control with the controller, it is because of the bluetooth communication. That part has nothing to do with Skyrim, as I've seen that happen with other games on PS3. Apparently (maybe because of some proprietary Sony protocol or error in program), your controller may lose sync with the PS3 via the Bluetooth protocol. This doesn't happen all the time, but it does now and then. Sometimes, it is stuck moving right (and your character will spin around endlessly) or left or wherever you last moved it to. It usually fixes itself once you move back and forth other directions on the controller.

WHY DO WE ALL KEEP SAYING ITS THE PS3'S FAULT! Utter madness people wake up... It Bethesdas fault simple as. If the hardware wasn't suitable then don't make the [censored] game on it and certainly dont sell it to us.. Stop all the threads about why it's hapening. The only people who truly know and in my opinion new all along are the deceitful game developers themselves. The PS3 has nothing to do with the reason we are all on these forums venting. Everyone focus your energy at the real culprits. Are you all telling me they didn't play the ps3 version enough in testing to not see the issues that pretty much all gamers are seeing (to varying degrees)? not a [censored] chance.. They've sold hoping they could patch it before to much damage was done but guess what they are struggling to patch it. So they took the gamble and conned us all. Even if they do fix it ps3 owners should get an apology and compensated with DLC or something... Never in my 20 years of gaming have a seen something so blatant and so out of order fom a developer.

Yeah I'm pissed of lol

Wait, what? Dude, what are you on about?

There is no such thing as "leaking the right memory". A memory leak in a program is always unwanted. In a computer/video game this is even more true as they are already quite the resource hogs.

I don't think you really understand what a memory leak is. A memory leak is essentially when a computer program fails to release memory back to the system. If that memory is no longer needed by the program, and is not released to the OS, we end up with a bunch of unaccessible memory.

Hey, there are now more and more experts on these tech stuff?

Wanted to add more info on this skyrim problem. It seems some of the problems may stem from badly synced loading and saving routines as well. People have noticed that their games are bugged after loading. This could be a result of either the loading section is loading wrong data into the wrong array in memory, or during the saving portion the wrong array of data in memory is being written in the wrong section in the save file.

Also, they may have problems with content makers using tools, but not aware of computer terminology. As an example, in programming counting to 10 usually goes from 0-9. But humans usually count from 1-10. Perhaps "script kiddies" using scripts by programmers are used to checking for maximum at 10 but the script compares at 9. This may lead to the bookself bugs.

My personal opinion is to hold off playing the game until it is fully patched. Else, your game WILL get corrupted. Once wrong data is stored in the wrong section in a save file it is VERY difficult to recover unless the game checks for file save version and can undo the damage. For example, people have stated that if they overloaded the bookshelf in 1.2, and patched to 1.3 (in PC version), that bookshelf is still broken. But if that bookshelf was not overloaded in 1.2, and patched to 1.3, the bookshelf still works.