Here are some information. Maybe people with more knowledge can pitch in.

From a technical standpoint, what is causing the lag? We know the Xbox360 and PC lack this lag issue (I am hoping this is true), so it has something to do with the PS3. The PS3 has split memory between GPU and CPU, so perhaps it is a simple caching problem... The main memory accessed by the CPU can only hold half the info 256MB and must be cached back into harddrive. The Xbox has 512MB, so most of the items can fit inside this memory. But the Xbox also uses the main memory for GPU graphics, so it may use less resources for GPU usage and more for CPU storage (maybe that is why the Xbox has worse graphics because less is dedicated to graphics, and more towards holding in-game item information). the PS3, because it forces a split of memory between 256 in GPU and 256 for CPU, a whole 256 is dedicated to graphics (gpu), and 256 in main memory holds the in-game items (and caching to Harddrive). Perhaps the game (in order not to lag) requires 300MB for main memory and 212 for graphics (as an example), so on xbox it is split like that, while on PS3, it is split 256 for main memory and 256 for graphics (gpu), and caching results because 256 is less than 300. If this IS the problem, how can they fix it? One would be to use an SPE to do main memory compression and hope the decompression is less time intensive than harddrive access. Another is to use table lookup indexes so they can shrink the main memory dataset size (remove duplicates resident in memory). Personally, I think this problem may have something to do with the graphics as well. When you go from one area to another, you may need to use texture data to represent different stuff in environment. The engine will cache the textures for the current environment, and as you move to different places, old textures will not be needed and can be flushed from the memory. HOWEVER, the engine has trouble figuring what is not needed anymore, so as you play longer and longer, some textures the engine thinks it needs are still in memory (when it should be removed) and when too many textures are in memory, some needs to be loaded constantly from harddrive because of bad frequently used texture algorithm. The framerate issue happens because it is trying to get at data off of the harddrive (or decompressing to get at it?)

The last thing that comes to mind is a small memory leak (I actually bet on this). A small leaked pointer to memory never gets cleaned up, and it grows and grows. The slowdown happens when the memory gets so big, it starts interfering with size needed to hold in-game stuff or textures. This is why when you restart the game, the slowdown disappears (the leak needs to grow, and it takes time to grow). Then the harddrive stuff starts happening (thrashing). All they need is to get better programmers and remove the offending memory leak.


The architecture of the memory of the PS3 is described here:
http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html

Seems legit

I also think is looks a lot like a memory leak. First, because it doesn't happens until you've been playing for some time, second because the effect is suspiciously similar to what happens on a PC when it starts to swap (yes, the PS3 can use virtual memory and reserves 2GB of disk space for it) and third because the SSD fixes it (not really fixes it but since it's 15-20 times faster than the default PS3' HD it masks the problem pretty well), for the same reason than the XMB raises almost instantly when in-game with an SSD (it gets loaded from the disk into memory and the SSD is much faster).

The patch has improved but not totally fixed it for me; I'm at 8MB and still lagging after some hours, but not so much as before. Still, annoying. The menus and conversations are faster, now I don't have to wait a second before having to skip a sentence. But in 4 hours it crashed 4 times.

I hope Bethesday doesn't go the Fallout way an abandon PS3 support.

Spot on. Bethesda should this memory leak issue very seriously.

The ps3 lagged before the patch because it failed to leak the right memory (remember, video games need to leak certain types of memory to keep from doing what Skyrim just did).

Now it is most likely due to corrupted saves (individuals continued to save after the game started to glitch due to the problem that was just patched). Since the patch just allows the game to dump the right memory at the right time it doesn't and cannot fix the corruption caused by people who plunged right along even though the world was glitching all around them.There may literally be no problem with the game anymore and we can't tell because of our saves being in that state. Try creating a fresh game and look at it. No problems from what I can see, just like before the patch.

It would be interesting to know if somebody that started to play after the 2.01 patch has already a 8MB+ savegame and it's glitching or not.

I support the OP in his/her thoughts but it's not the reason.

The reason why the PS3 version is so poorly optimised is because Beth can not code on the PS3. It's as simple as that. It's not their console of choice, they show no interest in getting it right and TBH they only include PS3 versions of their games for the revenue.

This again? Seriously there are now multiple reports of people starting fresh games...the lag does come back, and dragons are glitched and flying backwards.

This was caused BY the patch because bethesda do not test there [censored] code.

Yes completely agree. Memory leak is what my money is on too.

Played post patch last night for 4 hours and it continued to get worse and worse and worse after the 2 hour mark.

This patch hasn't fixed the issue, it just delays its timing.

Actually, Xbox 360 users are experiencing the same bug with the 1.2 patch. Check the subforum.

There are a lot of tech savvy people on here, don't suppose you guys could get a job @ Bethesda and fix this s**t?

I work on the CGI films industry, I've enought fixing my s**t

I bag on Bethesda about this problem all the time... it's the same exact problem they have had since Fallout3. All of them do this. It's absolutely a memory log jam of some sort.

The size of your save file only affects this problem in that it hogs up your memory faster. If you are the type that quits after an hour and restarts, you will have less lag than the person that likes to play for 4 hours at a time. As you play, the memory builds until it fills and you start lagging. The bigger your file is, the faster it will happen.

When they cleared a meg out of our saves it cleared out all of what i would consider temp memory. Textures and stuff from areas you are not in. Once you play again and return to those areas/zones you will add back those items and soon enough, you will be right back to where you started. It took me about 2 hours of actual game play to start having my 12mb save start acting up again.


HOWEVER...
there are no other games like these on the console. None that I know of at all. As you play the game it has to remember everything you do.. I don't mean just what it ends up saving either. I mean everything you do and see and touch as you play has to be remembered by the console. For whatever the reason, it's not clearing out much of that as you go.

Look at a game that gets compared to this problem a lot.. my favorite game of all time.. RDR. that game looks and plays flawlessly but remember, it doesn't remember where you were ten minutes ago, let alone hours ago. It basically remembers how many bullets you have.

Typical save game size for Skyrim and the other Bethesda sand boxxers.. 10mb and up
Typical save game size for RDR ................................................................ 150kb Less than half a meg under any circumstance.

I have always figured that they would do something about this problem if they could. Do you think they actually didn't realize? Maybe it got by testing in Fallout 3, but once the complaints started, they dang sure knew about it before the release of New Vegas and to suggest they didn't realize it was still there for Skyrim is pathetic really.

There may be no easy answer. There may actually be NO answer other than to really reduce the playsyle of this series. Suggesting other companies have fared better is not really fair to Bethesda... nobody else has put out a product like this.

The only exception would be Oblivion, but that is a game running medium res graphics from a game that is really showing its age now. The memory issue may even be there, just not show up for long enough that nobody really notices.

imop of course. mmv

Xbox 360 users also complain of lag, but not as severely as that which is on the PS3. PC users also have a ton of problems (crash to desktop, stuttering, purple textures, BSOD, etc). Bethesda just released a ridiculously faulty product.

Ah, that explains everything. I didn't know the PS3 swapped, but with that in mind, when the lag starts happening my disk light on the system is *shining*, not *blinking* as one would expect from normal use.

So yep, it leaks like a sieve full of soup. And, on a speculative tangent, this could be related to save size because objects referenced in the save is not destroyed properly, so as your save size grows, the memory load from it grows by an unknown multiplier.

It also seems to break down completely when there is a lot of action. During the Civil War questline (pre-1.2), when attacking all I could do was conjure stuff with powers or staffs and sit back because it was unplayable.
Post-1.2, after getting "the guy" from Riften and getting attacked by "the other guys" when trying to leave the city, the same scenario played out. Me, conjuring things and relying on my followers and the city guards to win the battle, because I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn even if I tried.

1st: its not LAG its low FPS or bad/poor framerate. Games can only 'lag' when played online as lag is directly related to latency. No matter how many ill-informed people call it 'lag', its not.

2nd: Wall of text! break it up next time please.

It's whatever people want to call it. Get with the program.

Plus Lag is generally used to talk about the response time between input from the player and reaction from the game. Online or Offline.

It's perfectly normal to call lag from this sort of memory issue or from high end graphics as Lag.

Yes, lets not use the correct term, lets make up anything and as long as lots of idiots use it, that validates it.

You can think of it as a type of lag. Of course, it is not related to the duration the game needs to download the needed data to proceed, but it is related to the duration the game needs to load the needed data from the HDD. It seems to me as if it is swapping all the time (mentioned that multiple times now).
Therefore, lag is kind of suitable to describe the problem. A poor FPS is mostly used as a term if the cpu and/or gpu isn't capable of calculating/rendering fast enough. And this is definitely not the problem here, since you can just stand there and after a few seconds the FPS will get back to normal. Nevertheless, the game hast also some FPS problems (fog/dust around Dawnstar or multiple fire source in an temple in Whiterun).

Hearing this makes my stomach a bit sick...

The game is just programmed very, very hastily. Dark Souls is an open world game (linear only by its difficulty for players that can't
progress due to lack of their own skill). This game saves data on a constant basis- all the time. It essentially auto-saves information
every time you edit your gear, pick up an item, kill an enemy, change into an area, die, and talk with NPCs. This is noted on the
screen by the flash of a tiny little red flame- and it DOES save the game.

Bodies are left hanging around just like in Skyrim, everything is rendered quite well given the vast expanse that some areas can
be (You can literally see half the game areas already rendered in the distance from just Undead Burg). And what's crazier is that
loading times are almost non-existant during gameplay after the initial loading.

The reason I even bring all this up is because FROM new how to program the game well. You can criticize how bad Dark Souls is
as a game by its balancing/difficulty/aesthetic issues, but it's one of the best performing RPGs out there for most of it's game.
The only part that suffers for many players is Blighttown, simply because it attempts to render EVERY wooden ladder and walkway
in the entire zone, along with the poison marsh, enemies, and even the city right above the bridge.

That said, I really think it's how Bethesda programmed data access. I think that memory leaks are SOME of the issue, but really,
I believe that the game is trying to access its own save data VERY inefficiently. This could be a problem- or maybe not. However,
Bethesda could have easily made a game that works within these limitations- there are already hundreds of games (which are top
sellers) that do this all the time. I just wish Bethesda kept PS3 users closer to heart when making the game.

I'll just share my half educated guess.

The lag starts to creep up when the total playtime increase and it runs fine for a while after a reset. The problem is also PS3 specific. Based on that it's possible to make some guesses.
As the player moves through the world new objects has to be dynamically loaded. Those object can come from the game disc, harddrive or ram cache. The game must use some kind of heuristics for deciding what to store in ram cache based on which objects are likely to be needed in the future, total amount of cache and a number of other criteria. The lag itself makes it obvious the game is trying to load some data from secondary storage and can't get that data fast enough meaning something that should be in ram cache is not.

One usefully division of working memory would be game state, graphics data and the remaining space for cache. As the total playtime increase so does the game state and the space available for cache shrinks. If the caching heuristic is flawed and doesn't evict all data as it should the game will have to load a lot of stuff from secondary storage causing lag. This could explain why you need both long total playtime and session playtime to get lag. The PS3's memory layout is banked in a peculiar way that could reduce the total space for cache making the problem noticeable only on the PS3.

A lot of people are claiming graphics changed after the patch. I haven't noticed most of it but I have noticed more texture and object popping. I walk on a field and suddenly grass pops up all around me. I'm guessing the game used to forcefully load in objects as you move and when secondary storage is slow it freeze until the object is available. The patched changed so that more objects are loaded asynchronously and pops up when they are available without stalling the game. It's a crude band aid but I would reduce the lag.

I think that sums up my sentiment also.. Still love the game!

The only problem with the whole longer you play worse it gets theory is that not everyone sees that happening. I usually have the game on from 5-11or 12 each night. Not always playing, sometimes its paused,b ut its usually on. And I almost never experience anything close to game breaking framerate issues. it must be a combination of other things.

It's amazing in and off itself that they got the game to work on xbox360 and ps3 at all really.

You're talking about 512mb of 'video memory' I think, that the xbox has that and the ps3 has 256. Well in comparison I also have the PC version and just upgraded from a 512mb video card (8800 gts) to a 1gb card (gtx 460). Iin directly comparing the game running on the 512mb card to the ps3 the PC version looked better in terms of color and texture but I needed to turn the draw distances way the hell down to get it to run smooth, a much lower draw distance than the ps3 version (PC it defaulted me to low settings). Of course now with the 1gb gtx460 thats not an issue, high settings now, but.. well I have other issues I wont get into. But it was remarkable back before the framerate issue began happening in the ps3 version that they got it too look as good as it did. I also remember the ps3 port of dragon age having framerate issues, only it ran at like 20 fps right from the start

That being said the ps3 has a crazy 7-core processor that when taken advantage of makes games look really nice, unfortunately when you port a game across all three systems you cant program it to need 7 processor cores or its going to run like crap on a 2 or 4 core PC processor and the 3 core xbox processor.

In the future they might better just copy PC architecture, you can build a system for like $700 or so that makes games look fairly amazing nowdays.. you mass produce that and give the technology another year or so to cheapen and you could probably sell it for $300. Of course maybe that's what Nintendo is doing with the wii-U.

Just depends on what you do. You can make it lag up in just a few minutes by zoning around all over the place and forcing it to load a bunch of areas. The larger your save file, the less amount of memory you have to play with on the system. It's just a fact of how it fills up.

If I play normally and zone around doing a quest or two, I get about an hour of no lag at all with a 12mb save. After that it starts getting stuttery and it worsens till it bogs down really badly. However, if i log in and just hit a dungeo that is gonna take a long time, it never lags in that dungeon. No matter how long it takes me to crawl through. Once you get into a cell of a dungeon, if you are happy with the game play, it will stay that way till you exit and move somewhere else.


It's different for everyone and is mostly due to play style, not differences in installs or ps3 versions. Though the older ps3s with the hotter running chips might have extra stutter due to the heating as well.