Some truth in HDD being possible culprit in game breaking la : V - Skyrim

» Tue May 15, 2012 3:07 pm

EDIT* This Solid State HDD thing irritates me I wasn't sure if the PS3 would accept the Solid State HDD that's why i got the 7200rpm 500gb i was debating getting a solid state and i decided not to because i had doubts it would work in the Playstation damn damn damn

it's never too late though

btw you've mentioned that one of your ps3-s still have an old HDD

» Tue May 15, 2012 8:24 pm

Did you actually read the article? The only thing that Bethesda is quoted on in the article is that "Most users aren't experiencing these kind of issues on the PS3," and "We are investigating the issue further as to why some folks are seeing this." Terms in bold are ambiguous and opened to interpretation. It is also worth mentioning that a few lines after, The Guardian mentions the fact that Sony manufactured different model PS3s with different hard drives.

I am pretty convinced that the hard drive isn't playing nicely with the game. Sure, some issues can be resolved with a patch but for now, grabbing a SSD can allow you to play the game the way it was ment to be played.

Ok so it wasn't Bethesda who brought of the HDD possibility it was just a subject of discussion that has been brought up. My bad. Regardless it was brought up and it is obviously viable considering SSDs seem to alleviate the problem. And I still meant what I said about that @sshole spreading his BS opinion as fact...

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:47 pm

The issue is HDD related, no doubt. Sony used different HDD sizes from different manufacturers which could cause issues. If it hardware related, then it will become a game of them blaming each other with Bethesda saying its sold to developers as a unified platform, and Sony saying that the game doesn't pass "certification".

For those affected, lets hope it's a memory leak and has anyone with the issue tried the OPTIONAL firmware update? I was having wierd issues with GTA4 where the HDD light would stay lit then it would lag badly, after emailing Sony, they suggested the update, and it runs fine now.

» Tue May 15, 2012 5:06 pm

[...] has anyone with the issue tried the OPTIONAL firmware update? I was having wierd issues with GTA4 where the HDD light would stay lit then it would lag badly, after emailing Sony, they suggested the update, and it runs fine now.

~~Where can I find this?~~ Is it V3.73?

» Wed May 16, 2012 12:49 am

If this issue was HDD-related, why aren't any other games suffering these problems?

» Tue May 15, 2012 9:34 pm

I know the save file size has been what most are blaming on the lag and I agree it is a portion of hat is happening. However, Bethesda made a statment saying they don't think its the save files and it may be the fact PS3s have so many different HDDs it's causing an issue... When I first heard this I thought it was the dumbest excuse ever but I think there may be some truth to that statement. Here is why.

I have an 80gb reverse compatible PS3 that i recently upgraded with a 7200 rpm 500gb HDD. I have played the game for around 41 hours and have little to no problems whatsoever. Whiterun is a little chugtastic at times (I am willing to blame this on the layout of the town since you can see more of that town at once from several areas than any other town) and once in a while I will hit weird framerate slowdowns (very random when they occur and not very often probably not related to the lag issue at all) My save file is around 8MB and I have joined the companions (done no quests just up to and stopped at the quest line where you find out their secret), have started the beginning quests for Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and am about 60% through Mage College quest line. I have done 5 of the main story quests 20 side quests and about 65 miscellaneous task quests. I have also slain about 9 or 10 dragons.

After all that I have yet to experience this game breaking lag. Though I do fear the day I do run into it I really hope I have somehow escaped this fate...

op, your describing the exact same why the game deteriorated for me, 40/50 hours in with 8mb file and only the odd drop and stutter, i though everything was good.. just wait and see what happens as you play more....

plus where did u read that statement by beth ??, if they did say something like that, then we can forget any ideas of the patch fixing anything..

and to all you guys saying to just get a ssd,
how about you play to over 150 hours, or even more, and give a right report on the performance, i was still getting good performance a 8mb

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:12 pm

If this issue was HDD-related, why aren't any other games suffering these problems?

As I understand, Skyrim (and most of Bethesda's games for that matter) is read/write demanding. It constantly read's/write's from the disc. Every time you open a door, move an object, buy an object, sell an object and travel to a new location, the game needs a way to remember this. It stores the information so it can be retrieved later. The suspected issue here is that the game can't properly delete the old information to make way for the new information so it kind of bunches it all together. The game is constantly retrieving information and the more information there is, the more information it needs to look through.

I hope this clears things up.

» Tue May 15, 2012 8:30 pm

op, your describing the exact same why the game deteriorated for me, 40/50 hours in with 8mb file and only the odd drop and stutter, i though everything was good.. just wait and see what happens as you play more....

plus where did u read that statement by beth ??, if they did say something like that, then we can forget any ideas of the patch fixing anything..

and to all you guys saying to just get a ssd,
how about you play to over 150 hours, or even more, and give a right report on the performance, i was still getting good performance a 8mb

My game was not performing at all as I had expected it to at 8MB. Ever since getting a SSD I've been able to play on my 8MB file. I can't yet say anything about a 150 hour save file as I have not played that long.

» Tue May 15, 2012 3:29 pm

~~Where can I find this?~~ Is it V3.73?

Yes. 3.73.

I was told that 3.73 fixed "minor hardware related compatibility problem".

I have a 64 Hour 10MB save file, and besides a little lag, which I resolved with a database rebuild which is a simple defrag of the refrence file used to transfer hdd data to the HDD cache for processing.

In my opinion 1 of 2 things are happening.

1. Because the amount of HDD Cache for pre-loading is dependent on the installed hard drives size, the game engine's cue to begin clearing the pre-load is higher than whats available the game begins to fail because the read/write restrictions of the HDD.

2. Its an odd issue related to a hardware issue, maybe a difference in HDD manufactures, to a memory leak caused by different chipsets, anything. All I know regarding that is, the Sony certification process requires the game to function properly on all hardware configurations, but HDD size was manipulated through the debug units firmware, so go figure. The hush-hush and Pete Hines vague statement may mean Bethesda dosen't see it as a software issue, but a hardware issue..

» Tue May 15, 2012 11:24 pm

My game was not performing at all as I had expected it to at 8MB. Ever since getting a SSD I've been able to play on my 8MB file. I can't yet say anything about a 150 hour save file as I have not played that long.

well i hope it keeps running well for you,will be interesting to see if a ssd can fix a problem like this for good. let us know how performance is at 10mb. mine is nearly at 10mb now and its a jerky mess pretty much on a constant basis, even in dungeons its starting to feel all jerky and stuttery. i want the smooth fluid gameplay i was experiencing up untill recently

» Tue May 15, 2012 8:56 pm

~~Where can I find this?~~ Is it V3.73?

I'm real wary about updating to 3.73. Do a google search and see people whose PS3s have died because of it...

» Tue May 15, 2012 11:38 am

Quote: "I'm currently playing on a ~8MB save file and can confirm that getting a SSD dramatically improves gameplay"

Just wait untill i enchanted my SSD with lag -35% and improved it to legendary.
A legendary SSD worth renaming to gameplay improver.

It does not improve gameplay, it improves fps. Which i quite doubt tbh.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1276175-solution-solving-the-lag-issue-warning-costs-money/

That topic contains a large number of users confirming that an SSD more or less obliterates all slowdowns in Skyrim, including a few youtube vids showcasing the gameplay after a few hours of gaming with a huge savefile. Just f.y.i.

While the bug may or may not be related to hard drives (probably memory leak issues forcing the PS3 to abuse the virtual memory on its hard drive), it's more or less 100% confirmed that an SSD solves the issue until a "true patch" has been released.

» Tue May 15, 2012 1:22 pm

Ok so it wasn't Bethesda who brought of the HDD possibility it was just a subject of discussion that has been brought up. My bad. Regardless it was brought up and it is obviously viable considering SSDs seem to alleviate the problem. And I still meant what I said about that @sshole spreading his BS opinion as fact...

First of all you should learn how to read.
Your "bad" resulted in people thinking that your BS opinion was something Bethesda said and could be a fact.
The only @sshole I see in this thread is you, misleading people because you lack the basic IQ of reading and understanding.
My BS opinion will be proved when they fix this issue and the game will be running as it was meant to.

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:19 pm

I couldn't care less if an SSD fixes the entire framerate issue for Skyrim.

Bethesda are obliged to release a game that works on every manufactured console no matter what type of HDD is inside.
They are the only company who are running into this issue and it's not like Skyrim is an exception in terms of a huge open world.

Buying a $100+ SDD for a game which I already paid $60 for is not right and should be completely boycott by everyone.
Either the patch fixes it, or they will run into a serious lawsuit here and there.

» Tue May 15, 2012 10:48 am

I could care less

*couldn't

» Wed May 16, 2012 12:33 am

*couldn't

I always have problems with that. It just sneaks in all of a sudden :thumbsup:

» Tue May 15, 2012 10:44 am

..they don't think its the save files and it may be the fact PS3s have so many different HDDs it's causing an issue...

Sorry but it can't be a HDD issue. It just can't. Unless Beth are admitting they didn't test the PS3 build fully enough.

Developer consoles (i.e the machine that Beth built and 'tested' Skyrim on) have fixed hardware. This is so that developers are always building content using the lowest possible hardware set. So Beth used a Dev SKU which has a 5200 rpm drive.

Drive speed is not the issue here and if Beth are banding around this as an excuse, it's possible they don't know what's causing it or how to fix it.

» Wed May 16, 2012 2:35 am

I highly doubt this is related to the HDD type. I upgraded mine awhile ago. Increased size and speed. And there really isn't a huge benefit to it, it's nominal at best. I've seen multiple articles about it and there really isn't a huge benefit to load times in different games. I just happened to get a good deal and the speed happened to be bumped up. Yet this freezing and lagging issue is still happening to me.

Also @those saying an SSD will fix this. I paid 60 dollars for a game, I'm not paying upwards of another 400 dollars to keep playing it. Could you imagine any other company having that as a caveat to playing their title.

"Hey everyone Bungie here and we all know how much you love the Halo series. Sadly it seems that if you want to be Master Chief in Halo 4 you're going to need to buy a special type of external hard drive to handle the hotness of the convenants plasma weaponry. Send cash or check to Wetotallyscrewedyou@bungie.com"

» Tue May 15, 2012 10:51 pm

The problem is Bethesda poor porting abilities. Look at Fallout 3 and Oblivion GOTY.

» Tue May 15, 2012 7:44 pm

The problem is Bethesda poor porting abilities. Look at Fallout 3 and Oblivion GOTY.

What about Oblivion GOTY? I played that for years and never found a problem with it.

» Tue May 15, 2012 6:30 pm

if was the HD's fault it would be laggy from the moment you start not later in the game. I think its some form of memory management bug that's due to poor porting to the PS3.. I'm starting to notice little bits of lag now only 16hrs in 5.5mb save. Its not game breaking but noticeable and certainly is spoiling what started off as one of my favourite ever games... It ran great before, dragon fights, dungeons and everything else. Why start to lag now? I think I'm going to stop playing until a patch or I'll start to hate the game and probably will never play again if the lag gets as bad as some are saying or that I've seen in videos

The wrong HD's line though, just doesn't cut it for me.

» Tue May 15, 2012 2:02 pm

Sorry but it can't be a HDD issue. It just can't. Unless Beth are admitting they didn't test the PS3 build fully enough.

Developer consoles (i.e the machine that Beth built and 'tested' Skyrim on) have fixed hardware. This is so that developers are always building content using the lowest possible hardware set. So Beth used a Dev SKU which has a 5200 rpm drive.

Drive speed is not the issue here and if Beth are banding around this as an excuse, it's possible they don't know what's causing it or how to fix it.

So you're saying that the hard drive can't be the issue because otherwise Bethesda would have caught it during testing. That would seem to be true for the problem, no matter what is causing it.

If the hard drive wasn't related to the problem, then people changing out their hard drives wouldn't change anything. But it does.

Again, it's incumbent on Bethesda to write a game which functions on the platform as it is specified. But that doesn't mean that it's not possible that there is a hardware interaction that is triggering this failure. And that looks to be the case.

» Tue May 15, 2012 8:02 pm

Personally, I think replacing the HDD will just cure a symptom, not the problem itself. The problem is most likely in the engine or the game design itself. A faster drive just helps and pushes the line where the symptom occurs further, but it does not fix the problem. At least this is what seems accurate.

» Tue May 15, 2012 6:56 pm

So you're saying that the hard drive can't be the issue because otherwise Bethesda would have caught it during testing. That would seem to be true for the problem, no matter what is causing it.

If the hard drive wasn't related to the problem, then people changing out their hard drives wouldn't change anything. But it does.

Again, it's incumbent on Bethesda to write a game which functions on the platform as it is specified. But that doesn't mean that it's not possible that there is a hardware interaction that is triggering this failure. And that looks to be the case.

I refer to this line from the OP:

Bethesda made a statment saying they don't think its the save files and it may be the fact PS3s have so many different HDDs it's causing an issue...

Unless the OP misquoted this, Beth are blabbering out of their behinds.

The only factor where a HDD could cause an issue is when the read speeds are too low, which by default makes the 5200 rpm drive the culprit. However, this only signifies one of 2 things. Firstly that Beth didn't play enough of their own game (during testing on their Dev SKU) to reach the magical Playtime/Save File size and/or secondly, which leans toward the bolded part of the quote, their shooting in the dark and don't know what's causing it because there is ONLY one HDD that matters and that's the default 5200 rpm drive.

Nope, it's not inherently a HDD issue. More than likely, as previously suggested, a Memory Cache blockage which would display the same traits as a HDD struggling to stream the info into game. Basically the HDD is trying to buffer info to & from the memory cache but it can't as the cache is full, which is why you get the lag/stutter coupled with a HDD activity light.

» Tue May 15, 2012 10:46 pm

[...]

Buying a $100+ SDD for a game which I already paid $60 for is not right and should be completely boycott by everyone.
Either the patch fixes it, or they will run into a serious lawsuit here and there.

You aren't being forced to buy anything. Bethesda is working on a remedy to address the issue. We're merely discussing a temporary work around.