Skyrim Lag: How the hell did this happen?

In the weeks since the PlayStation 3 version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released, it has become clear that something is badly wrong. Now the game's publisher Bethesda faces some tough questions, which it must face without delay, and with absolute clarity and frankness. Serious accusations from frustrated fans are growing in volume; that the company knew there was a problem before it released the game.

[MsclMexican]

The sad truth is the game is broken on PS3.... it really is difficult to play.

For once ign is not BSing

[AngryTypingGuy]

Did the update not work? I have the PS3 version, and it seems to be going OK. Maybe a little lag around Whiterun for a second or two, but nothing bad. I've been keeping an eye on my file sizes and they're actually going up and down now after the update, staying a little below the 6MB mark.

I can't wait to read the follow up article. They said they're playing multiple copies on multiple PS3's. I wonder if it affects all of them. I would hate to lose all the time I've invested so far, but if need be I'll get the 360 version instead.

EDIT: After doing a little reading, it seems PS3 Slims are performing better with Skyrim than the original PS3's.

[nihonlight]

The patch is like putting a band-aid on a boat.
Give it more time.it will fail.
Also, that lovley patch removed...bloom lighting effects ,items, textures, made glitches, and stripped your draw distance. YAY!

[AngryTypingGuy]

I haven't noticed any of the visuals being worse. Is this something that you noticed or is it something you read?

[Andronix]

IGN make a great point. They received PC and 360 copies for review but no PS3 copy. Other multi format websites didn't receive PS3 copies either. Bethesda should answer why.

[dark-hollow]

Bethesda: ok everyone! Just do a quick traveling around skyrim for 30 minutes, kill some wolves and just miss around then report if there is any bugs.

Q&A test team jimmy: but sir! 30 minutes are not enough to test a game on the scale of .....

Bethesda: jimmy you're fired.

[MsclMexican]

Dude I honestly think that is how Bethesda tested this game.

I hit the 9mb mark and played for about 80 hours of skyrim. Every time I try to play the game it lags like a Motherf**ker. The game literally feels like a slideshow when im in the overworld or in anyone of the towns. The lag is not as bad in Riften, but in Whiterun and Windhelm? Jezuz it is really really bad. And this 1.2 patch made the game have even more problems.

Bethesda really needs to bloody step their game up, I could have waited for Skyrim longer. This broken game just ruins all the excitement I had for it and makes me feel like I got cheated out of a great game

[Toenado]

I for one have been waiting for one of the major gaming sites to finally address this issue. When a gaming site as large as IGN bring this kind of attenion to the game, Bethesda has to reply. I am a huge fan of the series and of my ps3, but my game is now unplayabe.

I keep reading posts from people saying this is getting blown out of proportion and that their experience with the ps3 version is going great. well good for you. I wish that was the case for me. But its not.

I also keep reading posts about how people are going to trade in the ps3 version for the xbox or pc version. I admit the thought did cross my mind. But I refuse to pay for a working copy of a game i already paid for. Furthermore I do believe Bethesda knew about the issue before it shipped, and released it anyway.

[NeoTribe]

Its really not bad. After a very long gaming period it can begin to lag baddly. Ive figured out if u save and quit and long back in ur good for another 5-6 hours.

[Intentions]

RAM.

[Focus]

Yup. Hardware limitation. Gimped for the Cell's pleasure

[Janitor]

Wow, ign's statement about getting free access to pc and 360 versions, while having to get their own ps3 copy seems to make it obvious this issue was known prior to launch. Shame on them, they should offer to buy back every copy they sold, after this long patches are simply not enough IMO.

[MsclMexican]

Its kind of like EA refusing to give reviewers PS3/360 copies of Battlefield 3.

Some of the reviews are ridiculous too.

Skyrim is great.... but in no way is it a masterpiece

cough *Eurogamer, Av Club, Gameshark, Wired* cough

[D3mons0ul]

I think compensation should be in order.

If you're not going to fix it and refuse to try any further, you should compensate.

[nihonlight]

Bethesda needs to come forward. Releasing a broken game knowingly upon the public then hiding is unacceptable. If it wasn't such a great game no one would care. But I got robbed by Bethesda....

[kaveti6616]

The game is not broken. The PS3 simply doesn't have enough RAM.

That's the issue. The game is fine if you run it on hardware with enough RAM. The PS3's RAM is divided.

Is that really Bethesda's fault?

The more things you change in the world, the more memory it takes to keep track of those changes, and the larger your save file becomes. This is not a bug or a glitch. This is how the game works.

The patches that Bethesda is making to the PS3 version probably has to do with discarding certain types of changes so that RAM isn't allocated to track those changes.

But that kind of sucks, doesn't it? What if you make a change that you think is significant, and then you save the game? Once you load it up again, those changes will be lost.

[nihonlight]

Don't release it if it dosent work. Period.

[kaveti6616]

Don't demand it if your hardware can't run it.

Console gamers need to stop feeling so entitled to everything.

You wanted the game, but you didn't want to invest in the hardware to run it properly. You got exactly what you deserved.

You have the option of buying it on a console. Are you one of those people who purchased it on the console without doing any research? Are you one of those people who posts, "Day one baby" or "taking a sick day to play this!"? If you are, then don't blame anyone for your irresponsible behavior. And more importantly, don't blame the developer for doing the best job possible with the hardware you demanded to play the game on.

Once again, this is not a bug or a glitch. This is how role-playing games work. If you don't like making profound changes to the game, go play Uncharted 3, where you can run along in a predetermined path, shooting enemies who all disappear a minute after you kill them.

End of Story.

[christheredhead]

Kaveti6616 is right. Could you honestly imagine the insane amount of backlash they would have got if they did not release the game on ps3? This lag issue would pale in comparison to that angry mob. Honestly, Bethesda did the best they could in comparison to what they were working with. The engine has to remember every single detail of the entire world and it puts a strain on the ps3. Im not sure how else it could be fixed unless you upgrade the RAM.

Basically gamers will complain no matter what so it makes no difference. If they removed dead enemies, item drop etc for the sake of performance, gamers will complain. If they didnt release the game for ps3, gamers will complain. If they fit the entire game on ps3 but it has frame rate issues, gamers will complain.

[refocusedman]

The lag issue only pales in comparison because people tolerate it. The fact is if u bought an ipod that worked for only 50 hrs you would be pissed,if you bought a tv that worked for 50 hrs youll be pissed, why should a video game be any different. When you purchase a product you buy into certain expectations (such as it being functional). I know gamers complain abt alot but, the truth is skyrim as a whole is damaged and it just so happens that on the ps3 its unplayable for a fair amt of people. I honestly dont understand how you can justify such disregard for the consumer. I would love for you to go to a restaurant and order food that comes out half cold just to have the chef tell you well we did the best that we could.

[christheredhead]

@refocusedman

Your entire argument is irrelevant to the situation. My point was, how can they fix it? The game keeps track of every single item in the world and the ps3 doesnt have the RAM to handle the capacity in the long run. Its not Bethesdas fault that the ps3 constricts the game. This also goes for the 360 as well, although it can manage for a little longer. Some people are running into lag and some are not.

Its not a disregard for the consumer in the least bit. The consumer was the one who demanded it and Bethesda catered to the demand as best they could. Their engine handles tasks and the world in a certain way which save all information. So, how is it their fault that the ps3 RAM can't compensate? I mean, am I missing something here? Ps3 RAM is insufficent to run a game of this magnitude.....so its bethesdas fault? That makes absolutely no sense.

A more proper analogy would be like owning an old pc from the 90's and then complaining because it can't run bf3. Same sort of instance. As far as I see it the only solution would be to increase the RAM. Since you cant do that I dont think Bethesda is to blame.

[thespaz]

You guys are idiots. There's no way the PS3 is storing everything in RAM. There's really not enough for that.

What it's probably doing is storing all the changes made to the world in the SAVE FILE and the information is streamed from that save file to the game AS NEEDED. It's definitely not all in the RAM. That would be retarded.

However, I don't make video games so try not to take what I said as fact. Only Bethesda knows what's going on in their engine.

People talk on here as I they designed the game an know exactly how it works.

Also, it's the developers job to figure out how to work around the limitations of the consoles. It's not the console buyer's problem. If a game is made for my console, I expect it to at least work. Running at 5fps is no longer a game...

[christheredhead]

@thespaz

Yes, you're correct. Which was what I was inferring to, even though I wasn't 100% clear. Its engine related in reference to how the saves work with RAM, thus being constricted on ps3.

Here is helpful link. http://ps3.ign.com/articles...

[NeoTribe]

I must be playing a different game. It only lags after insane gaming runs. All u do is turn the game off and reload it and ur good. My buddy said he had the same shit happen and hes on xbox.

[banner]

Hey! Why are you guys complaining? Bethesda already told everyone a few weeks ago that they will fix it when they can.

Obviously they can't fix it yet, and they already have your money... So...

It's a shame companies like Bethesda and acivision get away with stuff like this. With mw3 not having dedicated servers and having to deal with lag in multiplayer, as if the game doesn't sell enough copies to warrant it.

[BitbyDeath]

Mine works fine except for the occasional jitter so maybe some people just have more wear and tear on their consoles?

[shikamaroooo]

What size has your file reached because I was in a similar situation like you then when my file reached 9 megabytes everything just went downhill

[BitbyDeath]

Ahh okay, i think mine is still around 6 or 7.
You could be onto something.

[Kakihara]

I experienced my first major slowdown last night but I put it down to the fact that I was fighting a dragon in a giant camp while they and their mammoths chased me around and a group of hunters attacked them while another dragon flew around (or spazzed out half glitched into a rock) in the distance. If this debacle seriously hurts Bethesda it'll be sad since Skyrim is the most brilliant imaginative game I've played in a long time but obviously you can't release a broken game and not expect repurcussions.

[gamingisnotacrime]

i rented the ps3 nd 360 version and notice a lot of issues on the ps3. obviously i bought it on 360, it might not be perfect but is the lesser evil

[h311rais3r]

It's the ps3s limited ram. 360 has a little more and it's happening to some of them too. I play on pc with 8 gigs so I probably won't hit this issue. Although this is bethesdas fault for having the saves act this way.......

[kaveti6616]

No, this is how RPGs work.

You make changes, and the game tracks them so that when you save them you can play the game again with those changes without losing data.

Since you have 8 gigs of RAM, you certainly won't run into this issue. People who have been playing for 170 hours have saves files that are at most 20 megabytes.

It's a big issue for consoles but not for capable PCs.

And I for one like the fact that the game doesn't cater to lowest common denominator. If it did, then we wouldn't be able to save our significant changes to the world. Changes would be reset as soon as we left an area, and that's not fun.

Console games need less RAM because they're designed to be linear, such as God of War 3 (where enemies you kill disappear) or GTAIV (where you can blow up a car and leave the street, and when you come back a few seconds later, the wreckage is gone).

Bethesda did the best they could with the hardware available. It was always recommended that gamers get this for PC.

PS3 fanboys are always complaining about developers catering to the "lowest common denominator" and how developers should make the best game possible for all platforms. Well, they did. This is the best possible outcome that could have been achieved on consoles.

[h311rais3r]

@kaveti

I know that's how RPGs work. However they should have found a workaround for the consoles due to their limitations. It can be done.

And y am I getting disagrees? R people on this site that stupid?

[ChocolateGiddyUp]

IGN's review of the PS3 version says "9.5 - Amazing"

They say they're working on a story about this, but they should really take that down for now.

If I read their review, bought Skyrim and saw THIS, I'd be supremely pissed.

[OSIRUSSS]

Can we all agree that dark souls is GoTY now. Please.

[h311rais3r]

It's not goty. I have it. I love it. It's not goty. Skyrim is not better. Not worse. Different. Stop with the argument it's just as bad as bf3 vs mw3

[OSIRUSSS]

Well you are correct in one respect, DS may be difficult to complete but Skyrim is impossible to complete but for different reasons.

[frankboy2012]

If we don't get any answers soon I can see a lawsuit in the making quite frankly,they obviously knew their was gonna be a problem right from the get go,fallout 3 and new Vegas springs to mind.I love skyrim to bits minor glitches don't bother me its the crashing multiple times annoying as fuck but as it stands now its a case of hardware limitations blah blah blah lack of memory blah blah blah so why release it for ps3 in the first place then ???

[Frankfurt]

The reason:

"The PS3 has a divided memory pool: 256 megs for system, 256 for graphics. It's the same total amount of memory, but not as flexible for a developer to make use of."

That is straight from the dev responsible for another PS3 Bethesda game (Fall Out New vegas):

http://ps3.ign.com/articles...

[Raider69]

Well if IGN care so much for all the problems the PS3 version an also all other versions have them they should lower the 9.5 score they gave to Skyrim!IGN and others gave 9 and 10's to a game thats broke,if they had tested the game properly and given the scores according them maybe next time developers will think twice before releasing broken games.They shoud lower the score,its not the first time a game gets a review score lower because it was found broke after an extended testing,by doing so it will show developers that they shoud find a fix to the problem before the final score been set.Also lowering the score will show potential buyers that at the moment the game is broken and not recommended for buying until its fix.

[ElementX]

I traded in my PS3 copy for a 360. Luckily I had only played around 30 hours. I noticed right away how much better the 360 version looked. I would've kept my PS3 copy except I didn't want to run into the lag issue that I doubt will ever be fixed.

[OSIRUSSS]

well you just wasted 120 dollars hahaha <<<<cough>>& gt; hahaha.....Oh yeah here is why I lawlz at your stupidity.

http://forums.bethsoft.com/...

http://forums.bethsoft.com/...

http://forums.bethsoft.com/...

http://forums.bethsoft.com/...

[ElementX]

The issue with the PS3 is probably due to the divided RAM. The freezing issues the 360 has can probably be fixed with a patch. You can't patch RAM issues. The only freezing I've heard about on 360 is players with almost 200 hours of play time.

BTW those links you posted only have 1 or 2 pages of comments, if it were a huge issues there would be a lot more.

[terrordactyl]

The game only has to load to RAM the location of items within a 100 metre radius of your character. The rest could be saved to hard drive and only loaded to RAM when you are within visual distance of it.

Seriously, there is no need to hold the location details of every object in the game in physical RAM at any one time. That info is carried within the relatively small save file (10-20mb etc). They just need to alter the code so that it only reads to RAM the object data in your area.

[TheOtherTheoG]

This is how it happened, according to one of the folks at Obsidian:

"That can easily be a big problem, especially if you’re on the PS3. The longer you play a character, the more bit differences on objects (characters, pencils on tables, containers, etc.) get saved off and carried around in memory. I think we’ve seen save games that are pushing 19 megs, which can be really crippling in some areas.

Since you’re a developer, you should understand the implication of what I wrote. It’s an engine-level issue with how the save game data is stored off as bit flag differences compared to the placed instances in the main .esm + DLC .esms. As the game modifies any placed instance of an object, those changes are stored off into what is essentially another .esm. When you load the save game, you’re loading all of those differences into resident memory.

It’s not like someone wrote a function and put a decimal point in the wrong place or declared something as a float when it should have been an int. We’re talking about how the engine fundamentally saves off and references data at run time. Restructuring how that works would require a large time commitment. Obsidian also only had that engine for a total of 18 months prior to F:NV being released, which is a relatively short time to understand all of the details of how the technology works.

As with Fallout 3 and Skyrim, the problems are most pronounced on the PS3 because the PS3 has a divided memory pool."

Essentially, it's something to do with how the PS3's memory is designed, and how that causes problems with games with a huge amount of interactivity, such as Skyrim. It's an issue with how pretty much every engine is coded, but only shows up in games where there is a large amount of interaction with objects, and therefore a larger amount of variables in regards to this to save, meaning larger save games. It's a fault with how the PS3 is made, not Skyrim itself. There are workarounds, which have been posted above, but the only real fix would be to attatch everything in the game on the spot, which ruins quite a lot of the fun of it.