LE Skyrim's memory leak

[Saelweng]

I too have noticed the mem leak depends n how many mods your running. If I am running JUST texture mods IE Birds, Insects, and Creatures and no other mods I have no mem leak. Its when I get over 50 mods that add "New" meshes that it spikes at 2.5 gigs on a 8 gig system and just freezes. This started with the 1.8 release so its something that Berth has done and seems to e for the new DLC as from what I gather add a LOT of new textures already.

[monsfarrar]

I can't speak on the navmesh vs memory leak debate, these are both potentially serious issues depending on the person's mod preferences and hardware. I can say that Skyrim consistently crashes on my system after using the same amount of RAM (around 1.7 or 1.8 gigs, I can't remember). Lowering settings and not using anything that would impact memory usage over the vanilla game slow the climb to that threshold, but can't completely avoid it. In fact, running the vanilla game after a fresh reinstall is still subject to this problem.

 

Now, the only time this ever happens to me is in exterior cells ("Skyrim"); interiors, cities, the area outside Fort Dawnguard, etc never use enough memory to cause a crash. I can sit and watch the Task Manager open on another monitor and predict, quite easily, when the next CTD is coming. The only exceptions are when I'm moving through the mountains west of Solitude (specifically the road to Dragon Bridge), where the game will crash sometimes in under a minute, and the road heading east out of Whiterun, where the game will crash in about 3/4 of the average time elsewhere. Also, once memory usage climbs to around 1.6 gigs of RAM things get unstable. At that point trying to save or quick save usually result in a CTD (but with a successful save... usually), opening the inventory or magic menus will also often cause an immediate crash at that point. But if I avoid those things, the game will still inevitably crash when it reaches the aforementioned threshold of memory usage. Now, in my case, part of the issue is most certainly aging hardware but I know I am also not the only person who experiences an identical issue.

 

Admittedly there are ways that solve or drastically reduce the problem for some people and there are a number of things I haven't fully explored. However, I feel that pretty much regardless of what I do (at least on my current system), I can only increase the time I can run around before the game kicks the bucket and not actually resolve the issue.

Edited December 14, 2012 by monsfarrar

[Dudeman325]

I'll have to put my signature here. I'm not someone who could do this myself, but I think maybe someone out there could. I personally run on a pretty low-end system for this day and age, but it runs Skyrim decently. If this could be fixed, I think it could help make the game a lot smoother for everyone involved.

[Scoop11]

aye this is real pain in ... really just started happening alot after last patch for me. zone a few times ... then try to exit into open world ... its a guaranteed "not responding" situation. But as mentioned by others ... it happens just running along in the open world even when ya logged into that area ... been considering that this happens when a new zone is loaded as you travel. /shrug

[GrandBulwark]

Skyrim Project Stability:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32363

 

My guide will help you circumvent any memory related issues. Barring broken scripts, mod conflicts and improper configuration; using this guide will make playing Skyrim for hours on end possible. In fact, it will most likely NEVER freeze again. I say again FREEZE again; I've never hear of a CTD from memory issues. If you are lagging or freezing, this WILL fix that. In fact, even if you aren't it is a very good guide to improve the reliability of the game as whole.

 

Edit: just to clarify, this guide will work on ALL levels of pc performance. It's not targeted at gaming rigs; it will work for anything.

Edited April 1, 2013 by GrandBulwark

[Malosar]

I think I will definitely try that out GrandBulwark, thanks. I've been getting a lot more freezes lately, wasn't sure whether it's due to more mods being added or the last few patches from Beth. I can literally hit 2Gb loading a savegame in Whiterun.