This game is suffering from memory leaks, and it needs to be fixed.

[GarfieldJL]

I think I may have a similar problem I'm on a Vista 64 bit system. Really I think it gets worse the more planets you head to, cause that's where memory seems to really get eaten up.

 

It's gotten really bad this last patch, and I didn't appreciate Bioware's request for me to send them the system specs so they can claim it is hardware routine; I'm a Computer Graphics Technology Graduate, I've run programs that are more graphic intensive on this particular machine, it is rather obvious that the memory problem stems from the game coding.

 

The other possibility is that it is that the location you had last been at has been cached, and it keeps building up the more locations you go to.

[Grammarye]

It's gotten really bad this last patch, and I didn't appreciate Bioware's request for me to send them the system specs so they can claim it is hardware routine; I'm a Computer Graphics Technology Graduate, I've run programs that are more graphic intensive on this particular machine, it is rather obvious that the memory problem stems from the game coding.

Yeah, heaven forfend they might want to build up stats on how the memory allocation is performing in a given hardware spec & OS. I know CS is just following a script, but frankly, if you are a CG graduate, then you've never had to debug a customer problem remotely. When you have, maybe you'll get a better understanding of why they're asking. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but honestly, this sort of off-the-cuff 'clearly it's this' statement really rubs me up the wrong way. It's almost never that simple unless you're developing for a console that has unchanging hardware.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Grammarye

[GarfieldJL]

Yeah, heaven forfend they might want to build up stats on how the memory allocation is performing in a given hardware spec & OS. I know CS is just following a script, but frankly, if you are a CG graduate, then you've never had to debug a customer problem remotely. When you have, maybe you'll get a better understanding of why they're asking. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but honestly, this sort of off-the-cuff 'clearly it's this' statement really rubs me up the wrong way. It's almost never that simple unless you're developing for a console that has unchanging hardware.

 

I will admit that is a possibility, but the fact of the matter is that everytime a gaming company has gotten my pc specs in the past when troubleshooting they always pulled the cop out of saying my pc's hardware wasn't good enough; only they then had to release a patch a few months later due to tons of people complaining and it was in fact their own scripting causing the issue.

[bahdasz]

It's not a customer problem, it's on their end, maybe they should just log on and watch it happen to themselves. Oh wait, that was funny, I just suggested that they actually test this game themselves. LOL @ me

[TheNahash]

You're right.

 

 

 

 

It's been like this for a year.

 

Actually, at least for me, it was like that 1 year ago, then things vastly improved with 1.2 but after 1.4, I've been constantly crashing after 1-2 hrs of gameplay.

[Selvec]

Its Bioware. All their games have a memory leak.

[xDanninx]

1.2 was fine , 1.3 was the log out issue for me , 1.4 was the death of my ram.

 

Seems to be every zone change increases the memory eaten yet i can stay on a planet for hours do all the content and its fine. Yet planet hop and it dies/gets choppy.

[Exitusx]

Probably a heck of a lot more to do with the fact that they're still running a 32-bit client, and I would speculate that their allocators aren't doing a good job handling address space fragmentation rather than an actual leak. Genuine leaks usually crash the application they're in (after a certain time), reliably, all the time they occur. They do not mysteriously cause FPS drops, Windows to lock up, or your hair to turn blue.

 

All those linked threads basically say is 'oh look, I started with the game using 1.5GB RAM and now it's using 2.8GB of RAM, the sky is falling!'. This is nothing special. I do wish people who haven't programmed & tested a memory allocation strategy wouldn't make rampant speculation over a number they don't understand increasing. Games use RAM all the time. What's more, thanks to significant virtualisation technology in the average OS, the amount of physical RAM in use doesn't necessarily bear any resemblance to what the application's address space is doing.

 

Concentrate on the problem - don't waste time speculating about why it happens. If after 3-4 hours you have choppy performance, care about that, complain about that - it is a much more productive use of your time. If after 3-4 hours you have more RAM being used but the game is fine, that is what your RAM is for. Did you get lots of RAM for it to sit idle doing nothing? I doubt it.

 

I empathise with those having issues - please just focus on the actual problems that need addressing rather than inventing them.

 

Nothing about this problem has been "invented"

 

I stated very clearly what issues I was experiencing, and posted other threads to show other people having similar issues. I stated very clearly that the game worked fine for me up until the 1.3 patch, which is when this problem started occurring for me. I also stated very clearly that IT LOOKS LIKE A MEMORY LEAK. I never actually said that it was. The reason I personally think it is a memory leak is because 1: it looks like a memory leak to me, 2: I asked a friend of mine who is amazing with computers, and when I explained it to him he flat out said "memory leak" and 3: BioWare APPARENTLY has a reputation for having memory leaks in their PC games.

 

In a nutshell, the game can consume as much RAM as it wants until the sky actually does fall, as long as it doesn't hinder my gameplay. But the problem is that IT DOES HINDER MY GAMEPLAY. It does give me a choppy performance after a few hours (or just flat out crashes the application), and it does lock up my desktop when I try to quit the game after playing it for long enough. It can be argued that they are all isolated issues, but that doesn't explain why I had none of these issues until the 1.3 patch, and why some people have always had this issue while others have only just started experiencing it. It also is a little inconvenient how the one thing all of these issues have in common, the point that you seemed to miss here, is that all of these issues only seem to occur AFTER PLAYING IT FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME.

 

I am not saying with 100% certainty that it is a memory leak, but it is the most plausible possibility unless someone can think of a better idea as to what the issue is. And if it is indeed a memory leak, then the issue is with the application and it is the developer's responsibility.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Exitusx

[Exitusx]

1.2 was fine , 1.3 was the log out issue for me , 1.4 was the death of my ram.

 

Seems to be every zone change increases the memory eaten yet i can stay on a planet for hours do all the content and its fine. Yet planet hop and it dies/gets choppy.

 

Same exact issue for me, minus the 1.4 death of my RAM. Everything for me started at 1.3, including the log out issue, choppy performance on occasion, and crashes.

[Exitusx]

I'm going to try the repair function and test it out a bit to see what happens.

[Zangaboing]

I doubt you'll see an improvement even with a clean re-install, keep us updated though.

[Exitusx]

I'm going to try the repair function and test it out a bit to see what happens.

 

Repaired it. Didn't do a thing. It still crashed my computer and I had to do another disk check.

 

Next step: reinstall.

 

If that doesn't work, and we still don't get a response from the Devs, then the next step is uninstall, unsubscribe.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Exitusx

[Exitusx]

Okay, I also tried playing the game in windowed mode so that the desktop doesn't totally freeze up upon exiting, as some people have had success with that.

 

It didn't work at all.

 

I did however have a theory and tried allocating more virtual memory. It didn't solve the problem but something I did notice is that I can play the game give or take 30 minutes longer before experiencing any issues. This was just 1 instance though so I can't really be 100% sure.

 

All I know is that at some point I am going to have to reinstall the game. If it doesn't work, then sorry SWTOR, I love you but you are also slowly destroying my PC. Considering the Devs won't even bother to respond to this issue, you aren't giving me that much of a choice.

[AboB]

I've had 3 crashes to desktop since the latest patch rolled out... before then the last time I remember crashing was in Jan... mind you, I do have an older laptop, so I chalked it up to that.

[Erishumlol]

It's not a customer problem, it's on their end, maybe they should just log on and watch it happen to themselves. Oh wait, that was funny, I just suggested that they actually test this game themselves. LOL @ me

 

 

LOL, this made my day.

[lollie]

I've been using Memory Cleaner which keeps the memory down to under 40%, just set it to clean working set and cache every 5 minutes. Useful app in meantime, if anyone wants to protect their computer from this leak...until they fix it properly.

[KiranK]

This has been an issue for a year now. Good luck getting them to fix it.

[darthmorbous]

you are totally right OP

[tzagheru]

1 year was not enough for EAware to handle the mysteries of Hero Engine.

[morfius]

I've been using Memory Cleaner which keeps the memory down to under 40%, just set it to clean working set and cache every 5 minutes. Useful app in meantime, if anyone wants to protect their computer from this leak...until they fix it properly.

 

Is this actually work?

NT kernel (tested on 2000, Xp, 2003, Vista, 7 and 8) have very good memory management.

My experience with SWTOR on 4 GB, 6 GB and 32 GB does not show game going over 3.4 GB (with multiple planets and characters changed)

There is something other that cause this behavior...

[LoganMatius]

Probably a heck of a lot more to do with the fact that they're still running a 32-bit client, and I would speculate that their allocators aren't doing a good job handling address space fragmentation rather than an actual leak. Genuine leaks usually crash the application they're in (after a certain time), reliably, all the time they occur. They do not mysteriously cause FPS drops, Windows to lock up, or your hair to turn blue.

 

All those linked threads basically say is 'oh look, I started with the game using 1.5GB RAM and now it's using 2.8GB of RAM, the sky is falling!'. This is nothing special. I do wish people who haven't programmed & tested a memory allocation strategy wouldn't make rampant speculation over a number they don't understand increasing. Games use RAM all the time. What's more, thanks to significant virtualisation technology in the average OS, the amount of physical RAM in use doesn't necessarily bear any resemblance to what the application's address space is doing.

 

Concentrate on the problem - don't waste time speculating about why it happens. If after 3-4 hours you have choppy performance, care about that, complain about that - it is a much more productive use of your time. If after 3-4 hours you have more RAM being used but the game is fine, that is what your RAM is for. Did you get lots of RAM for it to sit idle doing nothing? I doubt it.

 

I empathise with those having issues - please just focus on the actual problems that need addressing rather than inventing them.

 

I have started the game at around 1 gig of RAM and during gameplay it was up to just under 4. So you just need to shut up and let the people that are having the problems talk here. I for one have experienced everything that is mentioned in this thread, to include, the game crashing to the desktop and low memory warnings ONLY WHEN PLAYING THIS GAME. So again shut up and stop acting like you know more about the problem than anyone else, but if you do know more perhaps you could FIX the problem instead of being a douche.

[LoganMatius]

Yeah, heaven forfend they might want to build up stats on how the memory allocation is performing in a given hardware spec & OS. I know CS is just following a script, but frankly, if you are a CG graduate, then you've never had to debug a customer problem remotely. When you have, maybe you'll get a better understanding of why they're asking. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but honestly, this sort of off-the-cuff 'clearly it's this' statement really rubs me up the wrong way. It's almost never that simple unless you're developing for a console that has unchanging hardware.

 

So because you don't think that the problem is what hundreds of other people have determined it is, it isn't the problem? Honestly I'm gonna believe the the guy with graphics degree over some moron that thinks he knows more.

[blitzxwolf]

Okay, I also tried playing the game in windowed mode so that the desktop doesn't totally freeze up upon exiting, as some people have had success with that.

 

It didn't work at all.

 

I did however have a theory and tried allocating more virtual memory. It didn't solve the problem but something I did notice is that I can play the game give or take 30 minutes longer before experiencing any issues. This was just 1 instance though so I can't really be 100% sure.

 

All I know is that at some point I am going to have to reinstall the game. If it doesn't work, then sorry SWTOR, I love you but you are also slowly destroying my PC. Considering the Devs won't even bother to respond to this issue, you aren't giving me that much of a choice.

 

Re-installing the game won't help. I've re-installed many times from cd as well as online client download. Even went as far as re-installing Windows itself which still yields the same results...

[Aleeha]

In-game clothes are FAR more important than things like memory leaks and other issues which have dramatic affects on game play. You can post and complain until you're blue in the face but there are people who'll just flame the thread and say, "it never happened to me so you must either be a liar or your gear sucks, upgrade."

 

Moreover, as long as people can play dress-up and have a cute little story they're not going to care much about stuff that actually impacts game play and thus BioWare doesn't care and will NOT, the proof is that in more than a year and a half of complaining about this it's still a problem and the numerous other problems since beta, fix the issue.

 

I agree the game has memory leaks and it's pretty crappy of BioWare to not even acknowledge that, "yes, we're aware of the problems you're having, we're sorry you're having them and we've got some developers trying to solve the issue. Here's where we're at and we'll keep you in the loop."

 

Remember, dress up and cute stories and pets are FAR more important to the player base and BioWare than game breaking problems.

[SFESniper]

YES! Bump this thread so someone will see it PLEASE.

Resubscribing to realize a memory leak is NOW starting to affect my game does NOT make me happy. Been a Star Wars fan forever and this DOES DETRACT from the experience. Bioware you have usually been OKAY at dealing with customer issues... but here's the big picture like he said...

 

Re-subscribing to a game that has a memory leak for a game that recently went free-to-play WITHOUT being addressed by the support and developers is unacceptable. This kind of poor maintenance will lead me to UNSUBSCRIBING YET AGAIN. Do you REALLY want this to happen Bioware? The masses are starting to groan again...