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

[SaintForHire]

I'm exactly the same. I have 4gb of ram and it crashes every time I play, and I mean EVERY TIME I play, for more than two hours. I own a lot of new games on my computer, as well as MMOs, and this is the only game that crashes this much.

[Alec_Fortescue]

I'm exactly the same. I have 4gb of ram and it crashes every time I play, and I mean EVERY TIME I play, for more than two hours. I own a lot of new games on my computer, as well as MMOs, and this is the only game that crashes this much.

 

I know bai. I am on 4gb and VISTA. Getting Win7 and 8 gb this month... x)

[Soluss]

I know bai. I am on 4gb and VISTA. Getting Win7 and 8 gb this month... x)

 

VISTA is a big part of your problem. It uses alot more resources then 7.

[Floredon]

I am on Windows 7 (64 bit), and have a Radeon 6950. I also have been having issues after long periods of gameplay. I also have noticed that quitting and restarting the game improves performance. I haven't had any crashes, but have had the issue where the game takes a long time to exit. I do not have performance issues like this with Rift or WoW, SWTOR is unique in the performance area. Every other game I can play on Ultra, SWTOR I have to turn down a notch just to be playable. In my ship, I get over 100 fps, on a planet I get 40-50.

[Ashu-ri]

Alright, I am posting this thread here instead of customer service/bug reports because BioWare will not and has not responded to peoples' questions.

 

Here is the problem more than a few players, including myself, have been experiencing: The longer they play the game, the more problems the game has. These problems normally consist of (but are not limited to) game choppiness and/or fps drops, game crashes, and having the desktop lockup when trying to quit.

 

I have been doing extensive research by checking other peoples' experiences with this to get a general idea of what is going on. More than a few people suggested it may be a memory leak, as the game slowly but surely uses up more memory as you keep playing.

 

Some people experience it differently and have had to find "workarounds" including exiting the game every few hours. How long it normally takes before the game acts up seems to depend almost entirely on how much memory people have. I myself run my computer at around 4GB, and it normally takes 1-2 hours of gameplay before the game inevitably either crashes, or locks up my desktop when I try to quit. But if I exit the game any time before then, it exits fine. Other people who are experiencing a similar issue running at 8GB of memory seem to have to play quite a bit longer before they experience any issues (with the average being 3-5 hours). Seeing a pattern here?

 

Now a few smart people have actually tested this, and they have found that the game actually does start to use up more memory the longer they play it. Here are a few example threads:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=470605

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=439425

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=542298

 

Those are just a few threads on the issue, but there ALOT more. Everyone's time seems to be different. Some people have to play for hours and hours straight before anything happens, whereas people with less memory (such as myself) only need to play an hour or 2 before experiencing any issues. I seriously cannot play this game a single day without it crashing or getting choppy after just 2 hours of play time. And every single time I play for an extended period of time, my PC locks upon exiting.

 

There are just as many threads, if not more, addressing the issue of people's PC locking up after trying to leave the game.

 

http://www.swtor.com/de/community/showthread.php?p=5451169

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5402474

Then my own thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5055549#post5055549

 

All I know is that more than a few players are experiencing symptoms that are VERY SIMILAR TO A MEMORY LEAK. I am NOT saying that is what it is 100%, but it definitely looks like it. But in most threads in the customer service forums, when the player posts their DXDiag as requested, no employee gets back to them after that point. Or if they do, the problem continues to persist. Has anyone at EA/BioWare ever considered that it isn't their PC with the problem?

 

What I do know for sure is that forcing my PC to shut down so many times from this game has forced me to run a Chkdsk because something got corrupted on forcing my PC to turn off every time I have this issue. NO, THE DRIVE WAS NOT ALREADY CORRUPTED, THIS IS VERY RECENT after forcing my PC off so many times. Basically, if this problem persists, I can't play the game anymore, because I WILL NOT risk damaging my PC because of a broken game. Don't get me wrong, I love BioWare and the games they make, and SWTOR is no exception. But they're busting my butt here. That is why I seriously want to resolve this issue. But if the issue isn't resolved, I can't play the game anymore because I can't risk ruining my PC.

 

If anyone has experienced similar issues, MAKE IT KNOWN. Don't continuously try to fix the problem yourself by screwing with your computer or needlessly upgrading your hardware when it is likely not even your PC that is the problem.

 

No player should have to find their own workarounds for a game they paid for. No player should have to post these issues on the forums with very little to no information as to why the problem is occuring. No player should have to be forced to check if their PC or game is running correctly after playing a game they like, because THAT ISN'T THEIR JOB. It is the DEVELOPERS' JOB. Some people still subscribe to this game, essentially paying you 15$ a month FOR A BROKEN GAME. This is NOT in any sense of the word OKAY. Listen to your players. Respond to your players. You owe them at least some kind of information and what plans, if any, you have to fix this.

 

I totally agree! After much research, we've decided my crashing issues were probably caused by this memory leak (I have 4 gigs). Last night I was crashing often enough (and with HUGE amounts of memory used) that I decided to restart my comp this morning, just to make sure. I haven't been in game yet, today.

[Lexhorn]

Here is the problem more than a few players, including myself, have been experiencing: The longer they play the game, the more problems the game has. These problems normally consist of (but are not limited to) game choppiness and/or fps drops, game crashes, and having the desktop lockup when trying to quit.

I

 

This is what I have since launch, and this is why I do not play this game anymore.

[Elyxin]

I have similar issues with my computer. win7, 4g mem. , dual Core 3.12ghz at current time. vid card is radeon (not at home, can't grab the specs), but with 1g mem on that.

 

system is about 2 yrs old, GPU recently updated. I'm experiencing the same issues, but not as extreme. I'll get choppy but not horrible performance even after a whole day of playing. The performance DOES start to decline though, after a few hours of gameplay. Haven't isolated specific game environments yet though, as I often switch rapidly among many toons during play for crafting, GMt shopping, dailies, etc. close game, restart computer, issue solved. however the one part that is ALWAYS present is crashing. after a few hours I cannot just close the game. it locks up and i have to alt-tab-delete and force close it EVERY TIME.

 

Interestingly enough, my laptop does not experience this issue, even after many hours in game. bought in april this year, HP envy 15 (2.4GHz Core i5-2430M, AMD Radeon HD 7690M 1GB). although my laptops graphical performance is under my main PC (I run max settings on all on the PC, laptop is about 70%) the laptop loads planets faster then my PC does. it also switched to desktop faster with the game then my venerable PC does as well.

 

now...I'm not having the issue with my laptop, BUT when I'm running the client on my laptop it's usually to craft, so ill often just have them sitting on fleet while crafting is going on. so no serious planet shifting like i do on my PC. And due to the low key function (one environment, little intense dynamic graphical changes) that could be a determining factor. hte 8 gig memory may help as well. I don't know. both are running a production version of win7 64 bit.

 

But just my 2 cents. PC is experiencing the issue, laptop is not. PC has better vidCard, laptop has twice the RAM on board. PC is running a dated dual core, but faster clock speed. laptop has slower clock, but 2x the cores. PC is used for harsher graphical environments, laptop usually for crafting, mild running from point a to point B.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Elyxin

[Feskitt]

If I load a whole bunch, such as going from planet to planet, or constant PvP match after match, or log back and forth between alts, then the 1-2 hour crash time shortens down to ~ 30-45 minutes.

 

 

What I like is how they throw out the ol' "run CheckDisk, run MemTest," almost like they think no one will bother, and assume it is a problem with their PC and stop blaming TOR.

 

I ran both, had zero errors.

 

It's the game already.

[Scovina]

Okay so as for myself I have not had any CTD at all. But what I have dealt with is watching my ram usage spike at about 3.8 to 4.5 gigs which does not necessarily alarm me after hours on end in game. However I do have issues when I try to log out after several (at least 3-5 hours) of playing. My machine will freeze up but not totally lock up. It just runs stupidly slow. It is not a hardware issue as everything I have in my rig is no older than 6 months technology wise.

 

This program is the only one causing the issue as well. I have run many others that have no issue like this.

[Saitada]

My comp will refuse to unload the game after 2-3 hours of game play (but will unload it fine with under 2 hrs of game play), so I have taken to simply killing the process in Task manager and that eliminates the issue for me. I have tried running this game in both windowed and full screen, and it will start out with low ram usage and over time climb to as much as 3-4 gigs of usage.

 

This is an game engine and optimization issue, not a computer issue. It is 100% Bioware/EA's fault.

 

~S

[Danbuterx]

At this point, I think that even if Bioware wanted to fix the memory issue, they couldn't. They fired all their programmers.

[Vitellius]

For starters post your gaming rig so i can see what i can afford to buy myself - or if you really want to join i guess we could trade PCs. Im sure you'll enjoy the club.

 

Win 7 64

8 gigs ram

AMD 6 core proc

Nvidia 550 ti

 

I play for hours with no crashes and the graphics at max. I built my comp and take real good care of it in terms of drivers and maintenance. If I could make one for everyone, I would

 

Now, i play with a friend of mine. His comp isn't as good as mine but he also plays for hours. His performance is good but he does tend to crash once every play session. I don't know his specs.

[veyl]

When the game was released there was an extremely nasty Memory Leak in Taris on imp side that came towards the tail end of the planet.

 

The game would eat your character... and the only way to have it pulled out of the planet was a GM response. (Needless to say, people waited a few days for that to happen.)

 

They "fixed" that leak a patch later, but it's very clear that the game still suffers from them.

[Feskitt]

If I load a whole bunch, such as going from planet to planet, or constant PvP match after match, or log back and forth between alts, then the 1-2 hour crash time shortens down to ~ 30-45 minutes.

 

 

What I like is how they throw out the ol' "run CheckDisk, run MemTest," almost like they think no one will bother, and assume it is a problem with their PC and stop blaming TOR.

 

I ran both, had zero errors.

 

It's the game already.

 

 

Actually, I was wrong.

 

Twice now, I've crashed after ~ 20 minutes. From relogging alts (cross-crafting)

 

That's since this last post.

 

 

Game is jacked up.

 

 

WinXP

4gb RAM

550GTX Ti 1gb RAM

3.2 QuadCore Phenom II

[Vlacke]

Never had any memory leaks with this game, or crashes to desktop that were caused by them.

Not saying that some people aren't having problems, just stating my experience so far.

[Feskitt]

Never had any memory leaks with this game, or crashes to desktop that were caused by them.

Not saying that some people aren't having problems, just stating my experience so far.

 

 

Why do people like you make posts like that? What did that add or offer or help?

 

When someone says "they spent 200 million, lost over 3/4 of their subs, and went F2P in 6 months," do you say "BUT I'M STILL HERE!," like that changes anything?

 

[Vlacke]

Why do people like you make posts like that? What did that add or offer or help?

 

When someone says "they spent 200 million, lost over 3/4 of their subs, and went F2P in 6 months," do you say "BUT I'M STILL HERE!," like that changes anything?

 

 

I can see that you are also as constructive as they get....

So here's a solution for you, buy more RAM or lower the bloody details and the chances of having this problem will magically decrease, close to being nonexistent, shocking..i know.

[Hambunctious]

I can see that you are also as constructive as they get....

So here's a solution for you, buy more RAM or lower the bloody details and the chances of having this problem will magically decrease, close to being nonexistent, shocking..i know.

 

That would be okay IF the game didn't run fine before 1.4, and maxed settings with a fleet full of people didn't lag like it does now. They broke something, and they need to fix it. I have to avoid the fleet like the plague now.

 

Also, decreasing your graphics settings DOES NOT stop the memory leak, or lengthen your gameplay.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Hambunctious

[RDeanOU]

Never had any memory leaks with this game, or crashes to desktop that were caused by them.

Not saying that some people aren't having problems, just stating my experience so far.

 

Stop wasting everyone's time. We know that the memory leak doesn't affect everyone...that doesn't make it suddenly not a problem for the people it does affect.

 

I don't understand the urge to pop into a thread where people are sharing stories of a bug affecting them to say that you have had no problems.

 

This is like a news report telling everyone that a building is not on fire. No one cares.

[RDeanOU]

I can see that you are also as constructive as they get....

So here's a solution for you, buy more RAM or lower the bloody details and the chances of having this problem will magically decrease, close to being nonexistent, shocking..i know.

 

Yeah, instead of fixing clearly broken programming we should tell all of the users to upgrade their systems. That's the solution, genius. You nailed it! Great job.

[Feskitt]

I can see that you are also as constructive as they get....

So here's a solution for you, buy more RAM or lower the bloody details and the chances of having this problem will magically decrease, close to being nonexistent, shocking..i know.

 

RED = laughable, and a joke. Something you should be embarrassed to say. Instead of making excuses, try growing a spine. Meanwhile, I'll play every other video game out there, as well as render HD video, with no problems whatsoever.

 

CYAN = doesn't work, already tried. Do you just say stuff w/o having any clue if it's true or not? Just throw it out there, then feel better, eh?

 

Truly LOL.

[morfius]

I can see that you are also as constructive as they get....

So here's a solution for you, buy more RAM or lower the bloody details and the chances of having this problem will magically decrease, close to being nonexistent, shocking..i know.

 

There is an issue with part of PCs ... I have never seen game above 3.5 GB - with some tweaking even 32 bit OS has to be able to survive that on 4GB RAM.

Issue is pretty strange one, I have actually tried to to recreate it with everything I have red here except PvP - not in my bag of things.

I have 7 Characters, changed them over & over, nothing happened for at least 2 hours.

Had done 8 hours sessions without closing game with 4 or 5 planets changed plus 5 alts switching.

Leaved game on character screen and again and again after time out for more than 2 hours (before 1.5 now there is F2P bug I don't want to test - no way to backup all my settings).

Nope... 2.8 to 3.4 GB

On not tuned 32 bit system I understand that OS became out of memory ... but issues on PCs with x64 OS and 4 and more GB RAM?

There is something other that correlate with game and making bad things worst...

[snowmon]

i doubt this will ever get fixed to be honest, its been around since Beta/Launch and is still here, they are too ignorant to think its the game.

 

to add a few things i have found along the the way, most of the time if you are running 32bit client with around 4gig ram it will just crash you, however if you have a 64 bit client with 4gb ram then it will lock up the game. and OP was right about the amount of time, its between 1:30 - 2hrs on a system using 4gig ram, it will first start to shutter, at this point you know that as soon as u exit the game it will start non responding etc etc.(on a 64bit) 32 bit will likely just crash.

yes i know this cause i used to have 32, and recently upgraded to 64 bit, this week im upgrading to 12 gig ram so hopefully it will last longer than a few hours:/

 

Bioware.....stop being so arrogant in thinking its just us, its not, its you. plz find it and fix it.

[Sobai]

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.

 

A man of intelligence. Kudos.

 

To the point if it was a memory leak, every single user would crash. I was playing for 7 hours yesterday and capped at 2.4gb usage (Win 7 professional 64bit, 8gig ram, 560Ti, i5 2500). No crashes, no stuttering. No leak. Are you suggesting a leak is hardware dependent?

 

Anyways, yes there *is* a major issue. It's not a leak, though.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Sobai

[Bounty_]

I personally have not had this issue. I run with 6Gb of ram and dual core processor and crossfire two Radeon 5770 HD cards. Ive asked around about this including a a firend that work for a similar company that uses this engine. And he says it could be caused by the computer being to hot. Cause or has caused som Processor issues, or RAM slot issues. Because they 1. Upgraded and the inside of the casing, Is not getting the air that is requiered. *only viable on Desktops* or 2. The cooling system is just broke. Because He gets calls for the same issue on the game he does customer support for. Edited December 3, 2012 by Bounty_