• @ch00f@lemmy.world
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    10327 days ago

    In Elder Scrolls III on Xbox, there was a memory leak that they couldn’t fix, so sometimes when the game is loading a new area, it actually reboots the Xbox. Apparently there’s a way the developer can keep a freeze frame loading screen up while the console completely reboots.

    • Interesting. My og modded xbox has a custom firmware, and launches games off a hard drive, i wonder how it would handle this. I might have to dig it out and ftp over a copy of ES3 just to try it out.

      • lime!
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        1126 days ago

        leaks are extremely hard to find and rebooting is just one function call.

      • Tar_Alcaran
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        1126 days ago

        Fixing memory leaks (while not breaking anything else) is surprisingly difficult sometimes.

      • Caveman
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        123 days ago

        Fixing a memory leak takes essentially looking at random data that got there somehow and try to figure out the source. You know what approximately it is by analysing a memory dump but it’s most likely a common structure that is all over the app. Best case it’s easy worst case it’s looking for a needle in a haystack.

        On the other hand, checking if memory is blowing up, then using already built save and load functions is pretty straight forward. Especially since Elder Scrolls saves the entire state and reloads it.

  • ObstreperousCanadian
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    5527 days ago

    It’s almost like it’s a requirement that Bethesda programmers never write defensive code.

  • Ech
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    2527 days ago

    *remaster. It’s largely just a reskin. As such…yeah, this probably still crashes the game (if it was a legit bug itfp).

  • @rumba@lemmy.zip
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    2226 days ago

    The spiffing brit recently did a video on a bunch of fun crap like this, he crashed it doing a lot of things.

    My favorite was taking all the food out of someone’s house, reverse pickpocketing a poison apple in their pocket, the waiting around until 8pm when they eat and observing them dieing.