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.
this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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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.
Yeah im still curious how that would work with a custom bootloader, but thats an interesting read.
I still can't fathom how implementing that "solution" is easier than fixing a memory leak. Like what the hell?
Deadlines have entered the chat.
shareholders have entered chat
Fixing memory leaks (while not breaking anything else) is surprisingly difficult sometimes.
leaks are extremely hard to find and rebooting is just one function call.
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.
It's almost like it's a requirement that Bethesda programmers never write defensive code.
Only cowards check for null.
I only check for None
I always check for nuns out of habit
ActiveNull is so much better though.
and I'm willing to bet that there's an hour-long video on Youtube about it
The fan wiki page says Salmo is programmed to deliver bread to the inns they visit but if you give them bread they eat it instead. The crash is probably due to attempting to complete delivery of an item that's no longer in the inventory.
The wiki also says other characters in the game erroneously refer to Salmo with "she/her" pronouns, but until I ask Salmo for their pronouns I'll keep using neutral language.
*remaster. It's largely just a reskin. As such...yeah, this probably still crashes the game (if it was a legit bug itfp).
They patched SOME bugs, SpiffingBrit mentions the important ones to him they patched in his latest obliteration of Oblivion.
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.
Does the player character have to be present for this to happen?
Sure, some bugs are amusing, even if only for their stupidity. I can do without bugs that crash the game, though.
Best avoid Bethesda games then.
I teleported bread.