Fix the memory leak

[Cb6]

This has been an ongoing problem for TEN YEARS now and it's ridiculous. Why is it that I have to close my game every few hours, in a text based simulation game, because it starts running at <10 FPS? I have an RX 6750 XT, a Ryzen 7 5800XT and 24 GB of ram. Yet after a few hours, this game lags my computer more than any AAA title I play. This has been an ongoing problem for like I said ten years, at least. I shouldn't have to close my game every 2 hours to be able to play it.

[jets12]

This issue makes this game unplayable for me. I go about 40 minutes or so and then my computer slows down and I have to restart. No other program that I use does this. Just kills the enjoyment. None of the adjustments to the settings helps. This game will go unused by me until this is corrected. I will not hold my breath.

[ineedplayerpics]

Watch out! I pointed out a problem, and Nicole threatened to ban me lol. Seems they don’t care about the community anymore it’s such a shame

[Ineedplayerpicsgone]

Originally Posted by ineedplayerpics

Watch out! I pointed out a problem, and Nicole threatened to ban me lol. Seems they don’t care about the community anymore it’s such a shame

Nah fam they just don’t care about your bullcrud

[ineedplayerpics]

The developers are even creating new account to talk more lol, quite amusing

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by ineedplayerpics

The developers are even creating new account to talk more lol, quite amusing

I read your thread. The original post didn't give enough information so developers or readers could get the full picture.

Matt offered you help. You turned him down while throwing your toys on the floor. Being an entitled permanent victim is no way to go through life. You have stated that you will make sure that you and all of your friends don't buy another OOTP. I'm not sure what they will do without the revenue from one sale?

Good luck.

[rwd59]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Matt offered you help. You turned him down while throwing your toys on the floor. Being an entitled permanent victim is no way to go through life. You have stated that you will make sure that you and all of your friends don't buy another OOTP. I'm not sure what they will do without the revenue from one sale?

I wish there was still a like button!

[BaseballMan]

Not sure what is going on but it takes forever to resize a window.
Also seems to get slower if i leave the game on and it finishes while im doing something else.

Took a very long pause to look at different menus when this happened.
Not sure how much more memory would be in use since the game was over and it was just on the game over screen.

To be fair im not sure it couldn't be Windows 11.
Lately Windows 11 has been a pain.
Keeps making my background transparent when right clicking on a file.
I turned it off but that didn't do anything.
Sometimes there is a delay when going to a different file or folder so im not sure if my delay was a problem with the game or Windows 11.

[twins_34]

For now just disable Facegens and it will fix your issue while OOTP tries to find out why facegens are causing an issue.

[jets12]

I have facegens turned off in game and I still have the issue.

[Boom Boom]

I don't have this issue on my M1 Macbook pro. is this a PC issue?

[Lukas Berger]

This is much more likely a problem with other programs you're running in the background interfering with the game than a memory leak, as if it was a memory leak, it would likely be happening to everyone.

I would suggest doing some troubleshooting with turning off/whitelisting OOTP in any anti-virus or firewall software you have.

You also might want to experiment a little with the OpenGL settings you use, and see if you get better results by changing from the defaults. It's possible the defaults are not a good combo with your system/video card.

[Bagpipes5]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

This is much more likely a problem with other programs you're running in the background interfering with the game than a memory leak, as if it was a memory leak, it would likely be happening to everyone.

I would suggest doing some troubleshooting with turning off/whitelisting OOTP in any anti-virus or firewall software you have.

You also might want to experiment a little with the OpenGL settings you use, and see if you get better results by changing from the defaults. It's possible the defaults are not a good combo with your system/video card.

And this is why I'll never buy another OOTP. People have been complaining about this for years and this is the end result. Ce la vi!

[jets12]

My problems have nothing to do with programs running in the background or opengl.

[snepp]

Originally Posted by jets12

My problems have nothing to do with programs running in the background or opengl.

What have you tried to be sure?

Disabled any and all antivirus/malware/backup programs?

Have you tried opening up task manager when these slowdowns occur to see if there's some crazy cpu or ram usage going on?

You haven't provided much to work with, any assistance will only be as good as the context provided.

I can go for hours at a time on my low ram potato laptop before any slowdown meaningfully builds up. If you're experiencing problems after 40 minutes there's something else going on.

[Bagpipes5]

With respect, this has been a recurring complaint from a large number of users for over a decade — long before the current version. It's not isolated to a few people with background interference; the exact same symptoms (progressive slowdown/lag/choppiness that gets worse the longer the game runs, fixed temporarily by restarting OOTP) have been reported every year across many versions.

Here are just a few examples straight from the official forums and Reddit:

2026 (OOTP 27) – "Fix the memory leak"
Cb6: "This has been an ongoing problem for TEN YEARS now and it's ridiculous. Why is it that I have to close my game every few hours, in a text based simulation game, because it starts running at <10 FPS? I have an RX 6750 XT, a Ryzen 7 5800XT and 24 GB of ram. Yet after a few hours, this game lags my computer more than any AAA title I play. This has been an ongoing problem for like I said ten years, at least."
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=368905
2026 (OOTP 27) – "Memory Leak?"
Multiple users reporting the exact progressive slowdown even with Task Manager showing normal RAM/CPU.
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=368877
2026 (OOTP 27) – Large memory usage causing crashes
Users seeing OOTP 27 balloon to 18 GB+ (90% usage) and crash, something that didn't happen in OOTP 26. Some noted it was tied to Facegen/PT but persisted for others even after the hotfix.
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=367758
2023 – "Game slows down immensely after a few months of sim"
lionbacker: "By the time I get to June or July... the game begins to slow to a crawl... If I exit and reload the game it starts out good again but then inevitably slows again."
zevus: "I've had this issue since OOTP 22."
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=346373
2021 (OOTP 22) – "Another year, another memory leak"
bockerboy: "Really trying to enjoy this year's game, but it seems the issue of the ever-present memory leak is back. I'm having to restart the game at least twice a season because everything gets so choppy and laggy... the exact same issue as OOTP21."
Malova: "I have the exact same issue and have had this issue since i started on OOTP 16... after about an 30mins to an hour it get's really slow... If i close the game and re-load it completely it runs smooth again."
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=325600
Recent Reddit examples (same pattern):
"It's some sort of memory leak I think. It's been in every OOTP game I've played, no idea why they haven't fixed it yet."
Multiple threads about the game getting "progressively slower the longer it's open" with users confirming restarts are the only fix.
The devs have patched specific memory leaks in hotfixes (including one in 27.1.45 for Facegen/PT navigation), which is great — but the general "game gets choppier the longer you play and needs restarting" issue keeps coming back year after year. It's clearly not just antivirus, OpenGL defaults, or background programs for the dozens of people reporting the exact same thing across different hardware and OSes.

I'm happy to try any official troubleshooting steps, but after 10+ years of this exact complaint, it really does look like a memory leak (or at least a progressive performance degradation) that affects a significant portion of the player base. Any update on whether this is being looked at as a broader engine issue would be appreciated.
Thanks!

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Bagpipes5

I'm happy to try any official troubleshooting steps, but after 10+ years of this exact complaint, it really does look like a memory leak (or at least a progressive performance degradation) that affects a significant portion of the player base. Any update on whether this is being looked at as a broader engine issue would be appreciated.
Thanks!

There is clearly something going on here for multiple users and no one is debating that, but it's very unlikely to be a memory leak as such.

Memory leaks have happened before and surely will happen again in each version of the game. Usually we fix them very quickly though, once they are pointed out.

True memory leaks are actually very easy to monitor for and debug with our dev tools, and if they're happening, they affect everyone. So they're pretty obvious once we look for them.

For something that maybe acts kind of like a memory leak, but only in certain cases, this is a whole different kettle of fish.

To some extent that is semantics I suppose, but the semantics are important with issues like this because if they are only happening for a relatively small amount of users, and are somehow system specific (which appears to be the case here, or again, they would happen to everyone) there is very little we can do to actually debug or to fix this. If we can't make it happen on a dev machine, we can't debug it.

Nothing you're saying above rules out that this can be antivirus, OpenGL defaults, or background programs for the dozens of people seeing this. Dozens of people using OOTP also surely use the same programs, especially something like anti-virus programs. And you don't even need to use the same anti-virus program to have similar programs acting in similar ways. OOTP is especially prone to have problems with these sorts of outside programs in ways most games aren't, because of the massive amount of data it writes to disk.

Now, that's not to say it absolutely is the issue.

Probably the only way we might be able to do this is for someone who is having this happen to reach out to support@ootpdevelopments.com and give us all the info possible on their system, and also potentially set up a session where we can remotely test on their system. Even that is not a guarantee to work, but it's probably the best chance.

Failing that, for anyone experiencing this, posting in the bug reports forums with a trace file from a session where this is happening, along with as much info as possible on what other programs are running at the same time, how long the game/computer have been turned on and not restarted before this appears, whether a restart helps or not, what screens this happens on and really as much other info as possible may give us some useful pointers.

[BaseballMan]

Something is going on.
I an using the same pc that I
Used with 26.
I've noticed that during game players would move like normal but after about the 3rd inning, the players would move like trying to watch a modern video on 56k modem.
I tested by turning on my pc and just starting the game.
I did not start anything else.
I believe I have all startup apps disabled except Microsoft security and defender but no programs i started.
I started a game and the same thing happened.
I do think there is something going on.
So my questions are what information can I provide to help?
What could I try to eliminate the problem?
I can test on 2 other desktops.
All desktops were built last May so they should have all the tech requirements.
I know I turned onedrive off but the pesky thing seems to come back from time to time like headless data roach.
Microsoft insists that I want one drive.
I just dont know if the problem is with the game, windows 11 or a hardware issue.

[WhiskyTango]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

There is clearly something going on here for multiple users and no one is debating that, but it's very unlikely to be a memory leak as such.

Memory leaks have happened before and surely will happen again in each version of the game. Usually we fix them very quickly though, once they are pointed out.

True memory leaks are actually very easy to monitor for and debug with our dev tools, and if they're happening, they affect everyone. So they're pretty obvious once we look for them.

For something that maybe acts kind of like a memory leak, but only in certain cases, this is a whole different kettle of fish.

To some extent that is semantics I suppose, but the semantics are important with issues like this because if they are only happening for a relatively small amount of users, and are somehow system specific (which appears to be the case here, or again, they would happen to everyone) there is very little we can do to actually debug or to fix this. If we can't make it happen on a dev machine, we can't debug it.

Nothing you're saying above rules out that this can be antivirus, OpenGL defaults, or background programs for the dozens of people seeing this. Dozens of people using OOTP also surely use the same programs, especially something like anti-virus programs. And you don't even need to use the same anti-virus program to have similar programs acting in similar ways. OOTP is especially prone to have problems with these sorts of outside programs in ways most games aren't, because of the massive amount of data it writes to disk.

Now, that's not to say it absolutely is the issue.

Probably the only way we might be able to do this is for someone who is having this happen to reach out to support@ootpdevelopments.com and give us all the info possible on their system, and also potentially set up a session where we can remotely test on their system. Even that is not a guarantee to work, but it's probably the best chance.

Failing that, for anyone experiencing this, posting in the bug reports forums with a trace file from a session where this is happening, along with as much info as possible on what other programs are running at the same time, how long the game/computer have been turned on and not restarted before this appears, whether a restart helps or not, what screens this happens on and really as much other info as possible may give us some useful pointers.

I thought the forum was moderating posts written by AI.

[Bagpipes5]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Something is going on.
I an using the same pc that I
Used with 26.
I've noticed that during game players would move like normal but after about the 3rd inning, the players would move like trying to watch a modern video on 56k modem.
I tested by turning on my pc and just starting the game.
I did not start anything else.
I believe I have all startup apps disabled except Microsoft security and defender but no programs i started.
I started a game and the same thing happened.
I do think there is something going on.
So my questions are what information can I provide to help?
What could I try to eliminate the problem?
I can test on 2 other desktops.
All desktops were built last May so they should have all the tech requirements.
I know I turned onedrive off but the pesky thing seems to come back from time to time like headless data roach.
Microsoft insists that I want one drive.
I just dont know if the problem is with the game, windows 11 or a hardware issue.

I had this problem on my old rig which wasn't a slouch. I figured it would become a smaller issue or disappear completely by upgrading. I upgraded this January to and i9-285k with a 5080 and 32GB of 6400 MT/s RAM and I still get the slow down usually around June. Something is definitely off, the machine absolutely crushes elaborate AI tasks but OOTP struggles.