(Same fellow you just answered) So....basically, every time I manipulate an object, it fluctuates the save file up or down? I've noticed files can get rather huge, is there no way this could have been greatly diminished in a game as big as New Vegas?
It almost always goes up. Some areas will reset contents after three (game) days, but a lot of stuff lingers. Additionally, we also have to deal with "persistent references". These are objects that are immediately loaded with the game because we need to be able to reference them anywhere/everywhere in the world -- even if the player is nowhere near the object. Characters are the most common example. All of the companions need to be able to move around the world even when they are not in your current area, so they are all persistent references.
All object data (excluding art assets like .nifs and audio assets [VO]) for persistent references is loaded at all times, so that's more-or-less a permanent chunk of resident memory. The number of persistent references invariably goes up with each DLC, so as the number of DLCs increases, the system has less and less memory available. Of course, the player's save game file only gets bigger and bigger, since he or she is going through more or more areas manipulating an increasingly large number of objects. This is why some of our later patches actually removed content from the core game (e.g. Primm). Even though we had balanced the memory footprint for the core game, DLC content was pushing down the available resources.
. I have first hand experience with a xna project.
