What is a “memory leak” in terms of video games?
In: Technology
When a program requires memory (RAM) to store resources, it requests it from the system and gets assigned a block of memory (an address range) reserved for its use. A well-designed program will report to the system when it is done with that memory, allowing the system to reassign it to a new function.
In the case of a “memory leak”, a program fails to release memory when it’s done. This unreleased and unusable memory builds up as the program repeats this function. As time goes by, more and more memory gets reserved. Eventually, there is no free memory left to assign, meaning that an application or the entire system slows down or eventually crashes.
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