Here is the most recent data on a game that has gone completely awry. The chronicle of this started in http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1320635-37-mb-level-48-play-time-2664610/ . Unfortunately, it reached its post limit and was locked. So here it starts anew.

Short back fill…I began playing Skyrim on a CECHL01 (2008 Fat PS3). Later on I got a new CECH-3001A Slim PS3 and upgraded the HDD to a Kingston HyperX SSD. My save file has been growing out of control (beyond most that I have read about) and is now at the 90MB mark. Here is the most current info on my game:

System Information:

• Playstation 3 Model: CECH-3001A
  
• Free System Memory: 89GB/111GB
  
• Firmware Version: 4 (Problems existed on previous firmware as well)
  
• Skyrim Version: Currently 1.03
  
• System Alteration:
  
  • Kingston HyperX SSD

Game Information:

• Basics:
  
  • Character: Khajit
    
  • Level: 56
    
  • Health: 260
    
  • Magicka: 300
    
  • Stamina: 290
• Skill Levels:
  
  • Destruction: 91
    
  • Restoration: 31
    
  • Alteration: 56
    
  • Enchanting: 100
    
  • Smithing: 100
    
  • Heavy Armor: 30
    
  • Block: 24
    
  • Two Handed: 35
    
  • One Handed: 52
    
  • Archery: 94
    
  • Light Armor: 60
    
  • Sneak: 100
    
  • Lockpicking: 95
    
  • Pickpocket: 25
    
  • Speech: 100
    
  • Alchemy: 100
    
  • Illusion: 26
    
  • Conjuration: 36

• General Statistics:
  
  • Play Time: 419.10.17
    
  • Mauls: 1
    
  • Days as a Werewolf: 658
    
  • Locations Discovered: 168
    
  • Dungeons Cleared: 90
    
  • Days Passed: 917
    
  • Hours Slept: 10591
    
  • Hours Waiting: 3543
    
  • Standing Stone Found: 3
    
  • Gold Found: 1102892
    
  • Most Gold Carried: 262225
    
  • Chests Looted: 3532
    
  • Skill Increases: 850
    
  • Skill Books Read: 69
    
  • Food Eaten: 735
    
  • Training Sessions: 140
    
  • Books Read: 330
    
  • Horses Owned: 0
    
  • Houses Owned: 3
    
  • Stores Invested in: 0
    
  • Barters: 9889
    
  • Persuasions: 87
    
  • Bribes: 4
    
  • Intimidations: 2
    
  • Diseases Contracted: 1

• Quest Information:
  
  • Quests Completed: 55
    
  • Misc Objectives Competed: 229
    
  • Main Quests Completed: 7
    
  • Side Quests Completed: 16
    
  • The Companion Quests Completed: 7
    
  • College of Winterhold Quests Completed: 15
    
  • Thieves’ Guild Quests Completed: 0
    
  • The Dark Brotherhood Quests Completed: 0
    
  • Civil War Quests Completed: 1
    
  • Daedric Quests Completed: 9
    
  • Questlines: 2
    
    • Open Quests:
      
      • Boethiah's Calling
        
      • The Taste of Death
        
      • The Forsworn Conspiracy
        
      • The Jagged Crown
        
      • Diplomatic Immunity
        
      • No Stone Unturned
        
      • Missing in Action
        
      • The Blessings of Nature
        
      • In My Time of Need
        
        • Miscellaneous:
          
          • Go to Find Rjorn's Drum
            
          • Collect bounty from Skald (Completed, but will not clear)
            
          • Kill the dragon located at Bonestrewn Crest (Completed, but will not clear)
            
          • Assist the people of the pale (2/3)
            
          • Talk to the Companion Leaders for work
            
          • Collect bounty from Skald (Another one, Completed, but will not clear)
            
          • Return to Marise (I think this should be complete, but will not clear)
            
          • Listen to Brynjoff's scheme
    • Closed Quests:
      
      • The Wolf Queen Awakened
        
      • Tending the Flames
        
      • The Only Cure
        
      • A Daedra's Best Friend
        
      • The Break of Dawn
        
      • The Man Who Cried Wolf
        
      • Shalidor's Insights
        
      • The Black Star
        
      • Forbidden Legend
        
      • Rise in the East
        
      • Pieces of the Past
        
      • Blood on th Ice
        
      • Arniel's Endeavor
        
      • Arniel's Endeavor
        
      • Arniel's Endeavor
        
      • The Eye of Magnus
        
      • Containment
        
      • Revealing the Unseen
        
      • The Lost Expedition
        
      • Silenced Tongues
        
      • Shalidor's Insights
        
      • Blood on the Ice
        
      • The Mind of Madness
        
      • Joining the Stormcloaks
        
      • A Night to Remember
        
      • The Heart of Dibella
        
      • The Book of Love
        
      • Good Intentions
        
      • Hitting the Books
        
      • The White Phial
        
      • J'Zargo's Experiment
        
      • Onmund’s Request
        
      • Unfathomable Depths
        
      • Promises to Keep
        
      • Hired Muscle
        
      • Under Saarthal
        
      • Glory of the Undead
        
      • Purity of Revenge
        
      • Blood’s Honor
        
      • Infiltrator
        
      • Stealing Plans
        
      • Retrieval
        
      • The Silver Hand
        
      • Animal Extermination
        
      • Proving Honor
        
      • Trouble in Skyrim
        
      • Take up Arms
        
      • The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller
        
      • A Blade in the Dark
        
      • The way of the voice
        
      • Walking Nightmare
        
      • Dragon Rising
        
      • Ill Met by Moonlight
        
      • First Lessons
        
      • Bleak Falls Barrow
        
      • The Golden Claw
        
      • Before the Storm
        
      • Unbound

• Combat Information:
  
  • People Killed: 814
    
  • Animals Killed: 366
    
  • Creatures Killed: 192
    
  • Undead Killed: 454
    
  • Daedra Killed: 29
    
  • Automations Killed: 87
    
  • Critical Strikes: 1315
    
  • Sneak Attacks: 1006
    
  • Backstabs: 26
    
  • Weapons Disarmed: 1
    
  • Brawls Won: 2
    
  • Bunnies Slaughtered: 1

• Magic Information:
  
  • Spells Learned: 55
    
  • Dragon Souls Collected: 56
    
  • Words of Power Learned: 32
    
  • Words of Power Unlocked: 35
    
  • Shouts Learned: 15
    
  • Shouts Unlocked: 16
    
  • Shouts Mastered: 6
    
  • Times Shouted: 551

• Crafting Information:
  
  • Soul Gems Used: 400
    
  • Souls Trapped: 259
    
  • Magic Items Made: 367
    
  • Weapons Improved: 463
    
  • Weapons Made: 58
    
  • Armor Improved: 745
    
  • Armor Made: 216
    
  • Potions Mixed: 1648
    
  • Potions Used: 674
    
  • Poisons Mixed: 312
    
  • Poisons Used: 113
    
  • Ingredients Harvested: 2692
    
  • Ingredients Eaten: 125
    
  • Nirnroots Found: 38
    
  • Wings Plucked: 170

• Crime Information:
  
  • Total Lifetime Bounty: 51
    
  • Largest Bounty: 40
    
  • Locks Picked: 271
    
  • Pockets Picked: 5
    
  • Items Pickpocketed: 0
    
  • Times Jailed: 0
    
  • Days Jailed: 0
    
  • Fines Paid: 51
    
  • Jail Escapes: 0
    
  • Items Stolen: 35
    
  • Assaults: 63
    
  • Murders: 4
    
  • Horses Stolen: 1
    
  • Trespasses: 8

• Homes Owned:
  
  • Whiterun (Home Base, I don’t really use the other homes)
    
  • Riften
    
  • Solitude
    
  • Archmage’s Quarters
• Marriage:
  
  • Aela
• Stored Inventory:
  
  • Smithing Related Items: 3499 lbs
    
  • Food: 716 lbs
    
  • Housewares: 377 lbs (mainly Dwemer Dishes)
    
  • Magic Related Components: 330 lbs
    
  • Ingredients: 926 lbs
    
  • Books: 298 lbs (Immediately crashed the game dropping them all on the floor)
    
  • Gems/Jewelry/Soul Gems: 643 lbs
    
  • Armor Weapons: 1107 lbs
    
  • Clothes: 173 lbs
    
  • Dwemer Parts: 1092 lbs

Fixes and Workarounds Attempted While on 1.02 Version:

• Turned off all Autosaves
  
• Deleted Corrupted Data
  
• Made new save
  
  • Improved functionality somewhat, less freezes due to Autosave being off
    
  • Frame Rate issues still were present
    
  • File size continued to grow
    
  • Still had occasional freezes requiring a hard reboot
    
  • Still had crashes when attempting to manually save
• Upgraded to 1.03

Fixes and Workaround Attempted While on 1.03 Version:

• Turned off internet on PS3.
  
• Attempted the wait/sleep option
  
• Uninstalled 1.03
  
  • Couldn’t play my most current save game
• Uninstalled Skyrim Completely, Reinstalled with 1.03
  
  • No measurable positive effects
• Within a 24 hour period back to back process:
  
  • Assuming my “inventory” was to blame, sold 80% of what I had stored away in the Cupboard, Dresser, End Tables, Chest, Barrel, and Sacks to vendors in Whiterun and The College of Winterhold. Waited or Slept 48 hours and Fast Traveled to ensure their inventory reset, sold more, and repeated until I was out of extraneous and uninteresting junk and returned to the Wait/Sleep Method:
    
    • Slept for 30 some odd days at the College of Winterhold, save, reboot
      
      • File size was 31MB before the sell off and sleep, same after.
    • Fast traveled to Whiterun Waited instead of Sleeping an additional 30 days, save, reboot
      
      • File size was the same 31MB
    • Decided to try actually “Waiting” in the Underforge by just leaving the game running overnight (6-8 hours real world time) with the character hidden in the corner, save, reboot
      
      • Somehow 5MB of data was added…file size was now 36MB
  • Booted into Safemode
    
    • Rebuilt File System
      
    • Rebuilt Database
      
      • Obviously this would not affect the current file size, so I started the game
    • While reading posts on the Bethesda/Skyrim/PS3 forum for probably an hour and a half continually Waited…not sure how many days.
      
      • File Size…37MB
  • Attempted White Phial Quest. Made it through, crash on save.
• Took another players tactic of putting opposing dead NPCs weapons back into their inventory if they were dropped, didn’t seem to have much effect.
  
• Continue to sell off extraneous inventory
  
• Fruitlessly do periodic 30 day naps
  
• Saves in my Whiterun home seem to be successful most of the time.
  
  • Except after a quest
• Save at the beginning of a quest and at the end before exiting the area. The game will invariably crash soon after the quest is over.
  
• After a Quest/Save, I exit and reboot.

Extra Information of Possible Usage:

Game Play Style:

• I sneak everywhere
  
• Primary weapon: Bow
  
• I used to pick up everything (sold it all off though to try to fix it,)
  
  • Now I usually just take gold, high dollar items, unique times, ingredients, and potions
• I spent a significant amount of time and effort to level Enchanting, Smithing, and Alchemy early
  
• I don’t drop stuff on the ground even in my house, if I accidently pick up something that I don’t want, I leave it in a corpse
  
• I try to pick up all the arrows from my follower, myself, and that enemies shoot

Random Glitches Observed:

• Farkas during the first quest where he is your follower and turns into a werewolf, never turned back. The quest glitched out really bad, lever didn’t work, somehow continued on, and how he wonders around roaring all the time.
  
• After some time in the game the Mages at Winterhold just stood in the Hall of Elements for days if not weeks and never returned to their rooms until I forced a change by starting a quest with them.
  
• Bookshelf is still not working in Whiterun Home post 1.03 which was supposed to fix that issue
  
• Riften and surrounding areas are a guaranteed places to get crashes and freezes
  
• People keep coming into my house in Whiterun…if I can’t go into theirs…they should stay out of mine.
  
• Aela’s default bow is preferred over a double enchanted Legendary Daedric Bow…? Not logical at all. Can’t pickpocket or disarm the default bow.
  
• If you outfit followers according to their skills with maxed out gear, they choose junk gear that you give them that does not befit their skills or style.
  
• Arcadia’s Cauldron… Had a MISC item for sale called DO NOT DELETE…
  
• If I set something on a table in my house, like the butterfly in a jar, it’s on the floor when I come back, drums and lutes are knocked over and so on.
  
• Had an experience that I could only describe as bleed-over. So I was in the Forsaken Cave, and Aela died because she decided to stand on one of those fire trap things. That was kind of a deal breaker. So I walked out the entrance of the cave and turned to walk back in (for no real reason), but I was close enough to the entry point that it came up on my Screen saying "Forsaken Cave." I went to the load menu to start over which put me back in my Whiterun home. Aela was alive, yay for that, and my crosshairs, no matter what I did said..."Forsaken Cave" (even though at this point, in this specific save, I had never been there before).
  
• While completing a quest in Fellglow Keep:
  
  • Going up the stairs towards the mark the game froze solid three times in the same spot on the stairs. The fourth time, it froze, but after a minute unfroze and in the left hand corner of the screen it said: Autosave. Autosaves were turned off at this point, so, that should not have happened. Went back and confirmed the settings...no Autosaves on.
• At the 41MB mark, random dead dragons began to drop out of the sky, definitely not ones I have killed either since some were in areas where I had never fought a dragon. Some still had loot on them. Occasionally I get a dragon soul from them.
  
• Broken Quest: Talked to the Arentino kid, but didn't go through the entire dialog. Thought that I had. Killed the Grelod the Kind and went back to the kid. Same dialog, as if I had never been there. This prevents the quest line related to the Dark Brotherhood.
  
• Opening chests in your home count as chests opened in the game stats.
  
• If you put your gold into a chest and take it back out it counts in the Gold Found stats.
  
• PS3 button occasionally works during freezes while in load screens(load time in excess of 10 minutes accompanied by loss of music), results vary:
  
  • A menu allowing you to quit the game or shut down the system.
    
    • Sometimes quitting the game from here still results in the entire system rebooting.
  • No menu but a black screen and eventual reset of the system
• Marriage or Follower Related Bug:
  
  • So, Aela used to be able to carry as much weight as me. Now, however, it is a struggle to get her to carry more than a couple of items. There are two possibilities for this the store that your character you marry sets up seems to be counting against how much they can carry. The initial work around consisted of giving them all you can, exiting the trade, going back into it, and from there giving them things one by one via exiting the trade and entering it over and over. This doesn't work very well anymore. Other option, buy everything she has, which kinda destroys the entire point of her being able to carry things you need her to carry and costs at least 15000 gold. Another user suggested that it has to do with the default bow duplicating itself. Either way, bad bug, needs fixed.
• Nirnroots:
  
  • I have a few supernovas in my game now.
• An interesting event occurred after finishing the Blood on the Ice Quest and the Giant at Broken Limb Camp. Upon return to Windhelm almost everybody in the city (Palace of the Kings (not Ulfric), Candlehearth, outside) is dancing like a bunch of drunken hooligans. Aela is also doing the drunken dance. You can't talk to most of them, they just run somewhere else and the ones you can talk to, you have to run down and attempt several times. As you go around the city it gets weirder as everyone starts to follow you around. Whenever you stop, they start dancing again. This finally ends randomly when the familiar sound of a soul gem being filled goes off with the corresponding text on the top of the screen.
  
• Not an entirely unique bug and has been identified before, but I have not seen it in this particular manifestation. After you do the quest related to Louis Letrush it is possible that you will see him or a clone of him randomly in the game. Saw him before somewhere far away from Riften in the mountains. Didn't think much of it. When standing outside of Whiterun, there were two of him. One buried to his waist in the ground and another standing behind him. The question raised here is how many Louis Letrush clones are running around in the game at any one time and how does this affect file size and game play/lag?
  
• Sprinting (with a save file at 90MB) introduces lag.
  
• Entering, selling/buying, and exiting 4 shops in Whiterun (with a save file at 90MB) introduces lag.

Quest items stuck in my Inventory that should be gone:

• Finn's Lute
  
• Pantea's Flute
  
• Strange Amulet

In reference to questions of Level vs. Game Time:

• Leveling alchemy, discovering ingredient properties, and subsequently attempting to craft effective combinations of potions was a Saturday – Sunday Operation
  
  • Lots of reading on the Wiki
    
  • Lots of cataloging what I already knew in Excel to ease in discovering new properties
    
  • Created a Node/Vertex Graph in NodeXL based off of Ingredient Properties and Potions/Poisons in order to create strongest potion or poison combinations using graph anolysis and filtering out low valence ingredients.
    
    • Most of the time spent just standing in front of an alchemy table or acquiring ingredients during all of this
      
      • Helps account for non-quest progress game time
• Leveling Smithing required lots of ore, ingot, leather, and weapon/armor gathering
  
  • Lots of time spent crafting here
    
    • Helps account for non-quest progress game time
• Leveling Enchanting required lots of soul gems acquired from buying or killing/soul trapping
  
  • Lots of time spent crafting and gathering soul gems here
    
    • Helps account for non-quest progress game time
• Hoarding of junk from quests required lots of fast travel and/or very slow walking
  
  • Quest time wasted
    
  • Selling off items to clear inventory in hopes of lowering game size is a time eating operation
• Read through most of the books I found…not a lot of pages per book or content, but 200 plus books adds up
  
• Leaving the character standing in the house or other safe zone vice saving
  
• Lots of wandering in areas without place marks and trying to climb over mountains and other high objects (for no real reason except to see if it was possible)
  
• A vast majority of my wait/sleep time was a result of Bethesda’s suggested workaround.
  
  • This also eats up game time

Save File Size/Game Time Progression:

What follows is the progression of save file size paired with game time. I deleted many of my save files and didn’t always create a new save file. I only noted saves when file size increased. Here is some that I have:

Level 01 - 000.05.20 - 2.8MB - 11/27/11

Deleted many here....

Level 42 - 210.49.19 - 16MB - 12/15/11

Level 43 - 214.09.57 - 18MB - 12/15/11

Skyrim 1.03 Patch Released December 17, 2011

Level 45 - 223.12.42 - 23MB - 12/17/11

Level 45 - 225.54.38 - 24MB - 12/17/11

Level 45 - 228.05.15 - 25MB - 12/17/11

Level 45 - 229.48.02 - 26MB - 12/17/11

Level 47 - 239.08.14 - 30MB - 12/18/11

Level 47 - 241.13.59 - 31MB - 12/18/11

Level 48 - 258.12.11 - 32MB - 12/19/11

New PS3, transferred only the latest file:

Level 49 - 292.48.36 - 45MB - 12/28/11

Level 49 - 294.00.24 - 46MB - 12/28/11

Level 50 - 296.24.32 - 47MB - 12/29/11

Level 50 - 299.48.40 - 48MB - 12/29/11

Level 50 - 305.48.04 - 50MB - 12/30/11

Level 51 - 309.04.24 - 51MB - 12/31/11

Level 51 - 312.21.17 - 52MB - 12/31/11

Level 51 - 313.12.17 - 53MB - 12/31/11

Level 51 - 316.31.59 - 54MB - 01/01/12

Level 51 - 318.49.13 - 55MB - 01/01/12

Level 51 - 320.27.08 - 56MB - 01/01/12

Level 51 - 322.24.51 - 57MB - 01/01/12

Level 52 - 324.58.42 - 58MB - 01/01/12

Level 52 - 327.38.15 - 59MB - 01/02/12

Level 52 - 330.06.36 - 60MB - 01/02/12

Level 52 - 333.23.30 - 61MB - 01/03/12

Level 52 - 336.37.41 - 62MB - 01/04/12

Level 52 - 338.40.27 - 63MB - 01/06/12

Level 53 - 349.47.51 - 64MB - 01/07/12

Level 53 - 352.56.39 - 69MB - 01/08/12

Level 53 - 353.33.47 - 70MB - 01/08/12

Level 53 - 356.14.25 - 71MB - 01/08/12

Level 53 - 360.21.29 - 72MB - 01/10/12

Level 53 - 362.04.20 - 73MB - 01/10/12

Level 54 - 374.58.37 - 77MB - 01/12/12

Level 54 - 377.48.51 - 78MB - 01/13/12

Level 54 - 379.12.37 - 79MB - 01/13/12

Level 55 - 390.53.42 - 82MB - 01/16/12

Level 55 - 391.30.58 - 83MB - 01/16/12

Level 56 - 402.41.28 - 85MB - 01/17/12

Level 56 - 418.44.55 - 90MB - 01/19/12

Points of interest that may help the game if fixes for these issues were addressed:

• Dead People
  
  • They rot or get eaten/dragged off by wild animals
    
  • They surely do not remain there for months
    
  • Either way...nature reclaims organic material
• Loot
  
  • Gets looted...by you or scavengers...on a corpse or in a chest, urn, barrel, sack...does not matter
    
  • If you are a legendary hero...people are probably following you to pick up your scraps..."real world"...one would be stupid not to.
    
  • If you do not clear a place within a few days to a week, it is highly likely that someone would notice and would have done it to their own benefit...why wouldn't they?
    
  • It is a waste of space to continue to index these things after an extended period of time.
• Ingredients
  
  • If they are from something that grows...it will grow again...chose a set time less than 30 days and reset...
• Shops
  
  • Since most Quest Items are unique and cannot be sold...
    
    • If you are dumb enough to sell something really unique and cool...well, too bad...it’s gone after a week
      
    • Business is business.
• Destruction and Area Altering Spells and Actions
  
  • People clean up...so...reset positions. A vendor is not going to allow crap all over their floors, it’s bad for business.
    
  • Areas of Battle...will probably be cleaned up by you or scavengers.
    
  • Dead bodies...see above comments about dead bodies, same rules apply.
• Arrows
  
  • Pencil like shafts of wood deteriorate or get buried over time by the elements if they are not scavenged.
    
  • No one should go back months after they are in an area and find their arrows
• Owned Houses
  
  • If I enter a house uninvited, I get schwacked...
    
  • No one should enter my house.
    
  • If they do...I should have options. So, to eliminate too much extra work...keep them out.
• If I set something down in my house...that is where it belongs.
  
  • If I just throw 10,000 lbs of junk on the floor and chew up MB upon MB of space due to cluttered indexes...well...that is they players choice.
    
  • Whatever the case...they remain where they are until I kick them out of the way or pick them up.
• Followers
  
  • Once a superior item is given to the follower...default or lesser items are no longer necessary, considered, or equipped. Default items should not count against weight in this case.
    
  • They have skills and points just like the main character...however, they are an NPC and really don't level. Logically someone with almost 100 points in One-Handed should not choose a basic two handed item over an uber-tricked out one-handed item.
• If an NPC has healing potions in their inventory...then they should use them when needed vice dying.
  
• Dead Dragons
  
  • Typically disappear quickly, but sometimes not
    
  • Are you telling me that the villagers/towns folk wouldn’t tear that thing apart and decorate their houses, city, walls, and gates with that thing as soon as possible...have you ever been to a museum of natural history?
• Quests
  
  • If I take care of business before a quest is issued...it does not mean that that quest should glitch and die...mission is done.
    
  • Award completion upon receipt of quest or recovery/delivery of items from whomever/wherever.
• Training
  
  • If I level up 5 times and don't train, I should have 25 points of training available. Period.
• Locations/Activity/Indexes/Memory
  
  • I noticed that when I travel to several major populated areas in a row, the game bogs down.
    
  • To me, this means that all of this just ended up in memory and is remaining there.
    
  • Why would I need Riften taking up my memory when I am now in Solitude?
    
  • Dump this off, for anything which fits the bill...age off according to an expiration date upon next load of same area...don't leave it in memory.
• Saves
  
  • Lots of things are going on in the world. Figure out how to divide up the data into chunks that are manageable for saving and loading. Let’s call these “persistent temp” files for lack of better words. Whether you combine them in the end or gradually incorporate them is up to you...choose the better option for your customer base and optimal platform performance.
    
  • Ideally the manual save would incorporate all the data
    
  • Removing junk and expired data would work well here too
    
  • Autosaves (since it seems such an issue) should probably consider just the current area and contain references to "temp" files that contain the new data pertinent to other areas that may not be relevant to the current actions.
• Nirnroots and Ash Piles
  
  • Just need cleaned up…

Current Game State:

I am saving every 15 minutes with a 1 in 4 possibility of crashing/YLOD. 30 minutes of major activity or fast travel to more than a couple of major destinations and the frame rate goes to pot. Entering and exiting more than a couple of buildings has the same effect. This coincides with the HDD indicator light being almost solid. After every save/lag and hopeful save, I shut down the game, reboot the system, load up and go again for a little bit. Wash, rinse, repeat. I am stepping out on a limb here, but I think the only reason I can continue to play is because I put an SSD in my PS3 and the PS3 is new with the (I assume) 45nm fab process on the CPU/GPU vice the 65nm fab process on the old one (while the 45nm vs the 65nm isn't much, every little bit counts I guess).

Bethesda had asked for my save file when it was as 37MB on December 17, 2011, they confirmed on January 18, 2012 that they had downloaded it. So hopefully it will be of use. Looking at GStaff’s post I am hesitantly optimistic, but I didn’t see any indication as to whether or not my save file will get smaller or if I will have to restart.

That's obscene! Did you notice that they made no mention of any fix for the followers who have multiple 7 pound bows, and or won't equip anything but a hunting bow. Aside from all the freezes and slow frame rate problems, the follower issue bugs me the most. Aela is supposed to max out at level 50. I am level 54, we both have the same enchanted Dragonscale armor. I can get hit several times and it will barely move the health meter, she gets hit twice and goes down. She drinks health potions like a drunk , and I hardly ever use them. I guess I'm gonna have to level up my Alchemy, just so I can keep supplying her with potions.

Is this the same character you started Skyrim with?

Savewise?

I noticed you said you created a new save, not a new character post 1.2.

Yep. I really don't feel like starting a new one.

Oh!

Well, there's your problem... sorry.

Hopefully 1.4 is retroactive, but I'm thinking you're just gonna have to start a new one.

If not to just simply eliminate some variables out of the entire scenario.

Your call though, good luck man.

I know this may be a bit off topic (congrats on the new thread), but how long did it take you to type that? If I had the time I could write a biography about your experience with Skyrim.

Probably about two hours.

Holy crap, okay that's a big save game.

youv played for over 400 [censored] hours with 90mb save file ??, how the [censored] did u make it to over 400 hours ? i wanna see a pic of this save file

I also want proof im at 220+ and couldn't bear it no lo get after lag set In

Man you should start a new one and focus on particular things to see if you can make it increase intentionally.

Aw, somebody beat me to it. I was going to ask you how long it took you to write that. Since I became a gamer few years back, can no longer stand to read long things.

I'm level 50, 389 hours with a 15 meg save file. I think we have similar play styles. Not sure because I started to nod off after a couple inches of your sad tale, but I favor stealth & ranged, except I'm high elf. I've played Skyrim on my 500 gig 6 month old PS3 & my 3 yr old 120 gig. At this point I only have 3 primary quests & 4 misc. quests, one of which is glitched & won't disappear. I am also on my original & only character, only 1 play through.

I have no idea how to put an in game screenshot here, but it's all true so I believe you. No idea why you're so jinxed & I'm so lucky. I have some lag sometimes, but screen freezing is my only serious problem so far. Nothing game breaking so I keep playing.

Holy cow! Off topic, but I commend you for putting so much time in and developing your character like you have! Kudos!

I was wondering… Is there any chance you could put the game save in some web site so we could download it and experience the same horrorific experience?

over 400 hours & only 4 ppl murdered... wow i applaud u....im way to bloodthirsty & serial killer like to restrain myself.... i took my 48th victim last night... it was Nils the cook from windhelm whos now serving Sithis in the void.... i silently poisoned him while he slept ... i might work my way to riften next to visit the Jarls son saerlund...we all know harrald wants to hang his little brother as a traitor... maybe just maybe saerlund wont wake up....or maybe a thane in solitude wants the other thane out of the way..? or maybe i want them both gone.... maybe... my bloodlust has crossed over into my days i find myself searching for potential "projects" in broad day light....i must contain myself untill night..i must become a shadow... darkness incarnate... i love watching...

400 hours? I'm not sure if we should be cheering you or sending for some kind of skyrim intervention.

that you can play at all with a 90mb save file should indicate this has as much to do with poor threading as memory use.


I guess that ssd must be helping the lag, or you just have incredible tolerance for it, I can hardly stand sprinting and jumping through riften with a brand new character.

How is your save file that big. My numbers are very very close to yours and I have a 12 mb save. Yours is 8 times bigger than mine. We're not to far off from eachother at all. I even have some things that are more than yours. It's weird I have heard of other people who have played and done less than me and their save file is over 40mb. Obviously this is crazy. It's also very hard to believe without a picture. Not saying your lying, I hate when people call me a lair, but I don't know you from Adam and all I have is something you wrote. It would be nice to throw up a picture and shove it in our faces. Then we can either decide to praise you or get ahold of your loved ones and get you in a video game rehab.

Wow, I didn't know I was surrounded by lawyers. As if someone would benefit from faking the fact that their save file was 90MB. Well, a picture is worth a thousand words I guess, so, a video should be worth a couple million.

Here it is: http://youtu.be/P3Smnm1HsaQ

Enjoy.

Ummm...no. Sorry.

http://youtu.be/P3Smnm1HsaQ

Because it would be so worth lying about...WT....

People lie for far less. I told you it was just hard to believe and not that you were straight out lying that maybe you typed something in wrong. I don't put anything past the save files in Skyrim, they are screwed. I am in shock that all this info is correct. Wonder why it's so big. I'm working on getting a new computer so when I do I'll post my stats and you can compare and see that my file is much much less than yours.

Ha! Almost a solid four minutes of load time!
I've been following your story for a while so I knew it was true but even after seeing the video I still can't believe your ps3 doesn't just blow up when you try to load that bloated monster.
Keep fighting the fight, partner!!

We have a dual PS3 set up and my wife and I have been playing simultaneously. Mine grew out of control, while hers never passed 14MB. She completed the main quests and is far past me level wise as well. What happened, I don’t know, but it is hilarious.

Wow, 400 hours. I have almost identical stats as you but for some reason my save file is only 14mb. well than and ive only played about 200 hours.
I can hadly play my character for 30 minutes without frame rate slowdown and crashes every few minutes. I have a couple missions left before I get my platinum trophy but its getting tough.
Were probably going to have to start a new character to take advantage of the fixes in 1.4. I figure ill wait till the DLC to come out before I start my second playthrough.
Good luck. I applaud your Skyrim dedication.

wow.... i just wanted to see with my own eyes a savefile at 90mb.. i find it more harder to believe you stuck with it that long,
and what exactly are u doing different from another person with roughly the same amount of hours but a 15mb(roughly) savefile ?