As a new 360 owner i understand the benefits of clearing the system cache now and again, but i was wondering would it be good practice for some people to clear the cache when the next patch comes out, so as to delete 1.3 and then let the new patch 1.4 apply to the game with the old patch having been wiped.

To me it seems like a good idea for any game, anyway any advice would be most welcome........Thanks

Theoretically, it shouldn't make any difference, as any new patch will simply delete the old patch anyway and apply the new patch in place of it. But there is no harm in clearing the system cache manually before you update to any new patch. If you think it makes a difference, feel free. There seems to be enough bugs in the game to cause problems with just about anything!

It really shouldn't matter.

ty all

Yeah I'll be clearing before 1.4 as normal routine in games.

Well hold on a second guy's.....I know Bethesda said in allot of games that you don't need to delete your saves or game data,but here is why I think you should consider starting from scratch when a new patch get's released,let's say you went to an area where you run into a bug that you had to work around to finish a quest or something and you do that and then the game saves well the game just saved a bug/error that stay's in that save file and bug's are bad since they can corrupt your save file and cause more problems down the road in your game.I always restart a new game after a patch because that way the patch get's installed from the beginning meaning it fixes all the problem spots and does it's job properly.

Restart a new game? That's wasting hours and hours.

I know in order to use quest fixes you'll likely have to start from scratch but no way I scrap my toon.

Whilst this is true, and your method of starting afresh with a new character when you get a new patch is valid, we need to clarify a few things here, and add some context to the discussion;

1. The OP is purely asking about erasing 'previous patches' before updating to a new patch. Savegames and the issue of how bugs can affect them, has not been mentioned so far.

2. With reference to...This depends upon what you have done for a 'workaround'. Assuming you are playing on a Console (Xbox, PS3), then any 'workarounds' are likely to be within the logic of the game. Workarounds allow you to progress through a quest normally, and avoid bugs that are preventing you from continuing with a quest. As this is within the constraints of the game, you won't 'generally' be specifically saving any bugs or errors into your game.

3. Where starting afresh with new characters with a new patch is benefical, is when you have actually saved 'corruption' into your savegame. But how do you know this? Well, if you experience things like 'vanishing chunks of background like, water, scenery', or experience repeated lockups whenever entering a particular area, these are caused by bugs in the game engine corrupting memory, (and potentially) objects/NPC's. If you see this happen, and you save, this will save corrupted data into your savegame. It is in this case that your savegame is unfixable, and you are best off restarting the game. Savegame corruption like this can (in the majority of cases) be prevented, by reloading your most recent savegame. You will lose the progress up to where you currently are, but as long as you save frequently, you shouldn't lose much time. I have used this technique over the last few weeks and have a corruption free savegame. For example, when you see threads reporting problems of repeated lockups when entering certain areas of the map, or chunks of backgrounds are missing, their savegame is permanently broken and should restart.

Edit: this is why the developers are focusing on fixing problems within the game engine, and quest fixes are coming later. This way, any broken quests that are in fact caused by corruption, will be gone, and any bugs that remain are valid scripting bugs with quests, which can be easily fixed. At the moment, with the game engine causing corruption, it is difficult to know whether a broken quest is caused by a scripting error, or whether it is caused by corruption.

I dont really think you need to start from scratch every time an update/patch is applied, it makes no sense as a matter of fact if u clear your cache before the patch i'd say then your previous saves will not work so ....every time a patch is applied your cache is automatically cleared in order to apply the new one and along with your current patch date are your saves ...if the patch its applied and u cleared your cache mannually then there will no saves to be trasfered or linked witht he new patch thats why you get the message where the save file is a different version of the game installed ....bottom line just apply the patch and as i mentioned before keep your save file at bay ..no more than 6 mgb....trust me no lag and no bugs...

yes that is true but even if you clear the cache your save file still has the errors saved in your game files and clearing the cache can't fix a error or bug in a save file since that's game related,plus after you download a new patch it only moves forward not back and can't repair a bad save file or bug in the save since you already experienced it and now it's in that file.but if you start a game from the beginning the patch acts like a huge tsunami and pretty much washes away problems before you start the game up.

Ty all for your advice buti think we have lost track about what i asked, i know the old save file cant be fixed with regard to any quest bugs, but i more wanted to know if people would think it was a good idea to clear the cachie before applying a patch simply to have a clean instal of the patch and remove any temp files fom the old 1.3. Almost like pulling off an old plaster before putting on a fresh one if you get me