EDIT: Video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1ogowG174 Mods, could you add [WITH VIDEO] to the topic title, please? Thanks!


Well, I can confirm this works for me and me only. Someone else please try this to see if this works for others. Here's what I did.

My save was in the 8 MB range. I saved my game in a town, restarted my PS3, loaded up that last save, went into any small interior (I used "Jorgen and Lami's House"), and saved my game. Instant 80-120kb. I did this quite a few times and my save went from 8322 KB to 7663 KB. Pretty happy this at least works for me, but it's also a pain in the ass and takes a while. I also don't start any new quests and only complete the ones I have open. Starting new quests, as well as adding new items to my inventory only bloats my save. My fps still dips like crazy in some areas, but if I get the file size down as much as possible and see a major improvement, I'll let you know!

This has become a game of "keep the save file size down and only explore" rather than experience "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim"

How does that lower kb?

I honestly have no idea.

I just recorded a small video of it shaving off another bit of data. Uploading now.

And here's the video. It's not much, but I hope it helps some of you guys!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1ogowG174

Shouldnt that few kb's just decrease because you either are in a small location or restored health/stamina/magic as they tend to kost a few kb's when not fully restored. Still a few kb is not enough when your savefile is 10+ Mb

True, but it can be helpful to prevent it from getting any higher as long as you do this fairly often. I got my save down to 6924 KB, good enough for me till a patch.

I would be very intersted in seeing just how much you could shave off that save.
Did you see a very drastic improvement?

Actually, I can now walk around Whiterun without as many slowdowns. Dragon encounters are still pretty laggy, but I can at least get to my Whiterun house, which is awesome. It was so bad before it would seriously be a picture slideshow.

I just hit 6 mb and I'm starting to notice a bit more and more stuttering. I might see how small I can make it.
Do the decreases is size stay consistant in tems of kbs each time you repeat, or does the decrease decrease?
What happens when you save it town again? Does it start to spike back up?

It goes back up, but not as much as it originally was, which is awesome. I guess try to save in interiors as often as possible.

Very nice find. I wonder why it gets so bloated in the first place. It seems to hold onto useless information for nothing.

Thanks. I really want more people to try this to see if it works for others, though.

Also the save file doesn't seem to be getting any smaller than 5 MB.

Good to know.