Only if the sector block is not large enough, it will overwrite so long as there is enough contiguous space.

yeah, but the save files keep getting larger and larger (all those dead bodies stinking up the landscape!), so while it may overwrite a few times, soon enough it will need to move to new sector.

But I still think my point about it being random data corruption is the real problem, but it is only noticed when the corrupted file is Quicksave or an Autosave

edit : now I'm curious - can someone with a lot of save games report on file size versus level in game (or hours played) ??

90* hours and not having any issues.

Edit: Added levels.

My first save after 5mins is 3MB. Level.... 1

My save at 10 hours is 4.78MB. Level 12.

20 Hours is 6.4MB... Level 20.

My saves break the 10MB number at around... 46 hours, though my save at 50 hours is only 10.2MB. Level 35.

The saves do get bigger, my latest hard save(90 hours) is... 14.5 MB, my quicksave(which is probably a bit more recent) is 14.7 MB. It is, I checked, 92 hours. Level 46.

Ive always been using my Quicksave to load my game up, the only reason I have so many normal hard saves is because I make a new every time I start a story quest/played for over an hour/about to close the game(which I then quicksave right after anyway).

Edit2: I wouldnt take levels too much into account, especially at higher levels. I mainly sneak and use a bow, so the rest of my skills arnt going to be leveling very quick while those 2 have been maxed for a while. So somebody who plays more of a hybrid combat character would likely level much quicker than I did.

My file size has increased from 3,132 KB at the first autosave when you get off the cart to 9,870 KB at approximately 100 hours, level 37, and most of the north-east area of the map explored and cleared as well as a fairly wide swath from Markarth over to Riften.

That makes sense about Quick and Auto save not being the real problem but it's just not such a big deal to make a new save that I figure why take the chance. It did seem to be a real problem on the Xbox way back when and now it's just a habit.

Edit: I sneak and use a bow as well and it probably takes me at least twice as long to get anywhere as it would if I just ran around waving a sword. Now I'm curious why Achromatis' file size is so much larger. Is it stuff you accumulate? Dead bodies laying around? I save about five times as often so that can't be it. I'm kind of compulsive about it really. I save before going into a new area, after clearing that area, before going back outside, before talking to someone, if I see something shiny, when I sneeze, etc.

90 hours on my one and only character. Always hard save every 20 minutes or so to back up quick saves (which I do a lot). Its about 11.5 MB now. So far not a single crash. I do have a pretty fresh install of Win 7 64 Bit and don't use anti-virus (so there's no real time scanning). I've also disabled Windows Defender so its not running in the background and have no maintenance items on a schedule. I hate having things running in the background (and my commit charge is low as a result). I'm not sure if I'm very lucky or if any of these things I do (or don't do) are helping.

So far this has been the most reliable Bethesda game I've played (out of four).

My Biggest save is 14MB, PC version, and everything seems to be fine.

I have a Solid State drive though. Anyone with a SSD having an issue at all?

I seem to remember somebody saying that the problem with quick saving and loading wasn't so much from quicksaving, but rather loading a saved game when you are already in the game and in the same cell or area as the game you are loading. Supposedly, this could result in some of the data from your position before you loaded the next save carrying over into your newly loaded game and then getting saved into your game the next time you save, corrupting it. Granted, this was Fallout 3 but I developed the habit of going back to the main menu any time I decide to go back to a previous save or if I die (to prevent the game from going back to a previous save). It's very rare for me to have corruption issues, and I use auto save and quick save (but never quick load) constantly.

All my drives save for one storage drive are SSD drives and i've been getting CTDs now even with the avoidance of quick/autosaves.

168 hours on a single character and I've not noticed any outstanding issues. I have had an occassional silent CTD after extended periods of play. But all of my saves are still loading fine, and no noticable performance drop. I do use the 4GB loader though.

I just hit 80 and have yet to have a single issue. My save is just under 10mb. Issues start when they get in like >50 or >100. But that only happens if the game fails to properly clear references and whatnot, which was an issue with Oblivion, but I think they solved long ago.

Try deleting or moving your saves except the current most 10 or so..I did that and it sure helped..

Course I am still using the old EXE. The new patched one is worthless...CTD 5-10 mins..though someone suggested the save thing would solve that.

Does Bethesda know this extremely serious bug?
How can I prevent this? I want to begin a "serious run" when new patch will be available, but read things like this, make me worried.
I read something about a Save Manager that avoids this bug. What is this Save Manager?

well ive been playing for over 100 hours now, relying quite a lot on autosave especially if the game ctd's, and ive not noticed any abnormal activity.

the game crashes are just as frequent as theyve always been for me since a couple hours in (unwavering - 2 hours and itll drop, then ill reload the game and itll be fine for 4 hours or more) and there are no locations i cannot go to.

only thing ive noticed is that npc timings for shop opening have deviated by a couple of hours.


win7 64bit - not using laa
560ti - latest whql
4gb ddr3
1080p ultra settings. 4xaa. only ini tweaks were for shadows on trees and something else to do with shadows.
play using controller. dont ever use quicksave because there isnt a quicksave button on the controller.
no idea how big my saves are, but ive got over 120 of them.

Yeah, that 70+ hour mark did it for me too. Part of my game world is unreachable with CTDs.

Bummer...

I really hope this gets sorted in a patch, but I guess it is such a big problem that it might not be.

Sometimes random things lose their texture and turn completely white (armor pieces, usually), and I am getting crashes more often than before. So either it's the amount of hours I played (40 so far, 11 MB save file) or the new exe.

There might be a problem with things multiplying, so far I've seen it with a quest giver, with 2 of him then 3 appearing outside Whiterun, I think I've also seen it with horses at Riften stables, I also note the game keeps a record of all dropped loot objects, don't know about anyone else but I drop a lot of loot on my journey's, I think loot(not specialized items) that's been dropped should be marked for delete after one in game week, that will clear the records and reduce save bloat.

15mb save game file, no CTD problems. I never use autosave (disabled in .ini), and i always manually save my games. I do use quicksave and quickload.

I'm at 16.1MB saves and yet to have the CTD issue, but I also play in windowed mode due to various other CTD issues that were remedied by using windowed.

I think this was certainly the case in Oblivion: I noticed that loading a save from the same cell in which it was made (e.g. loading a recently made quicksave) pretty much guaranteed a crash within 1-2 minutes. I haven't noticed this in Skyrim, but that's not to say it never happens. I imagine the same thing could be responsible for the crash-on-save problem, i.e. subsequent saves from stuff that's still cached in memory that the save process hasn't properly reevaluated, perhaps.

I've seen the comment about overwriting saves causing corruption for years now but that hasn't been true since at least Oblivion, if it was ever the case. It's a very persistent one, though; even though there's nothing intrinsically wrong with overwriting the same data (if there was, no database software would ever work, for example.)


Edit: for the record, my saves are now just over 16MB too, after about 150 hours or so of gameplay. Few if any CTDs now; I did have a lot back when Steam was being loaded and I didn't have the 4GB mod running, but since then, the half-hourly crash has all but gone away.

I have none of these issues, and I almost only use quick and autosaves. I don't have vsync enabled either.. which someone mentioned would 'screw up my game' when turned off. Only bug I've encountered so far was the guy behind the locked door in a mainquest. Which was solved by exiting and re-entering the area.

My saves folder is 1.3Gb total. My guess is that your issues comes from your configurations. I have not edited any .ini files. Apart from adding a zoomable map.

Same with my gf who plays on my old laptop. No bugs encountered at all. And she's changed everything to look like my little pony.. or there about.

45 hours in, i got a CTD, Ok, probably nothing to serious i think, after all is only the second one in all my play time, then i tried to load a save game, any save game, I cant,... if try it I get thrown to the desktop every single time, and that's the end of the story, pretty hardcoe game barking bug indeed,. I'm real pissed off right now.

I am at 110 hours and yet to experience a CTD, I have a 15MB save file and I have no problem going to any place on the map.

Seems to me some quest might be corrupting saves and creating bloat, would explain why some get it and others do not.

The Skyrim version of Wrye BASH should be able to fix save bloat when it is ready.

QFT

And I wont be adding a single mod to the game till it IS ready!!! What is it going to be called? Wrye/smash!! FTW