My Game save file size has gone up to 12MB, I used to keep a lot of files on at a time, had over 100 recently and was up to save #602. I deleted all my files but 2 early saves and my last save which where #1, 2 and 602. 1st 2 files are 3MB and 3rd is 12MB. So I loaded the game and cleared the cache when it was loaded I went to the load menu and deleted the current save exited back to the game and went back to the save menu and saved the game and the save was set as #3 but it is still 12MB in size.

I been having issues with the system locking up on my and textures dissapearing and I figured if I could get the save file back to 3MB or lower then 12 atleast that I may not have as many problems.

Anyone have any ideas about this?

Thanks

btw I have auto saves disabled at the moment.

i just posted this in another thread, dont know if it will help you any:

I've noticed with long term play on my characters their average save file size is between 9-13mb depending on where I save them. I dont drop loot, i either stick it in a dead body, barrel outside, or sell it off if i want to get rid of it to make sure it gets cleaned up. Mind you though, some barrels wont clean up and the items will remain in them.

I've been saving to a flash drive lately, noticed that the only time I experience lag is when its loading / saving a game(flash drives are slooow... even the xbox ones..). Other then that everything looks good in the game even with my 200+ hour character.

Thanks for the reply, I decided to restart my character and hopefully not get into that problem again. So to see if I understand this right when I do dungeons I should pick up any loose piece of gear/weapons on the ground and place them in a body/barrel or sell them, should the same be done for other things like plates,baskets and other things that can be picked up?

Also would it be the same in the houses I own? reason I ask is on my last playtrough my game lagged when I entered my Riften home, I have not noticed this issue in other homes though.

Thanks for any info or helpfull tips you can give :

most the stuff in the dungeons you dont have to worry about, even when a enemy is killed normally and just falls dead holding on to their weapon/shield, but if you launch a enemy backward on death, they will drop their weapon / sheild and when their body gets cleaned up, it gets left behind. So if you end up launching them backward on their death, i'd pick up the weapon / sheild and stick it back on their body or take it to sell off. Best suggestion is to stick the items into a dead body that you dont want, its the quickest cleanup, barrels will take a 30 game day cycle to cleanup, and if you were unlucky to find one of the barrels that dont clean up, well, the loot will still be there. There's only a couple dungeons that I've noticed that have a full cleanup, but these are ones where everything usually gets replaced within the dungeon for certain events.

I've got one character who's a pack rat, thier save file is only 13mb's with 120 hours of play, they keep everything they pick up and store it in their houses throughout skyrim. If your going to keep alot of items I'd say try to ballance the load between the houses, dont just stick everything in one house, this gives the potiental for crashes when going to that town, or entering your home (including shared buildings like the companions & thieves guild).

I did do a little test to see what the file size would be on the xbox, building a character with the pc and giving them 1 of every item possible in the game, after converting the save over to a xbox save the file was 16mb, I played on it a little to see if it would crash and while the menus took several minutes to load up (do to all the items being on the character) but the game didn't crash. I didn't mess with the file for long but i'm sure if i would of continued playing with it and moving city to city, it would of eventually crashed being all the items were on the character.

dead bodies are always the best cleanup ... p.s. this doesn't include skeletons, but every other dead body works great, yes even dead animals... hrm... i should try killing a bunny just to see if you can stick stuff on it lol...haven't done bunnies yet.

oh and if you spot nimroot, pick it! the glow stack will slow your game down to a crawl after awhile, expecially that farm in the rift that grows the stuff.

[edit in] last minute thought here... but if im in a area where there's archers, i usually try to take them out first, or stand where they can not see me while i fight the others, it helps keep from ending up with a bunch of arrows laying around in the game as well.

I wonder if it would be worth my time to go back into my first playthrough and try to clean it up....

That file is 16mb and I saved everything that was enchanted, all the books I read, not to mention all the ingredients I have stored, and everywhere I've been where an archer was involved has arrows standing on their tips.

On second thought, maybe I'll wait for a patch to fix it. It freezes for 3-4 seconds at a time every couple of minutes.

I'm watching items very closely on my latest playthrough but didn't think about the arrows.... I'll have to be more careful about that.

I don't think elminating save files will shrink the overall default save file size; The game doesn't care since its only loading THAT save file.

I'm not sure if cleaning up is worth it, since my default size is now 20 meg and I just started (to see if that will change) I started with the dungeons
I've visited the most, such as foresworn locations (redoubts, etc.) I also have been clearning out my house in Markarth of loads of junk, old enchanted
armor sets, etc.

However, none of this stuff LEAVES the game even if I put it in a body or sell it to a vendor; Its going to take some measure of in game days to disappear.
I don't feel like sitting there and "waiting to wait", for a day at a time, because it takes SO FREAKING LONG. I wish you could wait five or ten days.

But patch 1.4 is supposed to fix this, so if you figure its going to take you longer than 30 real life days then you may as well not bother.

I don't freeze every few minutes, I only freeze in specific locations. Like I always freeze trying to zone into, or out of (companions hall, in that case),
the same locations. I don't freeze otherwise (except when approaching nirnroot now, after so many in game days of ignoring them (600 or something.)

So far, with all of the cleaning up old areas and my houses, I'm still at 20 meg per save file. I had 72 of them, backed some up and now only have 5 and
the 3 autosaves; They are still 20 meg each, I don't think elimating extra save files makes a dent ( I just noticed it took way longer to save or load, back
when I had something like 400 save files.)

actually stuff you dump into bodies or recycling barrels doesn't remain in the game. Bodies are the quickest for cleanup. Stuff you sell in stores remains in the game, but not all of it, as you'll see some of the stuff come through the stores off and on. The best way to prevent the items from returning is getting speach up to where you can sell anything to any vendor, and then sell the items to vendors who dont normally carry the things... I.E. sell magical weapons to the people at the winterhold college. this usually keeps the items from returning into the game pool for the stores.

elimating extra saves files doesn't do anything for your save file size. I have over 100 saves on my thumb drive now, and they all range from 7mb-13mb in size. I just did some cleanup with my current character, and their save file dropped from 12mb to 10mb. true, a game that hasn't had any cleanup done on it sense the begining thats already 20mb in size may not seem like you've made a dent just getting rid of stuff in some houses you own and a few dungeons, even if its down to 20.01mb from 20.99mb the xbox is still going to say its 20mb's in size. only way to see if your actually making a dent is to get the file off the xbox and exported on the pc, to compare the actual file size.

If you've ignored nimroot for 600 hrs, and haven't picked it when you first encountered it... thats alot of glow stack with a huge potential for problems, sadly glow stacking isn't resolved in 1.4 (PC at least). Did you grab the one right out side of whiterun between hunbrew and the farm on your way to the stables? that ones a good one to see how much glow has stacked if you haven't. I hadn't picked it in my current character, and at night, you could see the glow from a really far distance, I finally picked that one after noticing it when i high up on the hill after killing a bunch of bandits in the cave to the right hand side of whiterun (where the blind guy greets ya when you enter the cave), and thats still with under 100 hours.