Hi,

A few weeks after the release of Skyrim I quit playing because I could not get the game to re-load save games except for once in a great while. Today I decided to install Skyrim again, get all the updates and try to play again... Only to find the problem still exists!

Not sure why but I decided to lower my graphics settings to very minimums... and surprise.. save games now load! So what the heck is going on Bethesda? This makes NO sense what so ever. If I max out the setting or use even the HIGH settings in options, the game will not load save games. But if I drop everything to minimum the same save games will load then.

My system is fully capable of running this and is fully updated daily with the latest drivers etc etc.

My system is as follows: Intel I7 based system, 9gb ram, Nvidia GTX 590 ti Video, Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro 7.1 Sound, plenty of HD space etc.

Am I going to have to uninstall and shelve Skyrim again or is this something that is going to be fixed one of these days perhaps?

Are you sure it is related to your savegames ?

Try moving your savegames temporarily to a different folder. Then start Skyrim with a new game. Does it work with high settings ? If so, then indeed the problem has to do with your savegames. But if you can't start a new game with high settings, then it is something different. I expect that nothing is wrong with your savegames, and it is something else.

If the problem occurs when starting a new game, then try to isolate which setting is causing the problem. Of course it could be all of them, or a certain combination. But most likely it's one particular setting. I would start testing sound settings. (I had more and more bad experienced with my Audigy2 during the years. I use my onboard sound now). It could be related to SLI (your gtx590 does "hidden" SLI after all). I know this won't make you happy, but I do think chances are bigger that something is wrong with your system than that there is a bug in the game.

Thanks for the suggestions... I had already done some testing.. I can start a new game no problem. Most of the time I can save and reload at the beginning as well. But once I start moving into and out of buildings or other locations the problem appears. If I set options to HIGH or ULTRA, then the game will not load any save games. As long as I am set to medium or low, it will load the saves every time. Of course it looks like crap in those settings too. Also note that if I save the game then try to reload it will not. But if I save, then EXIT the game, then lower the graphics settings it will then load that very same save game!

I have tried adjusting the individual graphics setting but so far on their own, none seem to change anything. But if I use the buttons to set low, med, high or ultra then the problem appears and is consistent every time.

Weird.

What happens when you:
1) click the "ultra" settings.
2) individually slide back all sliders to their lowest setting
3) try to load a savegame

Does that cause the problem ? Or is it only happening when you click the "low button" on the launcher window ?

It does not matter as long as everything is set to low or medium settings. I can do it manually or with the buttons. I have been playing with this now for a few hours and I am about to just say the heck with it again because of the frustration. I have owned Skyrim since the day it was released.. and have YET to play it longer than 30 minutes at a time because of this. I found another issue I had as well I forgot about.. No sound for bows. I am starting to wonder though if this might not be related to Steam because I have the DVD version and installed it via Steam manual DVD install system. I am starting now to think these issues could be related due to some kind of install issue between Steam and DVD installation VS standard STEAM downloaded installs..

I am going to delete everything again and install without STEAM and see what happens. It is the only thing I can think of to try at the moment.. If this still does not resolve it, then it is definitely a major bug still in the game.. I see others reporting issues about save game bloat and so on so there obviously is something not right.

I really doubt it is your Skyrim installation. Of course, this is just a hunch. But the game itself runs well on many many people's PCs. So it must be some weird combination of hardware, drivers or settings of those.

You are using a gtx590, which, I believe, is a very rare videocard. Nvidia didn't make that many of them, because of heat problems many users were experiencing. And the cost. The gtx590 was just an attempt to claim the "highest performance on one videocard" trophy. Have you tried to disable SLI ? If that is possible even on a gtx590. You wrote you are using the latest nVidia drivers ? (version 301.10). But do you also have the latest drivers for your motherboard ? (Chipset drivers for your motherboard include PCIE drivers. If they are faulty, that can have an impact on your gtx590, which has an interal PCI-E bridge. Which I think is a rare device).

Trying to think what else it could be. I have no clue, sorry.
Did you ask official Bethesda support ? (This forum is not the official way to get support. No Bethesda people ever post here).

Like you I too am at wits end. I have tried everything. Yes all the drivers on the system are current. I doubt it is the machine because there is no other title I have that has any single problem, especially like this.

I just deleted the entire installation then re-installed. Without doing anything else I ran the game. At the first save it was ok but once I got out of the cave headed to Riverwood the save issue popped up. Additionally I also checked the other issue of no sound for bow and arrow shots... nothing! I have sound for everything else. I manually tested all of the sound channels and they are all functional. The only thing I can think of with this would be that my system is a full 7.1 surround... and I wonder if Skyrim even supports it. Additionally I tried finding any kind of manual settings for sound but was only able to find volume control and nothing else. So there is no way to see what the channels are set to, what drivers are being used .. basically nothing for sound setting that I could find.

So I have no idea what the heck is going on here. Finally the reason it has to be Skyrim is because I installed it just now on a second machine that has a ATI card and main board sound, again 7.1 surround. And I get the same results! I tried to install without STEAM but apparently it is required. The only thing different is that my steam install and where I install any game titles is on another external drive. I do not have either STEAM or any games installed on the main C: drive on any system.

Perhaps that is the issue, at least with the save games loading?!

But then again, this save game issue was reported by many, many more people in the past.. for many the later patches must have helped but for me it seems they did not. I am not sure what else to try but I am going to try Bethesda's tech support. If they have no clue then I am just going to say the heck with it because it is too frustrating trying to trouble shoot a game that has issues and very little direct public customer backing and support. So either later today I will have some other options or Skyrim will get thrown in box to gather dust. And if that happens, I guess I will just have to stick with Oblivion, Ultima Online and Two Worlds for my D&D/RPG type gaming.

Messing with uGridsToLoad can make saves not load... You have to turn it back up, then turn it down with the console and save, then turn it back down in the INI if I recall correctly.

Yes but this is a default clean install for the third time now... NO changes to anything manually. I sent a message to support so we shall see if they have any ideas...