Save File Bloat - Nearing 200mb!

[legend8804]

For the longest time, I've avoided playing Skyrim for one reason or another, despite having logged well over 200 hours into the game so far. So, the other day, I finally decide I'm going to start playing again, especially after discovering the Real Time Settler mod (something I've been waiting for a long time). And aside from the usual Skyrim issues, I wasn't having any real issue at all playing the game.

 

Now I am discovering that the game is beginning to freeze every few minutes at random intervals. Most notable is when I am saving a game (which was one of my first clues). Poking around on the internet in the vain hope I might find the answer, it pointed me towards save game bloat, so I decided to take a look and see what my save file sizes were like (thinking it could be an issue with my virtual memory getting eaten up).

 

What I discovered are save files that are blowing up at an insane rate. I first got worried when I noticed that my latest save game was - no joke - 171 mb in size. That is freaking insane. I turned off all of the autosaving stuff to see if maybe that could be causing the issue (something I never really had an issue with before, not even on my 200+ hour playthrough!). A few more tests, I decided to ask myself, "I wonder what will happen to my save file size if I stand in The Winking Skeever and save after a few minutes."

 

What happened was that, over a period of less than ten minutes, my save file suddenly jumped up to almost 200 mb.

 

Something is seriously wrong here, and I am at a complete loss as to what could possibly be causing my save file size to increase so drastically despite the fact that I pretty much stood in place for a few minutes inside of a tavern. I do not believe my system specs are the issue here, considering this is an issue with the save games themselves (and them being totally massive). I will make a note here: I have my previous character backed up, and his save files never seemed to grow above the 14 mb range - which I consider to be reasonable, personally, given the length of time played.

 

But this new character has hardly spent more than 30 hours adventuring, and this save bloat is just unfathomable. My questions are the following:

 

1- Has the culprit behind the save game bloat been discovered?

2- Once a save game has become so insanely bloated, is there any chance of recovery, short of losing pretty much all progress?

3- Is there any way to help prevent these save files from getting so incredibly large?

 

For the record: Yes, I am playing a legitimate copy of the game (I have the statue and art book to prove this). The following is my load order for everything active:

 

Skyrim.esm

Update.esm

SkyMoMod.esm

HighResTexturePack01.esp

HighResTexturePack02.esp

shenkthieveryoverhaul.esp

midasskyrim.esp

morerain.esp

boss.esp

phenderix's magic evolved.esp

imp's more complex needs.esp

chopping_block_wood_fires.esp

unlimitedbookshelves.esp

tk_clutter_plants.esp

enhanced soundtrack 01.esp

enhanced soundtrack 02.esp

riftenjailvisualfix.esp

thearmourerfixes.esp

skyrim scaling stopper.esp

live another life.esp

RTSforSkyrim.esp

SkyMoMod_lists.esp

SkyTEST-RealisticAnimals&Predators.esp

 

 

Upon looking this over, I think I can see how SkyTEST could be causing some of my scaling issues with my game - I've noticed a distinct lack of the 'really hard' encounters that I noted with the scaling stopper (though really it hasn't been too large an issue for me, after all I could've just been *really* unlucky when I started this new game). Regardless, I don't feel that should be causing me some of the issues that I am seeing here, which is an increasingly large file size that is quickly getting out of control.

 

One final note on my saves: The massive save bloat seems to have started occurring some time last night, when my game went from less than 5 mb to almost 26 mb in a matter of about 3 hours. Unfortunately, I was unaware of this until I started looking around to see what was going on today.

 

I would really hate to have lost all of that progress. It may only be about ten hours or so, but I did a lot in that time - made a lot of money, gained a lot of experience, and earlier today, I started trying to build my first settlement while I was out adventuring.

 

Any help you all can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

And just in case it might matter (but I kind of doubt it does), I have NMM running three of the mods in that list: RTS, SkyMoMod, and SkyTEST. Everything else was installed via Steam Workshop. But I don't believe that should cause any issue like this, I would hope.

 

Thanks again for any help you might be able to offer to me.

[Georgiegril]

As far as I know, reloading a previous save is the only way to fix, you can't go in and remove the extra files from an existing save. Well, I guess some tech gods could, but not mortals.

Probably everyone here has suffered the pain of having to loose hours of play because we forgot to save... you have my condolences.

 

Autosaves can cause all kinds of problems, including bloat. You may want to check your prefs.ini to make sure they are really off. Real saves (not quicksaves) are the safest and most stable.

 

You have mentioned a number of mods that may be involved in your problem. If it were me, I would read through the readmes of all the mods that might be involved, and make sure they are placed according to BOSS. Then uninstall one at a time, according to mod authors specific uninstall instructions (nit just deactivate) and then run skyrim to see if the problem is resolved. IF so, you know that mod is involved. If not, keep removing mods until you get a good play, and then add mods one at a time, running BOSS and playing after each. This might prevent you from having to remove all of your mods and/or starting over.

 

BTW, personally I prefer NMM, because Steam does not let you control your mod updates, and especially if you are running mods that affect scripts, a sudden update can cause a problem and you may not even realize there was anything that changed.

[legend8804]

Alright, after sleeping for some hours, getting some coffee in me, and reading your post over about four or five times, I've started testing again.

 

The first culprit (the most likely in my opinion) seems to have already shown drastic results. By disabling the RTS mod, waiting a few minutes, and then saving again (per the author's instructions), I've already seen almost a 60 mb drop in my save file size.

 

This tells me it is most likely due to the RTS mod, for whatever reason, causing all of this insanity. Also, I am aware that it has an autosave function (which I did not know until I started looking around), which cannot be disabled. I figure the bulk of my save file bloat likely occurred due to five autosaves - the four that come with the game as well as this fifth, once-per-day.

 

I'll be leaving a nice little note for the mod author, since Skyrim now has an option that lets you pretty much have timed auto-saves, it is wholly unnecessary to have one force-included in a mod. Holdovers from previous Bethgames need to be removed to avoid issues like these.

 

Thanks for all your help, I will continue to see if there is any other way I can cause my standard save file size to decrease. If anyone else has any other suggestions, please let me know. I'll keep updating if I find anything else that might be useful for you guys.

[Georgiegril]

If you ask nicely, the RTS mod author might have a fix already, or be willing to make one.

 

reading your post over about four or five times,

Well either it's my Joycean mastery of prose, or my post was a bit convoluted...I'm guessing the latter. :facepalm: Sorry about that, and I'm glad it was some help in any case.

[legend8804]

Well either it's my Joycean mastery of prose, or my post was a bit convoluted...

 

No worries, it was more a matter of my being tired and wanting to make sure I fully understood what you were saying. ;)

 

Hoping that the author manages to get back to me, but there appears to be some question as to whether the mod is still 'active' or not.

 

Also, since disabling his mod I've noticed a tremendous decrease. Save files are currently at half the size they were (but still near 100mb, which is ridiculous). If I manage to get it back down to sane levels, I will be very happy indeed.

 

I'm going to look up some console commands and see if maybe force-resetting outside cells might be helpful in reducing savefile size even more.

[legend8804]

Confirmed fixing my save bloat issue - my save file is now back down to almost 5 mb.

 

The issue? It was the RTS mod. Here's how I fixed it:

 

Despite unchecking the mod in the load order list, it wasn't until I completely uninstalled the mod via the NMM (by going into the mod list and then completely uninstalling it) that I managed to get an incredible improvement. We're talking shaving 100 mb off of a single save file. The effect was immediate.

 

Case in point, if you have an issue with save files becoming insanely bloated, check to see if it might be a mod causing the issue. I have confirmed that the RTS mod alone was to blame by rolling back to an even older save, re-enabling every other mod, and then saving as soon as I got into the game.

 

Thanks for your help and support Georgiegril, at least now I know it wasn't an issue (entirely) with Skyrim itself, but just one of the mods. Now off to inform the mod author...

[Georgiegril]

Glad to help!

[karios525]

Is there any kind of list of mods known to cause save bloating? Using alternate start (am testing a new mod setup) beginning in Riverwood my first save in 'the cell' was 6.70 mb which I simply put down to the mods I have running scripts (SkyRE, Interesting NPCS, northern encounters, icicle valley, the rabbit hole, winterhold expanded ruins (the cleaned version) Vilja Lurking in the shadows deadly dragons aesir armor ASIS ) all the latest versions, and after just short of 25 minutes my save file had grown to 7.74 mb should I be worried yet? Or will my save file size increases level out. Oh and should mention that I also run the mods return from Helgen, House Redoran and Telvanni Hall from the engineering guild, and the unofficial skyrim/dawnguard/dragonborn patches. Might sound a daft question but could a bad load order cause bloating? The mods BOSS didn't recognise which I placed manually I think I did right. Any help would be appreciated.