The more details, the better for our team. thx again.

File size is down to 36 MB now after 21 hours of standing idle.

33 hours of standing idle and my file size is down to 18MB.

O.o and someone now has a playable game XD

And the file size is still dropping. Have you tried it yet?

Have you tried it yet? I am still seeing improvement at the lower sizes. I went from 18MB to 17 MB in a matter of two hours.

Bout time you figured something out. I posted something similar a while back about doing this. Iwas at 13 MB and dropped to 11 MB doing the same exact thing. Then I did a couple quests and tried it again...went from 11 MB to 12 so I gave up on the idea completely. Could you post ALL the specs of your SSD? Capacity, buffer size/cache, etc?

Been following this thread for a while, but my PS3 is at an age where leaving it on longer than 7 hours is out of the question (4+ years old, HDD is clicking). Any chance using the wait/rest features in the game will have a similar effect? I personally don't own the game (yet!)- just looking for a quick fix to the save file issue before patch 1.4 that won't tax my system's life anymore than utterly necessary.

Your problem was mixing cats and dogs.

I'm on the PC and was able to shrink my savefile by sleeping in-game for 21 days in a row. Although it was nowhere near 80, just 18. Hope you get it working.

I never had the file size reduce due to the sleep wait cycles. I got a little performance back, but that was about it. As soon as the file stops shrinking, I will test again with the equivalent amount of wait/rest.

As for the HDD, if it is clicking you are probably getting close to some sad times anyway. Thankfully, replacing the HDD on the PS3 is a simple process, just make sure to have the latest firmware on a thumbdrive before you do it, and of course back up all the stuff you hold dear to you on the old drive for transfer to the new one.

Last time I did this it added 5MB instead of subtracting. Don't ask me on that one...made no sence then, less now.

My drive is a Kingston HyperX SH100S3/120G...the specs according to Kingston's data sheet are:

Form factor: 2.5"
Controller SandForce? SF-2281
Components: Intel? 25nm Compute Quality MLC NAND (5k P/E Cycles)
Interface: SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s), SATA Rev 2.0 (3Gb/s)
Sequential Reads: 6Gb/s3 555MB/s
Sequential Writes: 6Gb/s 510MB/s
Sustained Random 4K R/W: 20,000/60,000 IOPS
Max Random 4K R/W4: 120GB – 95,000/70,000 IOPS
PCMARK? Vantage HDD Suite Score: 81,196
Supports: S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, and Garbage Collection
Power Consumption: 120GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.6 W (TYP) Read / 2.0 W (TYP) Write
Dimensions: 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm
Weight: 94g
Operating temperatures: 0°C ~ 70°C
Storage temperatures: -40°C ~ 85°C
Shock Resistance: 1500G (Really important for when I kick my PS3 across the room)
Vibration operating: 2.17G (Really important post kick and while bouncing)
Vibration non-operating: 20G
MTBF: 1,000,000 Hrs

That is all I got. If you want anything else, google knows all. SATAIII is kind of a waste on a PS3 I guess, but oh well.

I waited and slept so much that Skyrim should be dragon poo by now. Didn't do much for file size before. Will see later. Maybe my file reached its critical mass and imploded.

As an IT tech I do know that fact and I have researched upgrading a PS3 HDD, which I plan on doing as soon as I can afford it. Luckily I've been backing up my game saves religiously for the past 2 years.
I will say the clicking isn't that bad...yet. I have an external HDD that started clicking 1 yr & half ago (ps3 started about 4 months ago) and is still running, although it's not performing like it use to, takes a bit longer to open files stored on it. It also has been on longer, & had more activity (transferring, writing & HEAVY file reading) than my PS3 ever has in it's life time.

But do post your findings on the wait/rest usage when you can get around to testing it. I've been dying to purchase Skyrim for the PS3 and waiting to see if the next patch will fix the major problems is getting to me.

It bottomed out at 13 MB and then two hours later had climbed to 14 MB.

The idle time in game was equivalent to 34 days. So I loaded the 92MB file and did a 34 day sleep cycle. The file size only dropped to 89MB vs the drop to 13MB just letting it sit there. This is the first time that I have had the file size drop from a sleep cycle so, that is new. Either way, just letting it sit there was superior. The gaining size after the 13MB mark back to 14MB was interesting as well. So there you go on that portion.

I doubt at this point it is even worth dropping stacked items one-by-one to see if there is an additional drop. That idea seems quite debunked now.

Hmm... It seems like some things don't clean up unless the game time actually runs through to the end of the counter to reset/clean the items up... But if you sleep/wait past the end of the counter for a clean-up, it may reset the counter all over and not cleaning it up? So maybe you have to actually be playing the game without any loading/saves happening/waiting/or sleeping when certain timers reach their end point to start a clean up, otherwise they reset and don't clean up. This is just one theory...

Wow, just came back to see what's been goign on, you got it to drop THAT much? I'm hoping these savegames you send them really helps them out.

you deserve to have a random NPC being added that references you in the next DLC.

Maybe an NPC called 'Kundalini the Patient'. he can have idle chat about how he enjoys standing around and waiting, and talks about patience being a virtue.

LOL! Wouldn't it be hilarious if there were random NPCs along roads and in dungeons that just told you to watch out for certain bugs and how to avoid them? Actually... no. What am I talking about?

Very interesting indeed.

See I can't make sense of why it doesn't give you any cache/buffer size. There is no way it can't have cache space..a completely radical thought I had was that your Kingston, for some reason is saving ALL data that should only be cached. Which to me makes no sense at all. But neither does the fact that you are the only person on here that had a 90MB save file. For some reason the only thing I can think of is this radical explination.

-No specified cache space...no automatic delete and no way for the game to distinguish between necessary info and cache data
-Save and you save it all
-Data may have a time limiter on everything not concurrent to in-game time but rather play-time
-Time limit reached at specific hours played and information resets decreasing save file


Kinda a dumb theory but I haven't ever heard of a Hard Drive with no specific cache or buffer and I still have yet to hear a good explaination from anyone else..(I'm sure Paladinrja will come tell me how wrong I am and exlain everything.) LOL

I remember something close to that or mayble even closer to a console comand that was implemented on Fallout New Vegas (you know that game that totally had NOTHING to do with Bethesda at all) "made" by other random studio... anyways :

They included (via DLC), that computer terminal at the Gun Runners that allowed you to spawn or dismiss any follower/companion.

Probably something inspired by that, to allow players to bypass bugs or reset bugged quests like a console commands do on PC.

But yeah... this is almighty Bethesda and they make no mistakes, because it's not a bug.. it's a FEATURE.

Except that Bethesda published it.

so that has more to do with the "work" your ssd does in the backround as you leave it idle ?,
or has anyone tryed this on a normal hdd to see if it reduces savefile size ?

Wow, plot twist. Some convoluted processes are definitely running while you're standing idle for so long. Shouldn't be too difficult for Beth to figure out what.

'Shouldn't be'...

lol ... good idea! I want also a Kundalini shrine, the human god of patience ... I will pray to him, but also be hunted by the Thalmor.