I am playing the Ultimate Edition for the PC. As the game has progressed, the size of my saved games has grown from less than 2MB in the beginning to over 10MB now. The size of these files is not an issue storage-wise, but it seems that as they grow in size, the game loads them progressively slower. Now, loading a game takes at least 30 seconds, sometimes more than a minute. With modern hardware, even a 10MB file doesn't seem like it should cause this much slow-down, especially considering that every other aspect of the game has been excellent: FPS stays consistently at 60 on Ultra settings, panning and rotating are smooth, and area transitions are still snappy. At first, I could barely read the tips as they flashed by during a game load; now, I can read them at my leisure, and often even a second or third one. Was wondering if anyone faced a similar issue and was able to resolve it?

So far, I have tried all of these with at best limited success:

• Verified integrity of game cache within Steam
  
• Defragmented cache files within Steam
  
• Disabled Steam Community in-game
  
• Defragmented the physical disk where the save files are stored
  
• Added steam.exe, FalloutNV.exe, and FalloutNVLauncher.exe to my AV program's trusted app list (and even tried temporarily turning the whole thing off).

Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance for any assistance.