EmmyRose:
Duskguy:
EmmyRose zoomed to kind of match range of Duskguy:
While binwalk's entropy plots are similar in shape, the squiggly bit on the right is quite a bit longer in Duskguy's.
So it is better to glitch than to craft? Lol.
CDPR already gave an official statement, as other posters linked somewhere on the thread. They are aware and looking into it.
Did also receive a response to the ticket I sent in:
Save files are corrupted
Final bit of testing for tonight, I think. Just crafted 100 maxdoc 2's. Save game went from 3.82 to 3.84. Disassembled 100 maxdoc 2's. Save game is still 3.84. Disassembled my remaining 40 maxdoc 2's. Save game is still at 3.84. It seems to me that for now we should *not* mass craft stackable...
forums.cdprojektred.com
So I cannot test this yet, if it isn't tested before tonight (around 10 hours from now) I will do it myself.
But how about NPC vendor inventory?
Go next to a NPC shop that you have NEVER talked to in the game. Save your game. Talk to NPC vendor to see the items they have available.
Save your game immediately after.
Rest 3 days, save your game.
Since it seems like the save files want to track virtually EVERYTHING, I am wondering if this too will impact save file bloat in any way.
But how about NPC vendor inventory?
Go next to a NPC shop that you have NEVER talked to in the game. Save your game. Talk to NPC vendor to see the items they have available.
Save your game immediately after.
Rest 3 days, save your game.
Since it seems like the save files want to track virtually EVERYTHING, I am wondering if this too will impact save file bloat in any way.
That was the initial response at "https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016743298-Cyberpunk-2077-Saved-data-is-damaged-and-cannot-be-loaded-?product=gog".
Later it was changed to "The save file size limit might be increased..." to something like "they are aware and looking into it." but I could not find it now. Others posted the new response somewhere on this thread.
Error "Saved data is damaged and cannot be loaded." — Cyberpunk 2077 | Technical Support — CD PROJEKT RED
Welcome to CD PROJEKT RED Technical Support! Here you will find help regarding our games and services, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.
support.cdprojektred.com
@Pavel__enk__
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Hi there, new here, just jumping in with my playthrough results.
I'm a bit of a hoarder - not only do I get absolutely everything lootable after fights, I only disassemble guns and clothes. After finding out about this issue, I looked at my save size, which is at 5.296 MB. For progress context for this file:
- Level 40, 50 Street Cred
- Act 2, zero main mission progress - I still haven't met Takemura
- Roamed quite a bit around the map, finishing Delamain questline, all but final quest of Beat on the Brat, and all gigs and NCPD scanner hustles for Badlands
- Finished all available side quests during Act 1 before moving on to Act 2
- As mentioned, looted everything lootable, aside from unlootable bugged items
- Disassembled all weapons that didn't match my build (Body/Int 20, the rest split into Cool and Technical Ability - not a crafting build) - I disassemble my Shotguns, LMGs and Melee weapons only if the DPS is higher
- Disassembled all clothing, unless it exceeds my currently equipped clothing, at which I point I equip it and disassemble my old clothes
- Retained absolutely everything else, which resulted in...
- 126 different types of food and drinks, 7 different healing items
- 266 different attachments and mods (they don't stack, so each scope occupies an item slot, etc.)
- 60 different Cyberware mods
- 102 different Junk items
- 16959 Common Item components, 9263 Uncommon Item components
- Only Iconic weapons in storage, plus GOG rewards and unique clothing (V's clothes)
- Throughout the save file, I crafted maybe 10 clicks on Shotgun ammo (to refill from low ammo twice, each click gives you 12 shotgun shells), and Legendary quickhacks (Epic for those with Epic max levels)
- Used the painting exploit to gain money, as well as the duplication glitch, but only duped 68 paintings, to speed up getting shop money
- Would always prefer "guns blazing" approach to main and side missions, unless there are optional objectives requiring to sneak - this results in a lot of loot and dead bodies
- Never stole a car in the playthrough
- Never skipped random shootouts in the playthrough (star icon)
- Frequent clothes-shopper and weapon-shopper (only high armor clothing, legendary shotguns/melee weapons, grenades, ammo)
I suspect, even though I'm not a huge crafter at all, due to my monstrous inventory, my save file's bloated already.
Now, for save file testing, I sold every single food and drink, junk, 75% of my Common Item components, and most of my attachments to drop boxes(this is how I continued my playthrough actually - after reading about the glitch). This resulted in about a 26KB decrease (just off the top of my head - I've overwritten my file already). I sold items to a drop box until it ran out of money, waited 48 hours, and repeated the process many times for this.
I have since refrained from picking up any item but shotgun/sniper ammo, MaxDoc MK1s, grenades, higher armor clothing, and Legendaries. The legendary weapons, I just sell to drop boxes and wait for 48 hours. I'm avoiding disassembling entirely.
It took me completing all Gigs and NCPD Scanner Hustles in both City Center and Heywood to even match my previous 5.296 MB size.
Now, I played further after finding out about the bug - currently finishing the rest of the quests. My file is at 5.329 MB, with 0 food and drink, 0 junk, 15 attachments and mods. This file's stats...
- Level 44, 50 Street Cred
- 80 hours played
- Act 2, still zero main mission progress
- 28 vehicles owned
- Roamed quite a bit around the map, finishing Delamain questline, all but final quest of Beat on the Brat, and all gigs and NCPD scanner hustles for Badlands, City Center and Heywood
- Only looted ammo, grenades, MaxDoc MK1s, high armor clothing, legendaries, shards and unique items
- Sold all legendaries picked up (still lower than my equipped weapons) and low armor replaced clothing, then would always wait for 48 hours to purge Buy Back items
- Didn't pick up anything else, leaving them in their containers/on the ground
- 0 food and drinks, 7 different healing items
- 10 different attachments and mods
- 21 different Cyberware mods
- 0 Junk items
- 6212 Common Item components, 6965 Uncommon Item components
- Made no changes to storage
- Never crafted anything aside from previous save crafts
- Never stole a car in the playthrough
- Never skipped random shootouts in the playthrough (star icon)
- Frequent clothes-shopper and weapon-shopper (only high armor clothing, legendary shotguns/melee weapons, grenades, ammo)
Here's a mini-test for this playthrough: I was doing the mission Gig: Race to the Top, where you're supposed to steal something. I first went for a Guns Blazing approach:
- Killed everyone before stealing the quest objective
- Looted only my essentials, see second save stats
- Fast-traveled to Lake Farm, then waited for 120 hours to hopefully purge dead bodies
- Came back to find out that new enemies respawned, but that some of the corpses from 5 days ago were still there
- Save file size: 5.335 MB
I then went for a stealth approach, using Reboot Optics, disabling cameras, and did only the quest objective without incapacitating or killing anyone:
- Didn't even incapacitate anyone
- Looted only the quest objective
- Fast-traveled to Lake Farm, then waited for 120 hours
- Save file size: 5.329 MB
I explored the first approach further, and killed the new enemies then waited for 7 days in Lake Farm, then went back. The new corpses disappeared, but the quest-related corpses were still there.
So from this:
- Inventory/looting definitely still has impact on bloat
- Exploring the map has impact on bloat
- Doing side quests has impact on bloat
- Killing enemies makes more of an impact on bloat than ignoring enemies in missions (ignoring them still increases file size, as you spawned them into the world regardless)
- Cleaning up your inventory reduces save file size, but not by much
- I'm almost positive there's some bugged garbage collection/cleanup somewhere, as the specific quest above doesn't clean up bodies days after the quest, after waiting from a far away location
- I'm almost positive garbage collection/cleanup exists, too - I have used the Lake Farm 5 day wait method several times between the 2 save files above, which resulted in double-digit KB file size decreases. These are all after guns blazing missions, gang shootout wipes, NCPD hustles, etc. They decrease in size after the wait, then whenever I return to their locations, the bodies are gone
Hope this helps.
I'm a bit of a hoarder - not only do I get absolutely everything lootable after fights, I only disassemble guns and clothes. After finding out about this issue, I looked at my save size, which is at 5.296 MB. For progress context for this file:
- Level 40, 50 Street Cred
- Act 2, zero main mission progress - I still haven't met Takemura
- Roamed quite a bit around the map, finishing Delamain questline, all but final quest of Beat on the Brat, and all gigs and NCPD scanner hustles for Badlands
- Finished all available side quests during Act 1 before moving on to Act 2
- As mentioned, looted everything lootable, aside from unlootable bugged items
- Disassembled all weapons that didn't match my build (Body/Int 20, the rest split into Cool and Technical Ability - not a crafting build) - I disassemble my Shotguns, LMGs and Melee weapons only if the DPS is higher
- Disassembled all clothing, unless it exceeds my currently equipped clothing, at which I point I equip it and disassemble my old clothes
- Retained absolutely everything else, which resulted in...
- 126 different types of food and drinks, 7 different healing items
- 266 different attachments and mods (they don't stack, so each scope occupies an item slot, etc.)
- 60 different Cyberware mods
- 102 different Junk items
- 16959 Common Item components, 9263 Uncommon Item components
- Only Iconic weapons in storage, plus GOG rewards and unique clothing (V's clothes)
- Throughout the save file, I crafted maybe 10 clicks on Shotgun ammo (to refill from low ammo twice, each click gives you 12 shotgun shells), and Legendary quickhacks (Epic for those with Epic max levels)
- Used the painting exploit to gain money, as well as the duplication glitch, but only duped 68 paintings, to speed up getting shop money
- Would always prefer "guns blazing" approach to main and side missions, unless there are optional objectives requiring to sneak - this results in a lot of loot and dead bodies
- Never stole a car in the playthrough
- Never skipped random shootouts in the playthrough (star icon)
- Frequent clothes-shopper and weapon-shopper (only high armor clothing, legendary shotguns/melee weapons, grenades, ammo)
I suspect, even though I'm not a huge crafter at all, due to my monstrous inventory, my save file's bloated already.
Now, for save file testing, I sold every single food and drink, junk, 75% of my Common Item components, and most of my attachments to drop boxes(this is how I continued my playthrough actually - after reading about the glitch). This resulted in about a 26KB decrease (just off the top of my head - I've overwritten my file already). I sold items to a drop box until it ran out of money, waited 48 hours, and repeated the process many times for this.
I have since refrained from picking up any item but shotgun/sniper ammo, MaxDoc MK1s, grenades, higher armor clothing, and Legendaries. The legendary weapons, I just sell to drop boxes and wait for 48 hours. I'm avoiding disassembling entirely.
It took me completing all Gigs and NCPD Scanner Hustles in both City Center and Heywood to even match my previous 5.296 MB size.
Now, I played further after finding out about the bug - currently finishing the rest of the quests. My file is at 5.329 MB, with 0 food and drink, 0 junk, 15 attachments and mods. This file's stats...
- Level 44, 50 Street Cred
- 80 hours played
- Act 2, still zero main mission progress
- 28 vehicles owned
- Roamed quite a bit around the map, finishing Delamain questline, all but final quest of Beat on the Brat, and all gigs and NCPD scanner hustles for Badlands, City Center and Heywood
- Only looted ammo, grenades, MaxDoc MK1s, high armor clothing, legendaries, shards and unique items
- Sold all legendaries picked up (still lower than my equipped weapons) and low armor replaced clothing, then would always wait for 48 hours to purge Buy Back items
- Didn't pick up anything else, leaving them in their containers/on the ground
- 0 food and drinks, 7 different healing items
- 10 different attachments and mods
- 21 different Cyberware mods
- 0 Junk items
- 6212 Common Item components, 6965 Uncommon Item components
- Made no changes to storage
- Never crafted anything aside from previous save crafts
- Never stole a car in the playthrough
- Never skipped random shootouts in the playthrough (star icon)
- Frequent clothes-shopper and weapon-shopper (only high armor clothing, legendary shotguns/melee weapons, grenades, ammo)
Here's a mini-test for this playthrough: I was doing the mission Gig: Race to the Top, where you're supposed to steal something. I first went for a Guns Blazing approach:
- Killed everyone before stealing the quest objective
- Looted only my essentials, see second save stats
- Fast-traveled to Lake Farm, then waited for 120 hours to hopefully purge dead bodies
- Came back to find out that new enemies respawned, but that some of the corpses from 5 days ago were still there
- Save file size: 5.335 MB
I then went for a stealth approach, using Reboot Optics, disabling cameras, and did only the quest objective without incapacitating or killing anyone:
- Didn't even incapacitate anyone
- Looted only the quest objective
- Fast-traveled to Lake Farm, then waited for 120 hours
- Save file size: 5.329 MB
I explored the first approach further, and killed the new enemies then waited for 7 days in Lake Farm, then went back. The new corpses disappeared, but the quest-related corpses were still there.
So from this:
- Inventory/looting definitely still has impact on bloat
- Exploring the map has impact on bloat
- Doing side quests has impact on bloat
- Killing enemies makes more of an impact on bloat than ignoring enemies in missions (ignoring them still increases file size, as you spawned them into the world regardless)
- Cleaning up your inventory reduces save file size, but not by much
- I'm almost positive there's some bugged garbage collection/cleanup somewhere, as the specific quest above doesn't clean up bodies days after the quest, after waiting from a far away location
- I'm almost positive garbage collection/cleanup exists, too - I have used the Lake Farm 5 day wait method several times between the 2 save files above, which resulted in double-digit KB file size decreases. These are all after guns blazing missions, gang shootout wipes, NCPD hustles, etc. They decrease in size after the wait, then whenever I return to their locations, the bodies are gone
Hope this helps.
The squiggly bits are a long sequence of (uint32, uint32) pairs, where one seems to be starting off rather large (5-9 million) and monotonically increasing, while the other one is from a small set of single-byte values, probably keys into some small list.
Just above is a block of strings like "gameStatsStateMapStructure", "gamedataStatType", "WasItemUpgraded", etc. - please don't jump to conclusions based on that, I have no idea how to correlate almost anything in this save file format.
I would be reluctant to point out any particular aspect of the game to be "causing" the growth in game state, it feels like it's a range of factors that compound into a state that just doesn't compress into the chosen buffer space.
The things that would be interesting to look at would be how the individual sections of the file change over time, especially when doing guided experiments like some people have done here. I'm just working off stray "completion saves" I found on a sketchy website and some files helpfully uploaded in here.
I don't even have the game, so I thankfully cannot do it myself
Just above is a block of strings like "gameStatsStateMapStructure", "gamedataStatType", "WasItemUpgraded", etc. - please don't jump to conclusions based on that, I have no idea how to correlate almost anything in this save file format.
I would be reluctant to point out any particular aspect of the game to be "causing" the growth in game state, it feels like it's a range of factors that compound into a state that just doesn't compress into the chosen buffer space.
The things that would be interesting to look at would be how the individual sections of the file change over time, especially when doing guided experiments like some people have done here. I'm just working off stray "completion saves" I found on a sketchy website and some files helpfully uploaded in here.
I don't even have the game, so I thankfully cannot do it myself
53 pages of responses to this thread should tell CDPR all they need to know about how conerned the player community is about this "feature".
well not everyone is having his files corrupted here...
only 1/20 here have a real issue of unusable save files, and they need a solution, no question about that, because they can't play anymore but, there's a lot of "trash" posts too, only here to make bad statement or saying wrong informations, or even lying willingly.
a lot a players making a post because they fear they will maybe have the pb despite having a perfectly working game (at least for the saving part), they should be discarded of the really impacted players too.
this thread inspire fear to a lot of people mostly and that's bad, because, not eveyone will have an issue with this.
CDPR is working on it, and that should be all they need to answer before locking this topic.
anyway happy holidays to everyone (including CDPR !)
only 1/20 here have a real issue of unusable save files, and they need a solution, no question about that, because they can't play anymore but, there's a lot of "trash" posts too, only here to make bad statement or saying wrong informations, or even lying willingly.
a lot a players making a post because they fear they will maybe have the pb despite having a perfectly working game (at least for the saving part), they should be discarded of the really impacted players too.
this thread inspire fear to a lot of people mostly and that's bad, because, not eveyone will have an issue with this.
CDPR is working on it, and that should be all they need to answer before locking this topic.
anyway happy holidays to everyone (including CDPR !)
I think the developers all know about it by now.
The problem is:
1) At the moment (almost) everyone is on vacation.
2) Since the 8MB is a hard cap of the engine, one cannot hope for a hotfix that sets the maximum file size from 8 to 16,32,64,124MB. There is probably no such miracle.
After all I've read here, I believe that
A) through normal play, with a bit of bad luck, you start to dump data garbage in your file until a disaster occurs.
or
B) Nobody at CDPR has had enough time to test games and they have simply overlooked that the CP2077 has so many quests, places and other things that are written to the file that the 8MP is simply not enough to save everything you do in the CP2077 can.
In the case of a) it can take months to find a solution.
In the case of b) that would be the worst, because the upcoming DLC, addons and (possibly, hopefully) NG + can never be played (integrated) together with Vanilla.
Just an FYI, I don't think either @Duskguy or @EnnyRose were actually doing the mechanic they are calling a glitch (I could be wrong). I posted one of my saves earlier that is around 8060K. I have mass crafted and scrapped thousands of items on the save. I also have the first corrupted save. If it helps your testing, I can provide that one as well.
This is really interesting to look at.
From the initial areas looking eerily similair, I'd reckon that'd be character data, or something that's very similair.
Considering the long flat (same-ey line) I'd reckon that'd be our savegame bloat. (crafting log?)
(Since I almost exclusively craft the same items over and over for disassembly, for hours on end at times)
I was not glitching. On the profile being used. That was the profile that corrupted.
However, based on the data spikes and what we've since discovered. I believe those spikes that line up are story or map progression. They arent exact because none plays the exact same way.
Mine is longer probably because I stopped progressing the story and focused on crafting. That profile is 114 hours long.
Though that is speculation because I have no idea how much crafting or hours went into the other profile.
Edit: just saw your post enny. I did the same thing, but probably dedicated about 48 hours (in game) to the crafting and dismantling. AFTER I figured out how to make my mouse software create a button click macro (Z mouse). Before that was hours of manual clicking.
FlovettaV, glad you got a response and acknowledgement of your work.
The file size, when crafting to get components (through repeated creation and dismantling) creates bloat. From testing on a small scale, it seems as if the game retains about 10-20% of the item's data even after it has been used/sold/destroyed.*
*Note: this is just a best guess estimate based on small tests and could be wildly off base. However, going off item I'd theory, could be at least somewhat accurate. But who knows for sure.
However, after testing duplication of weapons, components, mods (weapon and cyberware), and misc items (the space painting). My file size did not increase. Even though I suddenly had so many new items.
Others have reported the same thing, hence my previous statement that it is ironic that legit crafting destroys the game where the duplication exploit doesnt (at least in terms of file bloat).
Perhaps the exploit corrupts the game in some other manner. That is unknown as the people here generally ruined their game through legitimate means.
However, based on the data spikes and what we've since discovered. I believe those spikes that line up are story or map progression. They arent exact because none plays the exact same way.
Mine is longer probably because I stopped progressing the story and focused on crafting. That profile is 114 hours long.
Though that is speculation because I have no idea how much crafting or hours went into the other profile.
Edit: just saw your post enny. I did the same thing, but probably dedicated about 48 hours (in game) to the crafting and dismantling. AFTER I figured out how to make my mouse software create a button click macro (Z mouse). Before that was hours of manual clicking.
FlovettaV, glad you got a response and acknowledgement of your work.
As for a statement on cheating, the person you quoted is using me as a reference. I along with a few others have used the duplication glitch to test file size bloat.
The file size, when crafting to get components (through repeated creation and dismantling) creates bloat. From testing on a small scale, it seems as if the game retains about 10-20% of the item's data even after it has been used/sold/destroyed.*
*Note: this is just a best guess estimate based on small tests and could be wildly off base. However, going off item I'd theory, could be at least somewhat accurate. But who knows for sure.
However, after testing duplication of weapons, components, mods (weapon and cyberware), and misc items (the space painting). My file size did not increase. Even though I suddenly had so many new items.
Others have reported the same thing, hence my previous statement that it is ironic that legit crafting destroys the game where the duplication exploit doesnt (at least in terms of file bloat).
Perhaps the exploit corrupts the game in some other manner. That is unknown as the people here generally ruined their game through legitimate means.
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All I basicly did, was start the game, wake up in appartment, buy some soda cans to see what they'd do. Notice I could disassemble it. disassembled it, checked a store price. Put my basic economics skills to the test figuring out that 1 beverage costs less than the sum materials. And well, Spend time doing that, making about 50k, went outside, raided the cities beverage supplies.
Figured out the healing consumables crafting recipe was broken too. Made a million. Upgraded the crafting recipe to bio grenades(also broken), later switched to emp grenades, as I also used those. And eventually hit the border of nomad area.
Got a downer of not being able to pass.
And corrupted my save. (the one posted was last good save)
Also of note, I never really sold anything, I always just disassembled everything.
The only things I sold was stuff I couldn't disassemble, and components
This would explain the inconsistent results we've seen with save file size increase. So then, if I understand you right, it might not necessarily be about:The squiggly bits are a long sequence of (uint32, uint32) pairs, where one seems to be starting off rather large (5-9 million) and monotonically increasing, while the other one is from a small set of single-byte values, probably keys into some small list.
Just above is a block of strings like "gameStatsStateMapStructure", "gamedataStatType", "WasItemUpgraded", etc. - please don't jump to conclusions based on that, I have no idea how to correlate almost anything in this save file format.
I would be reluctant to point out any particular aspect of the game to be "causing" the growth in game state, it feels like it's a range of factors that compound into a state that just doesn't compress into the chosen buffer space.
The things that would be interesting to look at would be how the individual sections of the file change over time, especially when doing guided experiments like some people have done here. I'm just working off stray "completion saves" I found on a sketchy website and some files helpfully uploaded in here.
I don't even have the game, so I thankfully cannot do it myself
Player A did A,B,C
Player B did X,Y,Z
Player B has bigger save than Player A so X,Y,Z = Bad
But a matter of:
Player A did A,B,C
Player B did X,Y,Z
But player A's save was compressed at X ratio while Player B's save was compressed at Y ratio, and Player B has an increased save file size.
So the issue may not lie with individual activities, but with the LZ4 compression, and what the game is keeping in memory and compressing.
@EnnyRose
I didnt do the can route. I crafted normal for a while. Ran out of components and discovered, through looking at dismantling the bounce backs that they were cheaper to make and gave more.
Then spent a stupid amount of time using those to make more components.
Then I made the blue max docs with the common and uncommon components to dismantle for purple.
Later found the laser grenade did the same resources and purple max docs and made tons of those to dismantle.
In between all of that, I was doing quests and making blue nekomata snipers for resale. Usually 20 or so to empty out vendors I came across.
EDIT: for the current playthrough, where I used the duplication glitch, I noticed that upgrading weapons led to a "reach level {int_0} to upgrade this item". I thought that might be an error due to using glitched components. However, loading a save from before the duplication glitch leads to the same message. So my previous stance holds: duplication glitch does not increase file size, so wont break the game in that way. But who knows what other impact it might have aside from stupid amounts of money and items. So use at your own risk.
I didnt do the can route. I crafted normal for a while. Ran out of components and discovered, through looking at dismantling the bounce backs that they were cheaper to make and gave more.
Then spent a stupid amount of time using those to make more components.
Then I made the blue max docs with the common and uncommon components to dismantle for purple.
Later found the laser grenade did the same resources and purple max docs and made tons of those to dismantle.
In between all of that, I was doing quests and making blue nekomata snipers for resale. Usually 20 or so to empty out vendors I came across.
EDIT: for the current playthrough, where I used the duplication glitch, I noticed that upgrading weapons led to a "reach level {int_0} to upgrade this item". I thought that might be an error due to using glitched components. However, loading a save from before the duplication glitch leads to the same message. So my previous stance holds: duplication glitch does not increase file size, so wont break the game in that way. But who knows what other impact it might have aside from stupid amounts of money and items. So use at your own risk.
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