Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Technical Problems Hard Drive Space disappearing with EACH saved game

I repost here an issue which was posted before long ago at the 06/23/04 with the same topic but which never got any satisfying response: http://www.larian.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=TechnicalE&Number=175255&page=5&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1 I run WinXP with SP2, 2.4Ghz and have 1GB RAM, using the latest patch 1.0034 for my English version and everything runs great except that EVERY save nibbles abour 20MB away from my free hard drive space. The game is great and I have no real problems with it except this one: As my harddrive space is limited would I need badly help how to stop the game eating up all my free HD space. I hope someone can help me before I run out of space soon. That solutio idea in the other posting doesn't sound very great even it's meant well. Please help if ou know something to this problem. Thank you and hear from you soin I hope:) Bearhug

While the save game folders are large (they keep track of a lot of stuff), they are also very compressible. If you don't want to delete older saves, they can be zipped to under 8% of their original size (7-Zip would do a bit better than XP's built-in utility).

If you are deleting older saves and not getting the space back, then they are not really being deleted (in Windows Explorer check the subfolders in the '..\Beyond Divinity\savegames' folder), or there is a problem with the hard drive or how Windows is reporting the free drive space (run ScanDisk).

Try deleting the files in the dynamic folders;
'..\Beyond Divinity\Acts\Act1\Dynamic', '..\Beyond Divinity\Acts\Act2\Dynamic', etc.
These folders are used as a cache for the game. Files are created / copied there from the save game folder when you load, and written / copied to those folders when you save a game. The files will be re-created as required the next time you start Beyond Divinity. If there was a corrupt file in those folders, deleting the files should fix the problem.

In general, for hard drive cleanup there are various programs you can use to track down unnecessary files and folders that may be taking up too much space.

First, thank you Raze for the very fast response. Compression: thanks, but I don't like to file old saves. I just want my space back I loose with every save. So there are no game saves I can compress as I don't need to stash them away somewhere. Scandisk: I am not deleting old files. I just have ONE save file which I ever write over it again and again and I keep loosing that 20MB everytime. So Scandisk would not help there either. And even if I would, it's so slow that it would be no solution to use that everytime after using a new name of the svae and erasing the old one. Dynamic folders: I tried that before like mentioned in the old posting and my game crashed the first and only time. So I copied back the files I saved before as backup in another folder and didn't touch the dynamic folder anymore. I have no issues with any corrupt files in he folder. And whent hey get ever recreated by the game I wonder what it brings to erase them in the first place and why Larian didn't programmed an automatic erase of those files at game end. Beyond Divinity: I see all those directories in the post. Does the sequal have the same issues with eating up space by every save? Please tell me it's not the case..:/ Is there really no other way as to use third party programs to look for missing harddrive space? I can't believe that me and the other person who made the original posting are the only ones with that problem. So how did other solved the issue and did Larian ever made any statement to this? At the moment I am waiting for a response of them as I wrote the tech support and asked them about the issue. I really hope they have a solution as I really started to love that game despite some tiny bugs here and there. I would hate to be forced to stop playing it just because of lag of mysteriously vanished drive space. Bearhug

When saving over an existing save, the game first saves to a temporary folder (ie the same name, but with a .tmp extension), in case there is a problem during the save process, then overwrites the old save and deletes the temporary folder. There will be an extra 20MB or 40MB (depending on whether you have been to the BF yet for that act) of hard drive space used during this process, but that should be freed up when it is done.

If the free disk space is not being updated correctly, then ScanDisk should help. Unless there are temporary folders piling up with each save and not being deleted, that is a distinct possibility.

As long as you do not have background programs running that write to disk and cause ScanDisk to keep restarting, and do not do a thorough scan, it should not take very long. If that fixes the problem, it may not reoccur (or at least you would only need to rerun ScanDisk every 50 saves, or whatever, depending on how much free space you actually have).

Deleting the files in the dynamic folders should not cause the game to crash (they are empty when the game is first installed, after all).
If you reset the configuration as prompted when you try to start the game the first time after a crash (or power failure, etc where the game is not shut down properly), I believe the files in the dynamic folders do get deleted.
A corrupt file is actually fairly rare, but it is easy to check and clearing the dynamic folders shouldn't cause any problems, so that is one of the things to try when a problem does not have any specific known causes.


[color:"orange"]Is there really no other way as to use third party programs to look for missing harddrive space?[/color]

I'd run ScanDisk first, to see if the space is actually missing, or not. An uninstall program or file monitor (more technical) may help track down what is happening if you really are using up drive space each save.


[color:"orange"]I can't believe that me and the other person who made the original posting are the only ones with that problem.[/color]

Perhaps not, but it is not very common, and I don't recall anyone else posting about it.

I only had that problem once..... but it sorted itself out after i installed the latest patches, from both larian, and Microsoft.

What DID help to get the space back on my HDD, was a normal "disk cleanup" as comes standard with win XP....

What antivirus package are you using???? I had that problem only while i was running an antivirus that tried to protect my files from being deleted (cant remember which package it was though.....) After i set the antivus to stop monitoring files while i play, the problem disappeared, and after i updates windows, i could re-enable the antivirus without it causing hassles.

If you have any file-monitoring, or data security software running, try to disable them, and see if the problem is still there.....

Thank you, Lady Rain. I just wish I had read your message a bit earlier and I could have saved me a new installation of the game. Here's what I did step by tep in case someone else has the same problem: - I did again as suggested erased all files in the Dynamic folder and tried to start the game. The result was quite strange: I got a message: "This application has failed to start because Osiris.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." I looked and found the Osirix.dll file where it should be in the game folder. Then I looked at the start icon of the game and found something very odd which brought me on the lead of the source of the problem. The line "D:\Games\Divine Divinity\Run\div.exe" was replaced with "D:\RECYCLER\NPROTECT\00035129.exe". The div.exe file was gone. I just can guess that the Norton Protect collided with the annoying copy protection and triggered that result. Let's face it - most people never read the agreement text (at least when they install games) and also rarely follow the instructions to close all other programs as we make very rarely bad experiences. This was the first time a program got shot because of Norton Systemworks running in the background. And I had hundreds of games installed before without a problem as I am a collector. - Ok, here's now what I did step by step to fix the problem: 1.) I made a backup from my save game. 2.) I opened the Norton protected recycle bin and emptied it, then closed it. 3.) I right clicked on the Recycle bin and choose PROPERTIES. There I switched in the RECYCLE BIN tab from 'All protected files' to 'Standard Recycle bin' and also renamed the bin with the same name, then clicked ok. 4.) I deinstalled the screwed up game version. 5.) I turned my virus scanner off and installed the game. 6.) I installed also the same patch again, in this case 1.0034. 7.) Rebooted the system to be sure that the install was completed in case the veeeery slow install routine needed that even there was no indication. 8.) I copied the save game folder back into the position were it belonged. 9.) I started the game and prayed that it would work and there would be no loss of drive space anymore. It worked!!! My Recommendation: As nice Norton Systemworks is. I would recommend to turn of the recycle bin function. It was good in the past but as experienced users and with the more stable XP is that function in my opinion obsolete. As so often did I found the instructions how to turn the NS recycle bin of with google on a discussion board as most program handbooks seem to shy away from explaining how to turn certain functions off like the devil fears holy water. All the recommendations to turn off the virus software are unnecessary as the recycle bin is the culprit. and as most computers like my own hang 24/7 on the net would I not use a program which wouldn't allow me to keep my machine save as I play a game. Tiny side effect: The game saves now also about one or two seconds faster. Thanks:) I want to thank very much Raze and Lady Rain for their help even Raze's suggestion appeared to be more a standard recommendation like out of a database and less a tip from practical experience. So I guess he/she works for Larian support. Please take it not personal, I know how hard long distance report is, was there myself. I wish Larian Studios anything well and look really forward to play the sequal and looking forward to any other rpg's like DD2 or whatever they will create. DD was one of the best rpg's I played for a very long time, much better as the overhyped Diablo2 which is just a hack'n'slash with a trading card addiction factor but with no new quests (Great game until you played it through once.). Thanks Larian for such a great game:) I will definitely recommend it to friends. Bearhug

Glad we could help you....

And for the record... AFAIK, raze is not employed by Larian (the larian crew will have Larian in Blue underneath their nicknames). But he will be dearly missed, if he decides to run away... There are very few game related problems that raze does not have information on...

Interestingly enough, the advice i gave, was not intended for Divine Divinity, but rather for Beyond Divinity <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ... i suppose, same engine... same issues <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

There are very few antivirus packages / data security packages that conflict with DD and BD.... but norton has popped up a couple of times.

Glad we could sort it out at least <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Glad you got it working. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/party.gif" alt="" />

I have never run into this problem, with DD, BD or any other programs, so had no practical experience to draw on.