EDIT: They Fixed It :D (in hotfix 1.06 patch apperently that is live right now) Thank God! finally. Thank you CDPR for this much needed tweak!

I've recently read that on PC if your save file size exceeds 8MBs it will get corrupted and unusable.
Apparently looting and crafting, saving and loading, having an inventory filled with items makes the save size go up.

Read somewhere it happened to someone with only 175 hours of gameplay.
If this is true then it is a huge problem, and especially for me. I have OCD and that means I loot nearly every object,
craft A Lot, have as big as possible and often filled to the brim inventory and obsessively compulsively save and load
if I make the tinniest mistake or miss the smallest piece of junk in the corner of some room since I want to make sure I 100%ed the area/quest and ultimately the game (or as close as possible to 100%: every quest done, item looted/crafted, etc...)

Seeing how I got to nearly 500 hours in single playthrough of Witcher 3 (with DLCs) where I did every quest and had so much stuff like items and materials the game lagged when I were to sell it too quickly I am afraid Cyberpunk 2077 is basically unplayable for me. I don't intend to use any cheats/hacks/mods/glitches to duplicate items or such but I always end up min maxing the crafting features in game as well as nearly every other gameplay aspect and I make quick saves every minute or so and manual saves nearly a dozen or more times in a single quest. I can't help it although I try.

I have played the game for 15 hours now. Small Spoilers: I've only gotten to night city for first time recently after finishing the first nomad mission and am now basically at where 2018 demo begins with dexter guy waiting for me in his car. End of Spoilers.
I already looted what I found in that beginning area of nomad lifestyle and saved, load,
reloaded the thirty or so saves I have numerous times mostly because I was testing different graphical settings hundreds of times on a small gun fight right of off dexter's car with ncpd and what seems to have been tyger claws. And all of that, just that, already made my save file size nearly 250KBs.

So, beginning of nomad playthrough up until first fixer meeting, items from first area of nomad lifestyle, few dozen saves and hundred or more reloading of saves and some saving over the old ones resulted in 250KBs size already?
If that's the case and the guy who hit (MBs limit with only 175 hours is true then by the end of my first playthrough with probably 500 hours of gameplay and nearly 100% game completion my game's save file size would be five to ten, if not more, times larger then 8MBs.

I can barely play the game at 30-40 fps on low+medium with my gtx 1070 and i5-3570k 8overclocked) with frequent frame drops so I will wait a month or two anyway for optimization patches so hopefully this issue (it is definitely an issue imo) will get addressed soon.

This is basically a game breaking thing. It punishes players for doing basic RPG gameplay options like looting and crafting by making them not be able to play the game anymore. I've always admired cdpr in anything they did up until this point.
Not to mention optimization could use some work (yes I know I should get new CPU but I run rdr2, fc5 and similar on near all ultra at 1080p with 60fps so do the math).

I really really hope this absolutely horrible "feature" will be removed, and soon.
I don't feel like playing the game a third way through just to have my save file corrupted and being forced to delete those same and start anew and avoiding looting and crafting just so I don't have to start a new game every time I get locked out of my save for using basic gameplay features.

I am really disappointed. I sincerely hope some people at cdpr come to their senses and fix this problem.
game basically unplayable for many because of this.

I love their games and company and agreed with nearly every dicession they made but this is just too much and no doubt horrible mistake.

P.S. If anyone finds any work-around/fix for this issue be it a mod or file edit or something, idk, anything, please let me know because I basically can not play the game because of this, I'm fairly certain.
I'll wait and see how it affects others first (and for optimization patches) and hopefully in the wait the patch will roll out that will fix this issue. Witcher 3's my favourite game so I was really looking forward to playing Cyberpunk 2077 but knowing this ridiculous "feature" is in the game makes me want to refund it until it is removed or somehow fixed so it only affects those who abuse glitches.

P.P.S. Sorry for long post and bad english. It isn't my native language and this is my first forum post here. Feel free to let me know if I broke a forum rule or something and if you know a way to play the game perfectionist completionist style without having to worry about this save file data corruption above 8MBs thing.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. Hopefully you all get to spend some time with your family this next few weeks.
Cheers.

There are some minor inaccuracies in what you're saying.

Yes, general gameplay will make the save size go up, but it should not be enough to push saves over the limit.

The real culprit in terms of save game size bloat would so far appear to be crafting. The more items you craft, the more bloated your save becomes. I say "appear to be", because we do not really know the exact nature so far.

But simply having items in your inventory does not appear to permanently increase save size. Meaning once you delete the items, the save should decrease in size. Looting, buying, and disassembling would also not appear to be a significant issue.

Just don't craft tens of thousands of items, and particularly do not craft tens of thousands of stackable items (grenades, consumables), because they appear to be a bigger bloat factor than non-stackables.

And above all, take all information with a grain of salt until we have positive confirmation of how it works. If your save is getting very close to 8 mb then check if you happen to have an enormous amount of stuff in your stash and if so, maybe consider deleting some.

Why put such a thing in a singleplayer game anyway. I understand it should be a thing in multiplayer mode once that is added but it makes no sense to have it in singleplayer.

Sure we don't have official statement on exactly how much of what increases the size but there is already a good bunch of people saying their save file size is this and that size after just this or that amount of gameplay time which is what concerns me.

I play extremely slowly, looting everything, crafting A Lot and saving and loading a Lot and often. If this bs system applied to my 2000 hours skyrim save it'd be locked out of it 50 times already.

There is no logical reason for me to worry about not crafting too much. Glitch abusers could be dealt with in a different way for sure or duplication glitches could be fixed. And even so who cares if someone uses a duplication glitch in singleplayer.

If from what I did so far (very little). Looted all items in starting nomad town and starting mission with Jackie (before talking to Dexter) raised the save file size from 200 bytes to nearly 250KBs then it would mean I'd be locked out of my save even before I get to 505 completion by the way I play.

The increase in size that you run into when playing the game normally is not linear. The moment you load an area for the first time, a lot of stuff is added to your save game. Thus simply cruising the city for fun and giggles, taking in the sights, is going to increase you save file, but this is more or less a one-time thing. As far as we know, anyway.

And 8 mb should be enough to store a save game. Except it appears that the game is storing some information every time you craft an item, and for some reason that information is never pruned. And the added blubber appears to be what ultimately pushes some save games over the limit.

Breaking down items does not appear to be a problem. Buying and selling items does not appear to be a problem. Crafting (probably thousands of) stackables appears to be the biggest culprit but crafting non-stackables also appears to cause bloat.

My save is now about 3.4MB - I've barely scratched the main story (found and left Evelyn sleeping with Judy taking care of her), I've done some side-missions, I've done at most 4-5 weapons crafting and 10-15 grenades + a few rounds of bullets (but since I get better weapons by doing random killings I prefer not to craft that at all), and I have nothing in my stash (not even sure where the stash is either other than my apartment, but there's never a reason to go there anyway).

That is a perfectly normal amount of crafting (and I can't do more right now either because of serious lack of components anyway).

I've used about 15-17 hours in the game, and probably wasted 1.5h just by driving around.

I find it rather oddworld that people are defending a broken and rushed game like it was their own mother. This is clearly a combo of rushed and poor programming choices, just like not allowing the player to change the keys.

In comparison the savefile for Satisfactory can get 100-300MB and still it is compressed...

Yes, Merry Christmas! :D

EDIT: I do tend to save very often., but still, terrible design choice...

The only thing I read is that you have absolutely no clue.

A save files size getting bigger depends on many things based on the programming choices and how the world is, but having such a low limit on this kind of open-world is next level stupidity, even if it just was a temporarily placeholder and they "forgot" about it.

Problem is, when you've first set a limit like this it's not always easy to change that unless you force a restart. Then again, only CDPR knows for sure and so far they've been reluctant to say anything (to my knowledge). Right, enough for who/what/where?

It's such a meaningless statement unless you know the context, and that wholly depends on the programming choices (and only CDPR knows exactly what, where, and how they put information in a savefile).

I don't think anyone is defending this screw-up, but have a general idea of what the bug is and how it manifests is obviously more useful than bouncing off the walls in hysteria.

Right now there's no indication that your save file is in any danger. Your apartment stash is located in your apartment, but you can also check the trunk of your cars for a stash. The two are not connected, which is a bit weird.

And yes, this is clearly an oversight, but 8 mb is still plenty for a save file in most cases. Otherwise we would have seen a lot more people with problems at this point. The issue isn't really the 8 mb limit, the issue is that something is bloating saves pointlessly.

Lastly, people who get close to the limit are mentioning long load times when loading games, so there's probably some internal function or other that is running into bad performance because of the size of whatever list of info that is getting bloated.

How would you know? Done testing yourself or got a source of info? I wish that was true. That only crafting increases it but game has a good amount of bugs and glitches and I am pretty sure we still don't have official info on this. Besides I didn't craft anything, I just looted what was there to loot in starting nomad village and that scav hideout from 2018 demo at start of game and that's it. And my file was already almost 250KBs (235 more or less).
How come so many reported getting this bug. It can't be all of them used duplication glitches. And I am pretty sure I would have crafted five times more then 95% of those people. Ultimately locking me out of playing the game.
I'd like to believe only crafting increase the size (besides visiting new areas for first time and all that scripted stuff that has to bloat it) so feel free to link me where people said it. Hopefully we get devs to have a word about this soon because this is just disgusting and horrible. Please add "warning: spoilers" before posting spoilers. But thanks for info anyway. Yeah that's the thing. It seems the save size get too large too quickly even if almost no crafting is done. I agree that game needs optimization and bug fixes but I am sure it's just as awesome of an experience as Witcher 3 but at least in Witcher you could craft all you wanted without fearing you will be locked out of the game. this is infuriating to say the least. And I doubt they'll ever share that info. They'll probably adress us vaguely via the famous yellow background text message when more people find about this redicilous "feature" that should be removed asap.

But again, why the heck even put that there knowing it can ruin someone's whole play time. Seeing how big and complex game is ofc it will have bug and glitches and technical problems and yet they put such a hurtful feature there not worrying it might backfire. In only 15 hours of my playtime, which was most if not all just play testing different graphical settings and doing first few minutes to get into the night city from badlands, game behaved differently for no reason and did weird things out of blue every now and then be it a bug, glitch, performance thing, gameplay stuff etc.
Only logical explanation for this I could think of is if it were to cut down on exploiting glitches for multiplayer but more importantly before that there's DLCs and infinetly more importantly before even that there's Optimization and bug fixing so why the heck put such a dumb thing in the first place. Honestly even if it weren't there. If someone want's to cheat and be god mode they'll do it with or without that stupid feature. And besides it's singleplayer so people have a right to if they want. Again, I don't want to nor plan to but apparently there's some ppl online saying they've experienced this without ever using any glitches. And that scares me. You'd understand if you saw my Skyrim inventory or Witcher 3's or almost any games. I spend hundred of hours 100% game, looting, crafting, doing everything absolutely everything. I can't help it and I enjoy it anyways. And I'd be super pissed if I were to play game for two hundred hours nearing third half of main story and doing more then half of side quests with all those meaningful choices and unique things I did, how I built my build, where I went first and what I've done first and how And then having it all go to absolute Waste because I crafted 15 healing items every half hour because I could because I looted everything and had crafting perks. I'd be furious af. I'm speechless. I don't know how such a screw up can be left unfixed.

Yes, I've done some testing myself and other people have also done some testing. The save file increases in size as you play the game, but it should not generally increase in size beyond that 8 mb limit.

And some testing has been done in terms of adding stuff to inventory and whatnot. Adding stuff increases save game size (as you would expect), but this size is recovered when the stuff is deleted. Thus it does not appear to cause bloat.

You having a save of 250 kb is perfectly fine. It does not suggest a problem. Also, this bug has not been reported by "so many", all things considered. CDPR sold 13 million copies of the game and if the bug was common, if it was fairly typical for people to lose their saves this way, then the player base would be howling in the proverbial streets.

Lastly, the item duplication glitches do not seem to cause issues. It will increase size but the size seems to be reclaimed when the item is destroyed, and so it is not really a problem. The core cause here does appear to be related to crafting new items, especially if you craft tens of thousands of items to take advantage of how some items return a lot more on disassembly than they cost.

You are correct that this is not official info. We have not heard anything from CDPR about this, other than that they know about it.

currently 75hrs in, and save is 4.3mb right now. not doing anything in game to prevent the 8mb limit reach though.

i feel like it will be addressed before you even reach 8mb that is ofc without the copy/paste exploit.

obviously this game was made for the ps2, so its save has to fit on a standard ps2 memory card
/jk

terrible design choice. worst one ive ever seen in a modern rpg

250KBs was after like half hour of gameplay. Basically just got form badlands into night city (cuz nomad lifestyle). Anyhow, it don't matter now they removed it :D Thank Lord, Omg. Now if they optimize the game some more I can properly enjoy it. I'm so happy right now cuz of this
Thx for info but we can all breath now. They finally removed it :D I am so happy for this change. Installing hotfix 1.06 right now.
The new 1.06 hotfixes apperently removed the limit penalty :D
Luckly they came to their sense and removed it in new 1.06 hotifx :D dl it atm

The Hotfix 1.06 says it removed this bs feature. Finally :D if mod sees this feel free to close the topic I guess since we finally got a fix for this ****