I'm having a bit of trouble using an old Gothic 3 save. It's originally from one of my old computers that ran Windows 7. I've been able to successfully get it working on my old laptop that ran Windows 8, but no such luck with my new Windows 8.1 laptop. I've tried just copy and pasting, overwriting, renaming the files, etc etc but to no avail.

When I go to load the save it doesn't even show up. Here is the weird thing though, internally the game recognizes the save. For example the old save is "Save File 1" (not its actual name obviously) and when I go to make a new save in Gothic 3 it names the new save "Save File 2". Also note that if I create a new save (say Save File 2) and then delete that file's data file and rename my old save's data file to Save File 2 the data itself carries over somewhat. By that I mean that I can see what quests I had completed or failed (and the dialogue that goes with them), what day it is in-game etc etc. However all of my skills are set to zero, my inventory is empty among other weird things.

Just to clarify, I've been able to transfer this specific save before but I can't seem to get it working on my new laptop. Oh, and yes I'm using the same Community Patch.

So...any fixes, tips or ideas?

Ah, good catch, but I didn't have Alternate Balancing enabled on my old saves nor in Gothic 3 now. I'm still using Community Patch 1.74 as that is the patch I used with my old saves.

Thanks for that tip though, hopefully somebody can use it!

every save consists of 2 files, did you copy both?

Yep, both of them. They're both manual saves though, I don't have an available quicksave.

I know, you wrote it, but: Are you sure, its the same Community-patch-level?
There was a short time, where the gog-installer gives you 1.75, now they backed to 1.74.

I looked into "world of gothic" and they say: you can't use 1.75 in 1.74 and vice versa.

edit: please look into your old Useroptions.ini
search for "ResourceCache="
if you find it, you played 1.75

is there a file named "shader.cache" amongst your old saves? Than you played 1.75

if you can't find any of them, then I am out.

In Useroptions it does have a ResourceCache entry but in the ge3.ini it says Version=1.74 under Engine.Setup. Confusing haha. I'm not sure which version of Gothic 3 GOG still supplies but I re-downloaded it just a few months ago. I do appreciate your help, thanks!

Edit: Patch 1.75 confirmed that Gothic 3 was version 1.74

Update: I reinstalled patch Community Patch 1.75, started a new game and saved, copied my old saves over and overwrote the new saves and now my old saves work!

I'm not sure how it worked considering I had tried this exact thing a while ago and it didn't work, but what matters is that it worked this time haha.