Playing vanilla Deus Ex here on Windows 7, game installed outside of Program Files.

Does anybody else experience a notable lag when accessing the save menu and when quicksaving? It goes on for some 5 seconds every time, and I distinctly remember it not having such an issue back in my retail copy played years ago on a much inferior PC.

Ideas?

First of all GOOD ON YOU. Seen WAY too many people rushing to load up the mods since this became available here. IMO people should at least play the vanilla game once before hitting a mod--and sounds like you've done it a few times.

To your other issue I've run both vanilla and modded versions of the game outside the standard install folders. That time lag with saving/loading hasn't really been unusual for me. I've gotten used to it.

My GUESS is the more complex these systems get the more pawing over of the files they do and the longer saves and loads take. Sorry I don't have a better solution, just more in the way of an explanation.

I might be interpreting the problem incorrectly, and i haven't actually installed the game in several years, but IIRC, the save files for this game were quite large, something on the order of 30 to 40 megs for every single save. Thus, bringing up the save menu, would cause it to pause while it found them all. And quick-save took a little long because of the savegame size. And I am a quick-save abuser...Because of the many choices in this game, I was pounding the quicksave key every time I made a decision, which was often, just in case I didn't like my choice. I hardly ever went back and used those quicksaves, as it was more fun just to play the hand I'd dealt myself, but that didn't stop me from pummelling that key.

I remember the last time I finished the game a few years back, I went to the savegame folder out of curiosity, and was shocked to see that I had several hundred saves in there, totalling 4 GIGS!

Not quite that big. Remember, hard drives weren't that large back when this game was first released. According to Wikipedia, the game did have a flaw with large save game files and a reviewer found that on completing the game he'd accumulated 250MB of saves with an average save file size of 15MB.

Since you're not using mods, the only possible explanation I could think of is that you have security/antivirus software monitoring the game when it reads/writes files.

I just checked my Deus Ex: GOTY save files (539 total) and found that each one ranges between 7.75 MB to 21.8 MB resulting in a grand total of 6.17 GB. Based upon these numbers GilesHabibula and korell are both correct, but they are describing the difference between a few hundred save files and less than 20.

Are you playing the game in a DOSBox?

I have exactly the same problem. I also use windows seven so maybe the problem come from the os ?

This issue will get worse as you progress through the game. From my investigation (years ago) the reason for the increasingly large save files is because of the way the game handles 'images' and 'notes' you pickup throughout the game. Essentially it adds 1MB to your save, per note. The workaround I've figured out is deleting obsolete entries in your notes. A rather annoying solution because it's a chore. Anyways here are some general suggestions on deleting notes:

-Delete entries for accounts# & Pin#s once you're done getting all the credits from said account from an ATM.
-Consolidate computer Logins & Passwords. (you can edit notes and create new ones).
-Delete old Logins & Passwords to computers/terminals in places you know you will never go back.
-Delete old leads & clues after a debriefings for a mission.

Also some notes you may want to hold on for a while like the password to getting into Smuggler's hideout.

Hope this helps.