[bobsbarricades]

I turned off auto save because of crashes.  I only had one save to force me to go on with all of my decisions since this game is all about them.  No problems.  About to get my raven armor for my neutral geralt...save is gone.  I was in the swamp cemetery, just became best boxer, only had one more stop to get the last piece before going back to kalkstein but for the first time ever my map was messed up, all black. 

So I save ( overwrite, user save) come back later,..saves are all gone.

I didn't delete it because I double click everything in the save/load menu to AVOID accidental deleting. 

How screwed am I?  If someone has a save that is neutral geralt, I gave Alvin to shani, and I have the two swords from act 4, the curved one and the one from the lady of the lake...I would appreciate it.  I was straight dominating....for once in this game... So I'm pretty bummed.  Thanks for any help.

[slimgrin]

Maybe try the save game market here on the site?

[Pangaea]

Err, you use one save and keep overwriting that one, with no backup? That's asking for problems tbh. In my experience this game WILL crash. It's not a question of it, it will crash. It's just a matter of time. Due to this I have learnt that it's much better to create a new save each time, and then delete a load later when you have finished playing. No popup overwrite box either :D

Best bet now is the savegame market. But then you won't get the exact same decisions as you made.

[KeybdFlyer]

Has anybody apart from myself had problems with the game crashing during the save process?  On several occasions I've hit f5 to save after some significant event (tough battle, major choice etc) only to have the "...has encountered a problem and needs to close..." box arrive.  Looking in the My Documents/The Witcher/Saves folder reveals a folder containing numerous files pertaining to the save, but no saved game file.  I assume, therefore,  that the crash occurred as the game was attempting to pack those files.  I have no idea if there is any way to pack that folder oneself.

I've reached Act V several times, btw, but have never completed the game.  The crashes (not just on saving as described above but also simply random crashes) became so frequent that I just gave up on it and started over from the beginning.  A shame, but I enjoy the game so much that knowing I'm going to endure endless crashes doesn't deter me from going through it all again!

[Pangaea]

Yep, that has happened to me many times. After problems with saving and random crashes I started to save to a new file all the time, and then deleting them when the save folder got too big.