How old is your oldest save file?

[Zloth]

Assuming you can FIND the fargin' things, what is the oldest save file you have?

Likely locations - a folder named after the company that made/published the game or the game name located in

• Your Documents directory
• Your Documents/My Games directory
• In you Steam directory under the "userdata" folder. There will be at least one folder there for your user ID number. Inside that will be a bunch of folders that correspond to ID numbers Steam has assigned to a game (e.g. 287700 for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain). I guess you can figure out the game name from the ID number by changing this link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/287700/discussions/ and switch the number to the ID number you want to check.
• In your AppData folder. In your Users directory on the C drive (or wherever you installed Windows) there's at least one ID number. Open that and you probably will NOT see the AppData directory - but it is there! Try opening C:\Users\<your number>\AppData and it will go there. Inside this folder is a "Local" directory, "LocalLow", and "Roaming." Save directories can show up in Local or Roaming. Alternately, do a Windowskey-R and run %appdata% and it will take you right to the Roaming directory.

No clue where Epic or GOG keep saves.

 

[Frindis]

My oldest save that I have on an external HD is a save game copy for Cube World. I'm too lazy to plug that one in to see the exact date, but I'm pretty sure it was right after that game launched in 2013. Ok, Ok, If I am being VERY lazy, I do have an old HD from 1990 and most definitely it got some saves for who knows what games. Does not really count, but thought I'd throw that in also.

 

[Brian Boru]

Saves aren't a big deal for me, I don't take care of them—if I lose one, I start over or move on.

Oldest I can find at a quick glance is Crysis Warhead from 2017.
I also have a bunch of smaller games from same year.

That coincides with when I 'inherited' my current PC—my GF couldn't get Win10 working on her new Dell, so we swapped since I had it working fine on my 2014 build. I wouldn't have bothered hunting down any games or saves at the time.

 

[Colif]

Sacred 2 save files - 2009
I have them backed up in several locations, so just had to find them.

 

[Zimbaly]

I still have my Summer Games disk I believe with my records still on it.
That count?

 

[Zloth]

Summer games disk? Is that something from PC Gamer demo disk days?

The oldest "active" save file (meaning one where a sequel might be able to find the game) is Dragon Age: Inquisition from late 2015. It would be nice if BioWare would pay attention to it, but I think they go by their own cloud now.

In my old backup directory, I've got saves from Witcher in June 2008, followed by a bunch of saves from the first Mass Effect game. (Wow, good year for RPGs for me!)

Oh, and there's a My Spore Creations folder from 2007 with images in it. Didn't they actually put data about the vehicles/cells/whatever in those PNG files themselves? Those would kinda count as saves, then!

Huh, it looks like Dragon Age: Origins took automatic screenshots as I played. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if any are keepers.... (glances over at the quiz topic) Nope! I'll throw aaaalll of them away and certainly never post one here!

 

[Colif]

If the batteries in Nintendo carts lasted forever, I would probably have a Super Metroid save from 1990's sometime. But they don't, i think I still have the cartridge somewhere.

Only Summer Games I can think of is ancient. And really good at destroying controllers from memory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Games_(video_game)

 

[Zloth]

Naw, it can't be THAT old... they write protected those disks, they wouldn't have save games on them, would they?? Unless @Zimbaly had a special tool for un-rightprotecting them (i.e. a hole punch).

 

[mainer]

Oldest I could find was from Dragon Age Origins from 06/22/2012, which surprised me because usually I like to clean out my save folders after I finish a game to free up space. I don't actually delete them, but move them to a backup drive that I use for saved games and screen shots. I don't really know why I do that, it's just in my nature to not want to through anything away. I do go through that drive at least once a year and delete some of the older saves.

I also backup the saves of any game I'm currently playing, as some of those saved game folders can become really bloated over time, like the Skyrim save folder, those saves get progressively larger the longer I play.

One thing I'd like to see is for games to have their saved game folders in one unified place, instead of having to track them down. The first time I encountered that App Data Folder, it took me awhile to actually track down the saves.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Naw, it can't be THAT old... they write protected those disks, they wouldn't have save games on them, would they?? Unless @Zimbaly had a special tool for un-rightprotecting them (i.e. a hole punch).

I had a couple of Commodore 64 games that let you save on the floppy disk. The disks were two sided. If you cut a notch in the right place, it made a write-protected disk writeable. You had to cut a notch on both sides to make both sides writeable. Sometimes a game would come with the game side write protected, and the other side writeable to use for game saves. Or it might come with multiple disks, and one disk was dedicated for saves. I actually had a notching tool that would make protected disks writable.

When we got to the smaller 3.5" floppies on PC, you didn't have to notch them. They came with a little sliding metal thing that determined if it was writeable or protected.

 

[Zimbaly]

I had a couple of Commodore 64 games that let you save on the floppy disk. The disks were two sided. If you cut a notch in the right place, it made a write-protected disk writeable. You had to cut a notch on both sides to make both sides writeable. Sometimes a game would come with the game side write protected, and the other side writeable to use for game saves. Or it might come with multiple disks, and one disk was dedicated for saves. I actually had a notching tool that would make protected disks writable.

When we got to the smaller 3.5" floppies on PC, you didn't have to notch them. They came with a little sliding metal thing that determined if it was writeable or protected.

Or the 3.5's wouldn't have the tab in them..... and that's where duct tape came into play.

 

[Colif]

3.5inch were hardly floppy unless you took them out of case... at least the previous ones were actually floppy.

i don't think I ever had an original game on floppy, all of my were copies. But this is going back to early 80's, and likely very few of the games were PC. I don't think I knew anyone with a PC, all comoodores and Amiga back then. My computer didn't have a floppy drive. So all my games were for other peoples computers. It was more having them than being able to use them.

 

[ZedClampet]

I don't keep save files. My oldest ones date all the way back to March

 

[WoodenSaucer]

3.5inch were hardly floppy unless you took them out of case... at least the previous ones were actually floppy.

i don't think I ever had an original game on floppy, all of my were copies. But this is going back to early 80's, and likely very few of the games were PC. I don't think I knew anyone with a PC, all comoodores and Amiga back then. My computer didn't have a floppy drive. So all my games were for other peoples computers. It was more having them than being able to use them.

I was majorly into the Commodore 64 for several years back in those days. I copied a ton of games, too. But I was also lucky enough to buy a few games retail when they came out. I remember being a junior in high school, and my dad sent me to Toys R Us with his credit card so I could march in there and buy Legacy of the Ancients. That was an awesome day! You usually had to wait a while before someone could crack the newer copy protection schemes.

Edit: I did have one friend that had a PC, but it royally sucked for gaming compared to the C64. That was around 1988. They definitely got better than the C64 a few years later, though. He was still using CGA graphics, if anyone remembers that.

 

[Frindis]

@Colif @WoodenSaucer I had a friend in the 80s whose father owned an IMB PC with CGA graphics. I don't even want to think about how expensive that machine must have been. We used to play Space Invaders, Leisure Suit Larry and I also think we played Prince of Persia on it. I owned an Atari 520ST/NES machine and would later get my hands on an Amiga 1200 in the early '90s. One of my friends had a Commadore 64 and I have fond memories of playing Red Baron and Winter Games. Summer games I remember were pretty shait, because it took forever to load and we often had load errors where you had to insert the tape again and wait for an annoying 20 minutes.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9bXjttMxKY

 

[Johnway]

Atm its my mass effect save game file that i played from ME1 to ME3.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

@Colif @WoodenSaucer I had a friend in the 80s whose father owned an IMB PC with CGA graphics. I don't even want to think about how expensive that machine must have been. We used to play Space Invaders, Leisure Suit Larry and I also think we played Prince of Persia on it. I owned an Atari 520ST/NES machine and would later get my hands on an Amiga 1200 in the early '90s. One of my friends had a Commadore 64 and I have fond memories of playing Red Baron and Winter Games. Summer games I remember were pretty shait, because it took forever to load and we often had load errors where you had to insert the tape again and wait for an annoying 20 minutes.

Lol. Well, there was your problem. You were loading from tapes instead of floppies. Tapes were so easy to get corrupted. I started out with a tape drive, but it didn't take me long to get a floppy drive.

But you were lucky to get that Amiga. When I had a C64, I dreamed about being able to afford an Amiga. They were way ahead of their time in the graphics department. It was doing 16-bit graphics 2 years before the Sega Genesis and 4 years before the SNES. I never had one, though. My next computer was the summer of 1995, I got a 75MHz Packard Bell. Coming from the C64, I was blown away by its speed and SVGA graphics.

 

[Zloth]

3.5inch were hardly floppy unless you took them out of case...

Ovens worked, too! (Don't use a radar range oven, though! )

 

[Frindis]

Lol. Well, there was your problem. You were loading from tapes instead of floppies. Tapes were so easy to get corrupted. I started out with a tape drive, but it didn't take me long to get a floppy drive.

I'm going to tell his dad!

But you were lucky to get that Amiga. When I had a C64, I dreamed about being able to afford an Amiga. They were way ahead of their time in the graphics department. It was doing 16-bit graphics 2 years before the Sega Genesis and 4 years before the SNES. I never had one, though. My next computer was the summer of 1995, I got a 75MHz Packard Bell. Coming from the C64, I was blown away by its speed and SVGA graphics.

So many good memories from the Amiga, not to mention a strange one. I need to do the strange one first: I had a copy of Simon The Sorcerer and for the most part, it worked quite nicely. Then, after a play or two, I was seeing small dragons spawning on top of the main characters. It basically looked like the game was on acid, so weird looking. Most likely a virus, but what virus would be capable of this back then!?. Quite fascinating actually.

The really good memories: Alien Breed, Dream Web, Skidmarks, Lethal Weapon, Lotus, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Settlers, Cannon Fodder and so on. Fun times for sure!

75MHz Packard Bell. That Pentium was something to behold, especially with the OpenGL graphics. Insanely expensive, but oh boy it was THE best thing back then! If I am not mistaken, you could also overclock it to 100mhz for stable runs.

 

[Zloth]

I'm going to tell his dad!

Says the guy who was playing Leisure Suit Larry!?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

75MHz Packard Bell. That Pentium was something to behold, especially with the OpenGL graphics. Insanely expensive, but oh boy it was THE best thing back then! If I am not mistaken, you could also overclock it to 100mhz for stable runs.

I didn't have an OpenGL card until later. It just came with a 2D SVGA card. Later, I got an S3 Virge 3D graphics adapter that required the separate 2D card. Then even later, I got the Voodoo Rush, which was one of the first that had 2D and 3D on the same card. It came with what they called MiniGL. I don't think I had a card that supported full-blown OpenGL until after that, and by that time, DirectX was starting to compete a little.

 

[MountainSlayer]

I still have GTA San Andreas saves from 21.09.2008 the oldest ones for me

 

[Pifanjr]

May 28, 2017, a Skyrim Special Edition save. On my Steam cloud the oldest save I found was from September 22, 2012 of Borderlands 2.

 

[Colif]

my computer could only save to tape so the chances of even finding one of those tapes now after 40 years is unlikely. It also let me play games off cartridge so at least not all games required me to rewind the tape to replay them again.

back then you could buy magazines with games to type out. Imagine that now... okay, lets print the 10000 page magazine and sprinkle a few ads between the lines of code.

 

[Frindis]

Actually, if I can include VHS tapes that would be the oldest saves. Three months back I helped my mother digitalize over 40-year-old VHS tapes. Amazingly enough, they all worked and for the majority of them, the only thing I had to do was to correct the colors a bit and add a little sharpness to give them some more life. A couple of the tapes would be off too bad quality to do anything, even tried using a company to help out, so the picture would just be too grainy, but watchable. Still, most had very good quality and it might have had something to do with that all the tapes were stored in a dark and dry place and maybe just been watched one or two times over those years.