Newbie Question: Where Are The Saved Games?

[plautus]

I'm fixing to reformat the HD on my son's computer He wants me to keep his saved games -- but I can't find them. Any idea where they might be?

What about online games, e.g., WoW, Warhammer, the Steam games, etc. Will all the saved games info be on their server so that all he needs to do is d'l the games again?

Thanks!

plautus

 

[Kromis]

For MMOs, it's all on the server.

For Steam games, you can find it in the Steam folder under your account name. Or you could just let Steam backup the files so you don't have to redownload them.

But for other games, sometimes the save files are in their respective game folders OR they could be in My Documents under My Games or some other folder like EA Games

 

[abaez]

I really, really, really hate this about programs and games nowadays. It took me like 20 minutes to figure out where my mirc settings file had to go when I moved from XP to vista.

Whatever happened to keeping the saved games and program settings in the same folder that you install in (or at least a subfolder)? I have no idea why anyone thought using my documents or some other completely separate folder was a good idea.

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: abaez
Whatever happened to keeping the saved games and program settings in the same folder that you install in (or at least a subfolder)? I have no idea why anyone thought using my documents or some other completely separate folder was a good idea.

I guess you're the only person who ever uses that computer for gaming.

Moving to separate per-account directories is a big advance.

 

[marmasatt]

For alot of games now, they are not in the actual program folder if that's what you are talking about. They're in the my documents files for various games. Say you are looking for Mirrors Edge, it won't be in the X86 folders it will be under my docs/EA/MirrorsEdge/Savedgames. Is that what you mean?

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: marmasatt
For alot of games now, they are not in the actual program folder if that's what you are talking about. They're in the my documents files for various games. Say you are looking for Mirrors Edge, it won't be in the X86 folders it will be under my docs/EA/MirrorsEdge/Savedgames. Is that what you mean?

yeah, i hate how that is. some make it easy to find, others are difficult.

 

[chizow]

Best case is if they all save to your %user\documents\my games folder, as that entire folder is ported over if you do a Windows upgrade or file transfer. The one you have to look out for is save games stored in the hidden folder %user\appdata\local or \roaming. I don't think those transfer over automatically. Also for MMOs as someone said they're saved on the server, however key bindings, macros, system settings anything like that are typically in the %my games directory or sometimes in the game directory itself and may be worth backing up also.

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: s44

Originally posted by: abaez
Whatever happened to keeping the saved games and program settings in the same folder that you install in (or at least a subfolder)? I have no idea why anyone thought using my documents or some other completely separate folder was a good idea.

I guess you're the only person who ever uses that computer for gaming.

Moving to separate per-account directories is a big advance.

I'm sorry, but how is it a "big advance ?" Are gaming PC's really that communcal nowadays where multiple people play on the same PC? The only thing I can think of is maybe is college in a dorm? Otherwise I don't see the benefit.

And while I understand there may be some benefit, there is no real clear "default" and different games and progams use different directories.. whether it's roaming dir or application data or my documents, it's just everywhere and super annoying.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: s44

Originally posted by: abaez
Whatever happened to keeping the saved games and program settings in the same folder that you install in (or at least a subfolder)? I have no idea why anyone thought using my documents or some other completely separate folder was a good idea.

I guess you're the only person who ever uses that computer for gaming.

Moving to separate per-account directories is a big advance.

I'm sorry, but how is it a "big advance ?" Are gaming PC's really that communcal nowadays where multiple people play on the same PC? The only thing I can think of is maybe is college in a dorm? Otherwise I don't see the benefit.

And while I understand there may be some benefit, there is no real clear "default" and different games and progams use different directories.. whether it's roaming dir or application data or my documents, it's just everywhere and super annoying.

totally agree with this.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: s44

Originally posted by: abaez
Whatever happened to keeping the saved games and program settings in the same folder that you install in (or at least a subfolder)? I have no idea why anyone thought using my documents or some other completely separate folder was a good idea.

I guess you're the only person who ever uses that computer for gaming.

Moving to separate per-account directories is a big advance.

I'm sorry, but how is it a "big advance ?" Are gaming PC's really that communcal nowadays where multiple people play on the same PC? The only thing I can think of is maybe is college in a dorm? Otherwise I don't see the benefit.

And while I understand there may be some benefit, there is no real clear "default" and different games and progams use different directories.. whether it's roaming dir or application data or my documents, it's just everywhere and super annoying.

totally agree with this.

While on some level I can agree with this; I don't think it has ever taken me more than maybe 15 seconds to find the location of a specific game's saves.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: marmasatt
For alot of games now, they are not in the actual program folder if that's what you are talking about. They're in the my documents files for various games. Say you are looking for Mirrors Edge, it won't be in the X86 folders it will be under my docs/EA/MirrorsEdge/Savedgames. Is that what you mean?

Yup, this is true for some of the newer games I've played lately.

 

[shortylickens]

I really miss DOS.