Saving saved games

[Klumpfot]

Ya heard me!

I'm about to format my computer, to fix a graphics driver issue. Since I've had it for a while, there are a lot of saved games on here that I'd like to keep, from a multitude of games and platforms (be they stand-alone, Steam downloads or emulator saves). Now to my question;

Do you have any advice regarding how to move saved games? What should you generally do; IE do you copy the entire installation folder or is the save data usually stored in another location? I'd really like to keep my Shepard from Mass Effect, for instance, as well as my Fallout character and what's-his-name from Dead Rising 2.

Can has help I for e-cookies?

 

[Snork Maiden]

Depends on the game. Some games will store saves in a folder where the game is installed, some will keep it in a folder sat in your My Documents, some will save the games in a different place entirely. Some games actually make it difficult to transfer games, although I've not come across this for a while.

I can say that if you just copy your folder with all your emulator stuff in (including the roms) you should be good to go on that front, and I believe it should be fairly easy to grab saves from Steam games from within the install folders and just stick them back in when you reinstall them. Again you *might* have to Google where the saves are stored on a per game basis if it's not obvious, but I totally wouldn't transfer entire installation folders for stuff like Mass Effect - it already takes me long enough to back stuff up when doing a format that moving gigabytes of game data around isn't something I'd want to do, especially as you're probably looking at running a full install for these games again anyway, whether you move the whole folder or not.

 

[Amnestic]

Most games have specific areas for their saved files. Locate it, copy them over to a memory stick of some sort and keep it safe. Mass Effect saves are definitely saveable, since there's an entire site where you can download them read to use.