Thoughts on loose files vs archiving?

[Guest]

I see there has seemingly been an attitude change with Fallout 4 in terms of people asking if my mod should be archived or not. With Skyrim and beyond it seems like people prefer to have loose files because it allows more freedom. I prefer loose files because it means I can compress it better and most of my stuff doesn't require a pointless plugin. I saw comments from a Nifskope developer a few months ago saying these reduced texture mods wouldn't work as well if they were not being loaded from a archive, but I have had people literally come out of the woodwork telling me my stuff has removed stutter and - in some cases - improved performance. I also read around a few forums and I'm sure I remember some really knowledgeable people claiming loose files would be better because they don't have to be decompressed first.

 

Are people just being spooked now for no reason? Y'know like some people have some opinions and people are taking such things as fact? What do you think?

 

Random question as I have always wondered: What is the best to create a dummy plugin to load from an archive? There is no re-pointing from the plugin needed right? I'm assuming the (empty) plugin just has to be the same as the archive to overwrite vanilla paths from said archive? I'm just a little confused as you apparently have to re-point textures to work on console, but meshes pointing at custom textures seemingly worked fine in an archive recently.

[Thallassa]

Archives are more idiot proof. You don't need to manage install order with archives because the archives will just load in the same order as your plugins regardless of what order you install the mods in or have them listed in MO.
 

That's the only advantage to them in all of my testing. I unpack everything now by default. I didn't see a change in load times (on load screens or cell load) (according to the people who actually understand the code involved, the change in load time would be on the ms level anyways, well below my personal limit of detection). The MO feature where you can see conflicts between files in BSA hasn't ever worked for me, so I turned off MO archive management and simply unpacked. MO has an option to unpack BSAs on install which can be enabled in the plugins section of the settings panel.

 

Chesko reported issues with users failing to uninstall old loose files before installing the new files. For that reason he doesn't like people to unpack his mods. Again, user error but user error that is avoided by BSAs.

 

There is one more case where they are idiot proof, but this is more "mod author was an idiot" than "user is an idiot"... some mod authors include incorrect or incomplete skse.ini or game ini files in their archives; SKSE can't load files in archives so as long as the mod is packed, it is safe, but the second you unpack it (with MO archive management or manually), you're in trouble. I think I've also seen mod authors put dlls in archives by mistake which obviously means the mod just doesn't work. I think it's the same deal with dangerous ini tweaks hidden in the archive... you're not affected as long as the archive is packed... but I'm not sure and I haven't bothered to test.

 

The other pro-archive comments I've read are more of "some people have opinions." and "I expect to support mods that have been installed with the methods I recommend, if you use methods I am not familiar with, I won't be able to help you."
 

Because MO, by default, treats all archives as loose files, I've started recommending a rule of thumb "sort install order the same way as plugin order".... basically treating the MO install folders like BSAs... that aren't BSAs! This prevents issues with: esp expecting mesh/texture, to be one way, but it's a different way (ran into this with dyndolod billboards), scripts, conflicting facegen data, and a few other things. It's obviously not desired in all cases (mod author install/load order instructions should always overrule), and doesn't replace a solid understanding of what the mods do and how they interact with each other, but since most people don't have that understanding and frequently don't want to understand, it's safer than just having things installed willy-nilly.

You can find more discussion of this including the comments by Arthmoor, Chesko, and others, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/4ds06c/is_it_okay_to_extract_the_bsas_of_every_mod/

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/3hsjpc/bsas_conflicts_and_mod_organizer/

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/43fumt/mod_organizer_to_lose_bsa_management/

... This topic comes up a lot.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply even if you lot talk about this too much. I appreciate it.

[GamerPoets]

I appreciate the question and response as well. I've always wondered this myself and since I started unpacking files I don't see any performance impact or cell load times being messed up (this is skyrim with 500 mods). I've also yet to experience any crashes even with 30 or so .esp's merged via Merge Plugins (just some FPS issues that i need to work out LOL... and they have nothing to do with packed files or not). 

 

I also now feel completely confident as to why the STEP guide has us create .ini files for mods that use skse (such as fuz ro doh). I was uncertain why that needed to be done before but I understand it now and Thallassa's response helped cement that for me. 

 

Using Mod Organizer with programs like TES5Edit/DynDOLOD you have to uncheck "Have MO manage archives" or you don't get all of the proper functions (if doing more than simply cleaning a mod with xEdit). I learned that bit from Zilav and Sheson when I working on videos with them.

 

I do my best to force the "dont want to understand" mentality completely out of every comment thread on every video that I upload. I've blocked more than a few people who want to get upset (and act out of line) because I teach everything that I possibly can now in videos apposed to the quick and easy stuff, which only gets users half way "there" if they really want the most out of some of these mods. It's actually not a losing battle. Most mod users deserve a lot more credit than some youtubers give them. Some modding practices (and mods in general) are just extremely difficult for many to understand/grasp and things need to be explained in a specific way (I'm the non-PC guy that needed my hand held. I get it = ).

[z929669]

Thallassa covered the gist ... but it has been covered in painful detail already with input from various modding 'experts' of various opinion. Here is --> another updated source of this info.

 

Conventional wisdom states that archives are best (USP team takes this position as well as a great many other experienced MAs), but I prefer loose files myself, particularly for pure texture/mesh mods. Mods that also include scripts and other asset types allow the MA to ensure proper mod behavior (if they know what they are doing (e.g., see Arthmoor's mods) and reduce user error as well as increase compatibility with other mods. As far as speed in loading, I think the consensus is that there is no practical difference and that BSAs are potentially faster, IIRC. Probably not worth factoring into the equation. If you archive (or not), you would be doing it out of your own convenience, i would say.

 

For 'dummy' plugins, I always make a copy of the bashed patch ESP that is bundled with Wrye Bash and simply rename it to same name as the BSA ... super simple.

[Guest]

My apologies but that has MO in the title so I probably skipped over it thinking it was just information for that. Thanks Z.

 

Can I ask about the naming conventions of the archives? I'm pretty sure you have to put the mod name then a hyphen with a suitable name after that. But does it read anything after that hyphen? I noticed the CK threw my script and meshes into a "Main" archive and the textures into a "Textures" archive. Will the game only read the textures if they are labeled as "Textures" on the archive?

[z929669]

no, you can put everything into an archive as long as it has the file/folder structure same as under /Data and the packed BSA is under 2 gigs. Naming BSAs follows this pattern

[Guest]

Thanks for your help again, I have honestly only used BSA/BA2 for things that have all custom items. What I want to do is try and get my mods up on Bethesda.poop before they get stolen and stuck up there anyway. I archived my meshes and textures but apparently the textures were not showing up. The meshes were showing but only the paths to the custom textures in the NIF were being read by the looks of things. I just can't understand that or what the hell is going on. It looks like I'l have to manually re-point stuff and that's ridiculous. How did Bethesda do it with the HDDLC again for Skyrim as I can't remember and don't have the game installed? Was it Texture Sets?

 

Edit: I should have clarified this is for console, but it shouldn't be different from PC. That's what I'm confused about.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Guest

[hishutup]

I've gone back and forth a few times on this, originally I was for loose but at the time it was definitely slower(with NVMe SDD that is no longer an issue) so I stopped unpacking and I used it as is.

I have recently adopted something a little different. I now disable the MO archive feature as it makes things a little more complicated then it should. I unpack mods that DEFINITELY don't need to be a .bsa, like no stretching.

 

For the users not uninstalling it properly, I think thats either the mod manager not handing the files correctly or the user is manually handling them which falls on them. MO doesn't have a problem with cleaning up after old files.

 

I leave it up to the author and expect the author to weight things and make a decision.

If the bsa doesnt require any plugin, make it loose.

If the bsa has files that should override other loose files, make it loose or have a partial loose and packed structure.

 

Another example that should be just a loose file is Dragon Stalking Fix, his script should override everything.

[TechAngel85]

Well, keep in mind that management might be a bit different between MO and MO2 users. How we do things for Skyrim (mod management wise) with MO will be different for Fallout 4 users since the Archive Management feature is no longer present in MO2. So FO4 users are going to be managing their setups much like we did when we where using WB for STEP. Things where managed a bit different back then and we used to always use loose files and extract BSAs for ease of management. Many MO2 users will be doing the same so they'll be using loose files anyway. For MO users it really shouldn't matter and I've never seen any performance difference having used both a HDD and SDD. The only time MO users need to extract a BSA, if MO is managing archives, is when they need to resolve an asset conflict that is within a BSA structure.

[z929669]

Thanks for your help again, I have honestly only used BSA/BA2 for things that have all custom items. What I want to do is try and get my mods up on Bethesda.poop before they get stolen and stuck up there anyway. I archived my meshes and textures but apparently the textures were not showing up. The meshes were showing but only the paths to the custom textures in the NIF were being read by the looks of things. I just can't understand that or what the hell is going on. It looks like I'l have to manually re-point stuff and that's ridiculous. How did Bethesda do it with the HDDLC again for Skyrim as I can't remember and don't have the game installed? Was it Texture Sets?

For custom stuff related to new content, you need to actually point to custom folders/files using the CK-created plugin I think. For asset replacements, you need to be sure that all file paths match vanilla exactly and that your archive root is the /Data directory. I also recommend using archive.exe to pack files ... or you can use BSAopt or DDSopt, but the fexibility they provide may make getting a working archive a bit more painful ... works though ;)

 

EDIT: probably did not answer your question exactly, but maybe I am just not getting it :P