Adding mods to my mod organizer should I unpack BSAs?

[Dweedle]

Does unpacking the BSAs give me any performance increase?  I'm just curious as I've never looked into it.  I'm using Mod Organizer for the first time you see so yeah, just wondering if I should unpack BSAs or not.

[Nearox]

You should always unpack them because it allows you to see which files are provided by the mod and which files are being overwritten by others. No performance hit.

[Dweedle]

should I unpack the vanilla BSA's and DLC BSA's as well?

[Tannin]

It depends on several factors. BSAs can be compressed. In this case loading files from bsas increases the cpu load while reducing HD load (during startup time).

In most cases load times are HD bound so (compressed) BSAs load faster.

Also a BSA is only one file on disk so the directory structure (which MO needs to hold in memory to provide the fs virtualisation) is smaller.

As a consequence MOs memory footprint is smaller if BSAs remain packed.

 

The primary reason to unpack BSAs is because (without MO) it's not possible to customize the order of loose files between bsas and loose files. This is why wrye bash afaik unpacks BSAs.

!BUT! MO more or less fixes that: asset files are always prioritized the way they are sorted on the left pane no matter if they are stored as BSAs or loose.

 

Long story short: No, I wouldn't unpack BSAs unless you have a good reason to.

[Nearox]

With all due respect to you as the maker of MO, I disagree. Without unpacking into loose files there is no other easy way of knowing which mod files may be conflicting (apart from looking at the virtual dir, which is not handy in this case), which can become an issue when you want to do some problem-solving down the road. Unless I have missed some other MO feature all along that allows for similar conflict resolution?

 

About the memory footprint: I have 529 mods in the list of which about 350 are activated. ModOrganizer.exe process uses up about 130mb of memory, which on any modern system is negligible.

 

With regards to load times at startup, I would personally always prefer to have the ability to have an easy way of solving file conflicts rather than slightly reduced load times at startup. If an SSD or a even a standard SATA 600 disk is used then this is a non-issue anyways...

[Dweedle]

Hmm, thanks for the info guys, I'll probably unpack BSA's a my hard drive is fairly decent and Skyrim is the largest game hard drive space wise I play (maybe second to The Sims 3) so i'm not too worried about space.

 

If unpacking BSA's also means less strain on my CPU, which im assuming due to Tannin's post, is the case.

 

I don't mind longer load times if it means I can gain a few frames ingame, which is what I hope the case is, I'll find out anyway once I test it all out.

[DoubleYou]

With all due respect to you as the maker of MO, I disagree. Without unpacking into loose files there is no other easy way of knowing which mod files may be conflicting (apart from looking at the virtual dir, which is not handy in this case), which can become an issue when you want to do some problem-solving down the road. Unless I have missed some other MO feature all along that allows for similar conflict resolution?

 

About the memory footprint: I have 529 mods in the list of which about 350 are activated. ModOrganizer.exe process uses up about 130mb of memory, which on any modern system is negligible.

 

With regards to load times at startup, I would personally always prefer to have the ability to have an easy way of solving file conflicts rather than slightly reduced load times at startup. If an SSD or a even a standard SATA 600 disk is used then this is a non-issue anyways...

Did you forget about the Conflict tab in every installed mod's Information dialog? The only additional help conflict-wise provided by unpacking BSAs is for if you want to use some files from the BSA in one and some from another that you want the first to also overwrite. Example:

 

Mod 1:

Has rock texture I want

Has apple texture I don't want

 

Mod 2:

Has rock texture I don't want

Has apple texture I want

 

Therefore, with priorities and BSAs, to get your desired combination of rock and apple texture, you can't get both the rock and the apple texture. This is because mod 1's BSA contains the rock texture I want and the apple texture I don't want, and mod 2's BSA contains the rock texture I don't want and the apple texture I want, and ordering them differently will simply leave one overwriting the other. This is a case that warrants unpacking. Once you've unpacked, you can put them in either priority position and simply go to the conflict tab and hide the offending texture. Our example perfected:

 

Mod 1 (unpacked or packed):

Has rock texture I want

Has apple texture I don't want

 

Mod 2 (unpacked):

Rock texture I don't want is hidden

Has apple texture I want

 

Now, most of the time, this isn't a problem, because it is not that often that this situation arises (although it definitely does arise). Most of the time your texture mods are already unpacked.

 

Another reason to unpack BSAs is if it allows you to lower the amount of esps you use. This works, for example, with the HRDLC, since all those esps are simple dummy esps to get the BSAs to load, similarly the UHRP.

 

So:

*Unpack if you want to micromanage every mod and don't mind increased load times.

*Keep them packed if you don't need to unpack them, have a reasonably strong CPU, and want faster load times.

 

As for me, I have it set to always unpack, because I'm a micromanagicalmaniac.

[Nearox]

Hmmm did a small test without unpacking BSA, you're right... lol :(All this time I thought it would only show the .bsa file in conflict window because in the filetree it does only show the .bsa.

 

Either way, I doubt loose files have a severe or even noticeable performance impact on any mid-range pc... So I'd definitely extract them, but that's just imo

[Dweedle]

I think my laptop is mid range, 1 gb vram 2.6ghz quad i5. i'll see what my game is like once my game is ready and able. thanks again for the help

[Aiyen]

Kinda amusing how you say "increased loading times"... I have almost 21Gb worth of loose files at the very least... the game only EVER takes a bit to load on the first startup... which is still less then 30 sec. And no I do not have an SSD.

 

So any performance related reasoning for unpacking or not doing so is kinda pointless as I see it. Unless you try to run the game on a relic of a computer it is never ever going to be noticeable. And if there is a noticeable difference then in the end it goes back to other issues with your mod list anyways. And afaik then nobody on this forum have ever produced any tangible evidence that there is a noticeable gain... the few I recall had so small differences that the uncertainty in the measurement was so large as to make it pointless.

 

That said one reason to unpack them is if you need separate resources which is required if you are doing texture troubleshooting.

If you have the files in archives you cannot move them down below all other texture replacers and have to disable them all manually... which is a chore. Compared to having the official files as loose and just move 1-3 mod folders to the bottom of your list and test.

Another is as it has already been mentioned if you want the ability to remove one texture from one mod but keep it in another. Yes there are cases where ordering cannot just solve this.

[Tannin]

Hmm, thanks for the info guys, I'll probably unpack BSA's a my hard drive is fairly decent and Skyrim is the largest game hard drive space wise I play (maybe second to The Sims 3) so i'm not too worried about space.

 

If unpacking BSA's also means less strain on my CPU, which im assuming due to Tannin's post, is the case.

 

I don't mind longer load times if it means I can gain a few frames ingame, which is what I hope the case is, I'll find out anyway once I test it all out.

The strain on the CPU is only at the times the game loads from disk. Unless you're playing on a Pentium 90 packed BSA are almost guaranteed to perform better.

Still, the effect is probably hard to notice.

 

Another reason to unpack BSAs is if it allows you to lower the amount of esps you use. This works, for example, with the HRDLC, since all those esps are simple dummy esps to get the BSAs to load, similarly the UHRP.

Not really an issue with MO, BSAs checked under "Archives" are loaded, independent of the esp.

Kinda amusing how you say "increased loading times"... I have almost 21Gb worth of loose files at the very least... the game only EVER takes a bit to load on the first startup... which is still less then 30 sec. And no I do not have an SSD.

The game loads in the background, there is constant HD access which may cause stuttering/delays when a lot of assets are required at once (i.e. opening the inventory, the character creation dialog, ...)

 

To rephrase my earlier post: I think it's a matter of taste, all arguments for or against unpacking are a bit *meh*.

Personally, I leave my BSAs packed and never had any trouble with that.

[EssArrBee]

I've talked about whether BSAs or loose files actually have a performance difference. This is something left over from the Oblivion days when the engine was single core driven. Now that the game supports two cores the performance difference is so small that it doesn't matter. You are talking about maybe a .0000001 sec difference in performance for decompressing from a BSA, much smaller than any human can notice.

 

The benefit comes from conflict resolution, and allows customization that you wouldn't have with BSAs. Otherwise there is no reason for unpacking them.

[DoubleYou]

Another reason to unpack BSAs is if it allows you to lower the amount of esps you use. This works, for example, with the HRDLC, since all those esps are simple dummy esps to get the BSAs to load, similarly the UHRP.

Not really an issue with MO, BSAs checked under "Archives" are loaded, independent of the esp.

Thanks for that info. So MO will always load a BSA that is checked under "Archives" regardless of the presence or absence of an esp. That's very useful.

[Tannin]

 

Another reason to unpack BSAs is if it allows you to lower the amount of esps you use. This works, for example, with the HRDLC, since all those esps are simple dummy esps to get the BSAs to load, similarly the UHRP.

Not really an issue with MO, BSAs checked under "Archives" are loaded, independent of the esp.

Thanks for that info. So MO will always load a BSA that is checked under "Archives" regardless of the presence or absence of an esp. That's very useful.

There is one restriction:

Users who get the "failed to remove limit on archive list!" error message can only load around 80 BSAs this way. Those users may have to unpack after all OR load the corresponding esp.

 

I don't know under which circumstances this error occurs and how many users are affected, since I haven't heard much in this regard I assume it's only very few. May be related to a exe modification *cough*crack*cough*.

[MontyMM]

I wonder if anyone has ever examined possible stability differences between loose files and BSAs? We have reason to suspect problems with loading as being prime culprits in CTDs and ILSs, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the differences in the way loading is handled in the two cases could produce different outcomes. The vanilla game is based around BSAs, after all. Might be interesting to try packing up a STEP build into a few BSAs, and seeing if any difference emerges.

[deathneko11]

I'm actually in agreement with several here on the fact that for Skyrim there is no need to unpack BSA files unless you just want to micromanage the files to clean up any incompatibilities. Honestly to unpack everything just takes up more hard drive space than leaving it packed.