BSAopt compression and data read time

[Santr]

Here's what I'm wondering: does data compressed with maximum (10) level of compression also take a similarly longer time to be read by the game than data compressed with level 1? Or is there no difference in read time?

 

I'm just thinking that, since level 1 already offers significant space reduction and is super fast, is it worth the huge time spent compressing with level 10?

[DICEROLL]

This is a question I wouldn't mind knowing answer to either

[MontyMM]

Good resource here: https://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1354395-update-bsas-and-you/

[Santr]

Good resource here: https://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1354395-update-bsas-and-you/

It is, but it doesn't answer this particular question, unfortunately.

[EssArrBee]

I think I remember Kelmych talking about the engine having problems with higher compression levels. The way it works is basically built in native support for BSAs in the engine that can decompress on the fly for no noticeable performance cost, think .0000001 secs for an asset from a standard BSA. If the engine doesn't support a higher compression algorithm then the performance cost might become something that can bog down or even stop the engine from working properly since it can't move assets, decompress them, sync the GPU threads, and display on screen fast enough. Maybe .0000001 secs vs .0001 secs which is 1000x slower, and retrieval from storage is already .0001 secs (regardless of HDD or SSD) which is why the there is a constant call to storage while playing. Retrieval from storage is always seen as slow from a architecture standpoint, hell even DRAM can be seen as slow depending on the software you are writing. (All this stuff is very basic way of describing data moving around at the hardware level)

 

I'd be curious at how the data is put when pulled from storage and where it goes afterward. It has been few years in since I took any architecture courses, so maybe someone on the up and up can figure it.