loose vs bsa files

[Razorsedge877]

When should I choose loose files over bsa files. Also what if there is a loose files option in the main section but the optional section the dawnguard/dragonborn download doesn't offer loose files version.

[Aiyen]

Okay this has been covered in many other threads, but here goes again! :)

 

Always pick loose files over bsa. The marginal load time gains (We are at most talking seconds) from having a bsa. archive does not make up for how much simpler it is to keep control of everything when it is loose. Also most modern computers do not have harddrive space issues, so the bit you save on that account is again not really worth it.

 

MO will just unpack any bsa archive if you ask it too, so it does not matter if the author of a mod has only made a bsa. version. In fact there it does make sense since it makes for smaller downloads, which for many still is an issue!

[Razorsedge877]

Thank you for the reply. I've seen it cover but just wanted to be sure. I know you guys hate answering questions multiple times and I thank you for keeping me straight 

[PlanetExp]

Borrowing this thread to ask a related question, there were so many bsa vs loose files threads but this one was the newest..

 

From a save file perspective and using mod organizer, is it possible to swap BSAs and loose files at any time? Say if I'd for example like to put some of the bigger optimized textures back into BSAs to check for performance, then unpack them again at a later stage, would I need to start from a clean save every time? Loading times are getting kind of long and I want to trim my skyrim install a bit. I keep everything in loose files at the moment, but swapped the original skyrim textures back into BSAs since the HRDLC optimized did a better job than me re-sizing foliage.

 

Thanks

Fred

[DoubleYou]

Shouldn't be a problem with saves. It's only textures. Textures merely turn pink when they are not found. You can technically play Skyrim without any textures, although it would definitely not be playable. It's things like scripts, esps, and esms that can mess up your save.

[EssArrBee]

I've always disagrees with extracting ALL of the BSAs. The unofficial patch BSAs for example should not be extracted, that is recommended by the team that makes those patches. There is also a lot talk amongst modders that the engine changed from Oblivion to Skyrim, so the way loose vs archived files are handled no longer favors loose files. Also, the fixes section gets messed up if install loose files do to installation order.

[Kelmych]

If you optimize the vanilla textures, then you need to extract at least the textures from the Unofficial patches. Otherwise the USKP textures are overwritten by the optimized vanilla textures.

[EssArrBee]

Just repack the vanilla textures after optimizing.

[PlanetExp]

Thanks! I'll do some testing in the following days. Going from BSAs to loose files made my loading screens go from barely noticeable to 2-4 seconds when loading new interiors. Not really a problem but good can always get better. Could also just be the increased size of textures, from vanilla to 1k-2k, that causes the loading - in which case I can do squat about it.

 

I suppose a hypothetical best of all worlds would be something of a vanilla structure BSAs, with all MO overwrites already taken care of - scripts, textures and the like in separate repackaged BSAs. Makes me wonder if I could get MO on a secondary drive to do that with a script...

 

Learned about pink textures the hard way. They're not so scary after a couple of rounds of trial and error :)

 

PS I suppose this has has been discussed to death already since there are mentions of it in the DDSopt guide but search revealed nothing DS.

[torminater]

Let us know when you encounter sth during your real testing!

 

 

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[Kelmych]

Just repack the vanilla textures after optimizing.

The issue is that this can cause problems. There is no guarantee that the recompressed BSA will work in Skyrim, and a few users have reported CTD problems with recompressed versions of vanilla resources. If you use MO that extracts all BSAs to loose files, it's OK of course. But using the actual BSA in Skyrim could be problematic (or might not cause any problems).

 

There are issues in getting out-of-desired-order resources using BSAs when using some of the non-STEP mods. A number of users have mods that have conflicting resources (e.g., quest scripts which have been changed from the vanilla versions), and if BSAs are kept it can be challenging to debug the resultant problems (not when MO is used, of course).

[PlanetExp]

Tuning back in to report a tiny comparison of BSA vs loose files. I was expecting grand results but I can pretty much just confirm what other have stated in various other threads:

 

Using MO, there is hardly any difference in loading time between BSAs and loose files on my machine. Packing stuff reduces the size about 20-30%. MO works the way Tannin states here:

 

 

 

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. [my emphasis]

 

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

 

 

 

I had in my mind a sort of script that took all mods from MO in order of priority and put the end result in several folders which then could be packed into BSAs under 2GB each. It would roughly reduce MO mod folder from 25GB to 5 GB, since the overwrites would be weeded out. But obviously it wouldn't be possible to update mods without repacking the whole thing. I moved MO mod folder to a secondary drive for that purpose and tried it manually just for kicks. I found out that sound files did not like to be compressed, in which I had to mix lots of loose files with BSAs anyway. I ended up compressing individual mods instead and installing as duplicate mods in MO. It reduced the mod size about 20-30% and made mods like Book of Silence more tidy (just one single big BSA for all of them, about 1.2 GB).

 

Where loading times shorter? Yes, but not by much. It came down to texture size too. Vanilla Skyrim>Whiterun main gates took no loading at all, I didn’t even see the black loading screen with smoke. Retextured Skyrim in BSA>Whiterun main gates takes about four seconds. About the same with loose files. Once the textures are loaded in memory I can run back and forth without loading.

 

So in conclusion, I can just echo Tannin above: if you use MO and need some hard drive space just leave the BSAs as the mod author intended. I’d pack mods which is high up in the mod priority list, and mods with lots and lots of textures, like HRDLC optimized, Skyrim HD & book of silence, in my own BSAs but leave the smaller ones lower in the priority list as loose files. And as OP states some mods gave me CTD problems. Mostly it came down to anything that has sound files was problematic to repack, especially AOS just simple refused to start Skyrim at all. SMIM was also troublesome, seemed to corrupt a mesh. I recompressed it and haven’t noticed a problem since however.

[Octopuss]

If I have a SSD, shall I expect pretty much identical performance with bsa and loose files?

I figured I'd keep specific mods that do not overwrite anything and would have thousands of files if extracted, like Interesting NPCs, in bsa form to keep the (already ridiculous) amount of files in mod folder somewhat under control if I can help it.

[CJ2311]

You won't notice that much of a difference with an SSD, yeah.

[Octopuss]

I thought so.

It's not like it will help me much, because my mods folder already has 80000 files in it, but every bit helps. I don't want to imagine how long will it take to back that stuff up :D

 

edit: Interesting NPCs was not the best example, because the bsa is actually pretty small. The rest, however, is 38000 files. LOL ouch.

[CJ2311]

I thought so.

It's not like it will help me much, because my mods folder already has 80000 files in it, but every bit helps. I don't want to imagine how long will it take to back that stuff up :D

 

edit: Interesting NPCs was not the best example, because the bsa is actually pretty small. The rest, however, is 38000 files. LOL ouch.

https://i.imgur.com/CKxhEpg.jpg

 

With all this activated, it takes a while (15-20 seconds) for the game to actually start, but the loading times are more reasonable. I have no bsas whatsoever.