Skyrim RAM savegames

[Barzing]

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Skyrim RAM savegames

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Skyrim RAM Savegames

 

Make your Saves in RAM instead of HDD.

What's the purpose ??? i was fed up having this freeze while my game was auto-saving. One of the reason that happens, is linked to the time access to your HDD.

Saving to a RAMdisk, could be a boost if you think your saves kill your game. It will not eradicate the freeze, but will remove the time access linked to your HDD.

 

This Tool works in conjunction with ModOrganizer 2 and a RAMdisk Software 

 

This tool will use a RAMdrive to save your game and synchronize (every 5 secondes) them with your local MO2 profile saves.

You'll need a RAM drive tool as Dataram RAMdisk (freeware for personnal use, up to 1Gb RAMdisk), other similar softwares are available, i didn't check them all.

 

How to install :

 

0) Pre-requirement : 

- you must use a MO2 profile with local save checkec, in MO2=>Profile=>Manage :

- do a personnal backup of your current local saves, you'll find them in %MO2folder%\Profiles\YourProfile\Saves

 

 

1) Mount your RAMdisk using a RAMdisk software (i will provide a tutorial later if i have time)

adviced configuration : exFAT/FAT32 and a size of 250Mb.

the size of RAMdisk is adviced for a 16Gb RAM configuration, you'll be able to stock 10 to 15 saves (probably more)

 

2) Unrar files in your preferred folder of choice, the two files must stay together

 

3) Open the file launch.bat and configure the first lines :

rem Change Settings below :
rem path to your SKSE64 Loader (in your skyrim SE folder)
set "SkyrimFolder=D:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Skyrim Special Edition"
rem MO path
set "ModOrganizer=D:\Skyrim SSE\Mod Organizer"
rem Name of the Profile (you MUST have checked local save in MO Profile)
set "Profile=Exercise 2"
rem Letter of the RAMDRIVE
set "RAMdisk=Z:\"
rem Number of Saves you want to see (depend of your RAMDRIVE size (~250 Mb for 10 saves)
set "NbSav=15"

 

4) in MO2 create a new Executable Tab : You will have to launch Skyrim SE from this tab now

Change the arguments line with the path to place you installed Launch.vbs

 

5) Launching "Launch Skyrim" in MO2, will :

- Copy the last most recent 'NbSav' saves (you configured in 3) ) on the RAMdisk

- create a temporary saves.sync folder in your MO2 Profile folder

- launch SKS64_launcher.exe (launch the game)

- at this point all your saves from the game will go on the RAM disk

- every 5 seconds if needed the new files created on RAMdisk will be synchronized on your HDD (saves.sync folder)

- you will always only see the last most recent 'NbSav' ingame

- when you quit Skyrim, saves.sync folder will be resynchronized correctly (renamed) as normal profile save folder.

 

IMPORTANT : Launch skyrim and test that all work has attended, before using it commonly.

i am not responsible for any damages caused by this tool : you will have to use it at your own risk.

The code is open and configurable as wheel, so you can modify it as you wish and take responsibility of your actions.

 

6) if something bad happen :

 

- go in %MO2folder%\Profiles\YourProfile, if "saves.sync" folder exist but not the folder "saves", just rename it "saves"

- go on your RAMdisk and copy files to %MO2folder%\Profiles\YourProfile\saves

- or as last resort : manually restore your backup done in 0)

 

Post-Scriptum :

At this state of development, this tool only works for Skyrim SE, but it's probably easy to change it to works with Skyrim LE.

It would be possible to make it work without SKSE and probably outside MO2 (or with MO2 and without local saves).

If you're a Batch Guru, you're adviced.

 

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• Submitter
  Barzing
• Submitted
  12/20/2020
• Category
  Regular Mods
• Requires
  RAMdrive software, ModOrganizer 2, Windows 10
• Regular Edition Compatible

 

[The Dolly Llama]

Instructions are unclear. You say I need to launch via wscript.exe running launch.vbs, but then a few steps later you say use skse64.

 

Which is it? How can it be both?

[Barzing]

On 12/22/2020 at 11:55 PM, quarmac said:

Instructions are unclear. You say I need to launch via wscript.exe running launch.vbs, but then a few steps later you say use skse64.

 

Which is it? How can it be both?

the script launch skse64, you just need to configure wscript.exe as executable in MO2 as discribed in the picture. Beware that MO2 is sometime bugged when you create a new executable, it's preferable to pick it via "..." button.

 

concerning that information is unclear, 

 

5) Launching "Launch Skyrim" in MO2, will :

- ...

- launch SKS64_launcher.exe (launch the game)

 

What's wrong here ? the point 5) just explains what happend when you launch the script.

[Grey Cloud]

On 12/20/2020 at 11:30 AM, Barzing said:

i was fed up having this freeze while my game was auto-saving.

Your game shouldn't freeze any more while autosaving than it does with quick or hard saves.

[DSAdam97]

There really shouldn't be a need for this. The save files are small, usually under 100mb for heavily modded setups and even lesser with the compression available in SSE. Even a cheap HDD should be able to handle it. The crashes/freezes you must be experiencing are related to the save file generation rather than i/o performance.

[Papitas]

I want to ask before testing, because I don't particularly like the idea of installing a RAM drive:

1. The HDD sync that can happen every 5 seconds is done in a way that doesn't make the game stutter, am I right?
2. How much of a difference did you notice in save times after using your script?

 

 

On 12/30/2020 at 5:59 PM, DSAdam97 said:

There really shouldn't be a need for this. The save files are small, usually under 100mb for heavily modded setups and even lesser with the compression available in SSE. Even a cheap HDD should be able to handle it. The crashes/freezes you must be experiencing are related to the save file generation rather than i/o performance.

 

If that was the case, then the author wouldn't find any performance boost and, in turn, would have never upload this, right?

[Barzing]

On 2/9/2021 at 4:27 AM, Papitas said:

I want to ask before testing, because I don't particularly like the idea of installing a RAM drive:

1. The HDD sync that can happen every 5 seconds is done in a way that doesn't make the game stutter, am I right?
2. How much of a difference did you notice in save times after using your script?

 

 

 

If that was the case, then the author wouldn't find any performance boost and, in turn, would have never upload this, right?

This tool can help people in some case, like having lot of RAM (at least 8Gb and running only Skyrim) but a bad HDD (low speed access like SATA disk or even IDE) . But still you need to test the tool to really know if it will help you or not, your video card and its memory can modify the context for example. 

[Mertz]

I have a few technical questions:

1.  What is magic about running this out of MO2? I conjecture it would have to be run out of MO2 to gain access to the UVFS but I'm curious if there are other technical reasons for it.
2. In lieu of using third-party RAM disk software, would this fix work if the end-user created a iSCSI-attached RAMdisk using the native functionality of Windows instead?

[aurreth]

32 minutes ago, Mertz said:

I have a few technical questions:

1.  What is magic about running this out of MO2? I conjecture it would have to be run out of MO2 to gain access to the UVFS but I'm curious if there are other technical reasons for it.
2. In lieu of using third-party RAM disk software, would this fix work if the end-user created a iSCSI-attached RAMdisk using the native functionality of Windows instead?

 

MO2 shouldn't be involved at all.  Create a RAM disk and point your Skyrim save directory there instead of My Games/Skyrim.

 

The problem is that the RAM disk vanishes when you reboot.  If you don't copy your save back to the hard drive afterward you lose it.  Data loss is one of the reasons RAM disks fell out of use for the most part.  You're much better off buying an SSD.  Small ones are cheap, and you can get bigger capacity drives for very little if you catch them on sale, and they make a huge difference in system performance.  If you have an I/O bottleneck an SSD should be your first priority.

[Mertz]

On 5/16/2021 at 11:51 AM, aurreth said:

 

MO2 shouldn't be involved at all.  Create a RAM disk and point your Skyrim save directory there instead of My Games/Skyrim.

 

The problem is that the RAM disk vanishes when you reboot.  If you don't copy your save back to the hard drive afterward you lose it.  Data loss is one of the reasons RAM disks fell out of use for the most part.  You're much better off buying an SSD.  Small ones are cheap, and you can get bigger capacity drives for very little if you catch them on sale, and they make a huge difference in system performance.  If you have an I/O bottleneck an SSD should be your first priority.

 

Totally agree with all of what you're saying.

I'm looking at this from the standpoint of corrupted saves or having to support orphaned saves or SKSE cosaves in yet another way.

 

 

[aragonit]

This worked perfectly and I got rid of corrupted saves until I got a CTD in Skyrim and all files were in Saves.sync. I moved the files to Saves and the next time I started the game all saves were gone. I even tried undeleting them, but there were only empty files left.

 

How to add a line to keep backups of all saves that aren't deleted?

 

I am using a ramdisk that restores it's files when it is restarted.

Edited May 31, 2022 by aragonit

[Barzing]

On 5/31/2022 at 5:41 PM, aragonit said:

This worked perfectly and I got rid of corrupted saves until I got a CTD in Skyrim and all files were in Saves.sync. I moved the files to Saves and the next time I started the game all saves were gone. I even tried undeleting them, but there were only empty files left.

 

How to add a line to keep backups of all saves that aren't deleted?

 

I am using a ramdisk that restores it's files when it is restarted.

here a new version of the tool (with backup) :

 

Skyrim RAM Saves.rar

Edited June 4, 2022 by Barzing
reUploaded correct package

[aragonit]

Thank you so much for your efforts, but where is the backup folder?

 

Edited June 3, 2022 by aragonit

[Barzing]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:10 PM, aragonit said:

Thank you so much for your efforts, but where is the backup folder?

 

My bad, i reuploaded the correct package, you can try now.