[SOLVED] Safely starting a new (initially) script heavy game

[yorpers]

5 hours ago, leakim said:

I can see that in ReSaver that there's only 2 (two) entries for suspended stacks in relation to stack dumps.

 

Does this mean that if you have more than 2 unprocessed stack dumps and then save, that the suspended scripts of the third dump won't be run?

 

Anybody knows something about this?

That is something I am not sure about. Having that many stack dumps that close together is a big red flag though. I have one every time I start a new game and only one. Generally the only time I ever get stack dumps outside of starting a new game is if I install skybirds?

 

Here is how a normal stack dump behaves. Notice the entire process only takes up one second or less than one second and the engine goes back to exactly what it was doing before.

 

stackdumpexample.txt

 

I think this is that save, after that stack dump, with all of that put back into the suspended stacks.

 

 

Sorry this doesn't answer your question exactly, but I thought you might find it interesting nonetheless. 

[leakim]

8 hours ago, yorpers said:

That is something I am not sure about. Having that many stack dumps that close together is a big red flag though. I have one every time I start a new game and only one. Generally the only time I ever get stack dumps outside of starting a new game is if I install skybirds?

 

Here is how a normal stack dump behaves. Notice the entire process only takes up one second or less than one second and the engine goes back to exactly what it was doing before.

 

stackdumpexample.txt 237.09 kB · 1 download

 

I think this is that save, after that stack dump, with all of that put back into the suspended stacks.

 

 

Sorry this doesn't answer your question exactly, but I thought you might find it interesting nonetheless. 

 

I am simply trying to come up with a reason for why I have in the past seen odd behaviour: For example Sexlab Survival would stop tracking my location and I would have to manually restart the quest mid-game.

 

I feel like this could theoretically be explained if excessive stack dumps (more than 2) would not be stored on save game, as I in the past had NPCs enabled in Blush when Aroused and Cloak spell in XPMSE enabled (which very quickly causes stack dumps in crowded areas). Now I have disabled both and I now actively monitor the papyrus log with a small program I made during gameplay so I am warned immediately if a stack dump occurs.

 

I have not experienced any issues with mods suddenly stop working since I started doing this, so it's probably a good idea to monitor the papyrus log if you are not very familiar with all the mods you are using.

[Fotogen]

13 hours ago, leakim said:

Cloak spell

Bad, very very bad. If you hear or sense there is "cloak spell" somewhere, run away. Run, Forest, run.

 

I mean spell, magic effect that is of "cloak" type, not piece of armor.

 

Switch to something else, like Aroused has an option to use Quest for NPC scan. Or disable cloak in MCM(if avaiable). Or just don't use a mod that has "cloak spell".

 

"Cloak spell" is one of the easiest way to fuck up skyrims script engine. And fuck up hard.

 

[leakim]

I don't understand how something can supposedly be "bad bad bad", if it present and enabled-by-default in a completely ubiquitous mod. Well, I can. But it is fucking retarded.

Edited July 28, 2022 by leakim

[yorpers]

2 hours ago, leakim said:

I don't understand how something can supposedly be "bad bad bad", if it present and enabled-by-default in a completely ubiquitous mod. Well, I can. But it is fucking retarded.

Basically a cloak spell can throw out constant on-hit effects so that means # of actors *cloaking effects=odd script fuckery?

 

Cloaking spells are just the old way of doing things.

 

here is the spid version of xpmse https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54720?tab=posts

[leakim]

Hello again everyone,

 

Just wanted to let everyone known that I have now been able to draw a conclusion to the startup problems I've been having, and it's actually a conclusion I am fairly happy with, since I have now been able to reproduce all my problems consistently and verified the integrity/brokeness of my game each time.

 

So essentially my conclusion is this:

• If you get a papyrus stack dump when you start up the game before exiting racemenu (which I somewhat consistently did) then your game is very likely to be broken.
  • Every time this happend to me during racemenu, I would have problems with various mods that had not initialized properly, and if it did not happen I could not reproduce any problems.
  • I would therefore highly recommend monitoring the papyrus log for stack dumps when you start a game (before exiting racemenu).
• In my experience, although this may be coincidental, you are less likely to receive a stack dump during the startup if the first thing you do after starting the skyrim is to start a new game. Loading an existing game first makes it more likely you will receive a stack dump (in my experience, although this may obviously be directly related to the mods I have installed).
  • In fact, pretty much everytime I had entered the game world and started a new game afterwards, I would have stack dumps during racemenu.
    • As such, starting a game using the "rolling approach" I initially described is not necessary, at least with my current mods, as long as I do not load an existing game first.
• Therefore I have made a tool that allows me to continuously monitor the Papyrus log that will warn me if a stack dump occurs. If it occurs during the startup sequence I just straight up start over. And I always keep Papyrus logs enabled. And I also always keep this tool running to warn me about bad behaviour from mods during standard gameplay, which has allowed me to identify poorly behaving mods such as [Blush when Aroused] and [XPMSSE]. If anyone is interested in said tool I do not mind sharing, but it is just something I put together in an hour in C#.

 

I would like to thank everyone who commented on this thread. You all helped me determine the root cause of my problems.

Edited July 30, 2022 by leakim

[bnub345]

2 hours ago, leakim said:

In my experience, although this may be coincidental, you are less likely to receive a stack dump during the startup if the first thing you do after starting the skyrim is to start a new game. Loading an existing game first makes it more likely you will receive a stack dump (in my experience, although this may obviously be directly related to the mods I have installed).

 

Unfortunately, Skyrim doesn't completely clear all of the game data when you load a save. That only happens when you exit/restart the game. So loading directly from the main menu after start will always be cleaner than loading while playing the game.

[leakim]

Well, I was certainly aware of this (hard not to be when you can see merchant gold not resetting when loading a game).

 

Not sure I was connecting the dots with that meaning that starting a new game would be more script heavy after having loaded a game than otherwise. In my head, that might as well have been the other way around. For example DAR animations only need to initialize once (yes yes, I am aware this is a C++ plugin). But again, this all could relate to the specific mods I have installed. Some mods certainly does not attempt to initialize before you actually exit race menu.

 

I'd probably simply restart the game after every game exit, but the skyrim startup sequence take too long time to do that, given that I am running with voice files for all the plugins they are available for (many in loose file format). Even moved the game to a PCIe 4.0 NVME SSD in order to reduce game startup times. One of the few reasons to actually have a fast/low latency drive. ^_^

Edited July 30, 2022 by leakim

[yorpers]

5 hours ago, leakim said:

If you get a papyrus stack dump when you start up the game before exiting racemenu (which I somewhat consistently did) then your game is very likely to be broken.

• Every time this happend to me during racemenu, I would have problems with various mods that had not initialized properly, and if it did not happen I could not reproduce any problems.
• I would therefore highly recommend monitoring the papyrus log for stack dumps when you start a game (before exiting racemenu).

 

 

This makes me wonder if scripts, that should wait until after racemenu is closed before they start, aren't doing that if you have a game open->go to menu-> new game. It also explains why I never get this problem. I have to exit the game to remove a 3d audio .dll so new games don't CTD each time I make a new character.

 

Really interesting information, thanks for sharing this.