Unpack .bsa ??

[Guest corespore]

There are some mods that come packaged in .bsa formats. Is it better to unpack the .bsa to gain optimal performance or does it even matter?

[bleagh]

The only thing that would matter to most is that loose files will always override a bsa regardless of plugin load order.

[CGi]

Loose files:

• modding friendly
• no additional CPU impact

BSA files:

• better loading speed
• additional CPU usage (which can actually be ignored unless you run the game on a 5 yr old CPU)
• lowered risk of left-overs when uninstalling a mod

[Guest corespore]

 

Loose files:

• modding friendly
• no additional CPU impact

BSA files:

• better loading speed
• additional CPU usage (which can actually be ignored unless you run the game on a 5 yr old CPU)
• lowered risk of left-overs when uninstalling a mod

 

Thats the info i needed ...thanks 

[CGi]

Forgot to add that the load speed improvement and CPU impact for BSAs is depending on the compression level.
So everything below mid compression (CK is lower then mid and so are most mods) are just adding to modding unfriendlieness, help avoiding left-overs, they have no CPU impact and reduce file system fragmentation.
So the best thing to do is uncompress BSAs and recompress the with c-lvl 9 or forced, as else you get only ignoreable benefits from a BSA.