Gamebryo causes save bloat?

[Niggabanana]

Well after jumping from Skyrim to Fallout i figured "Why not go searching some technical stuff about the game?" and found out something about Gamebryo Engine's poor memory & resource management that causes savegames' to bloat, FPS drops & corruption on prolonged plays. I've also found some fixes that temporarily fix the issue but not effective as they say, CASM should address it but i'm seeing users complaining about the Mod mishandling the game and causing more crashes & corruption of saves.

 

Unlike Skyrim that has multiple fix on Save bloat & resource management i would like to know if there's a EFFECTIVE fix for Fallout's Gamebryo Mishalf?

[Guest]

take a look at this

 

In any case, here's my two cents. There surely is some technical explanation, but it must be taken as it is. I don't think that issues like those are SO MUCH frequent, and in my opinion it's simply paranoia mixed to some original way to blame something instead of admitting "my LO is full of cr*p". In all the time I played to both Fallouts and Skyrim (and believe me it's FAR TOO MUCH), the main cause of my issues always came from mods. Vanilla always played fine even in long term games like main quest + side quests + all dlcs. I did 3 / 5 complete playthrough in them all, no explosions, no bloats.

[Niggabanana]

take a look at this

 

In any case, here's my two cents. There surely is some technical explanation, but it must be taken as it is. I don't think that issues like those are SO MUCH frequent, and in my opinion it's simply paranoia mixed to some original way to blame something instead of admitting "my LO is full of cr*p". In all the time I played to both Fallouts and Skyrim (and believe me it's FAR TOO MUCH), the main cause of my issues always came from mods. Vanilla always played fine even in long term games like main quest + side quests + all dlcs. I did 3 / 5 complete playthrough in them all, no explosions, no bloats.

Yeah, i played the Vanilla Skyrim on a Low-setup and i didn't experience any bloat / corruption, aside from the Vanilla bugs there's no other problem with my playthroughs. Though when i started modding Skyrim specially Script mods moderately causes bloat but it can be fixed. I think those who complain about their saves getting bloated is that they tend to just pick a MOD & install prior to not reading the Mod page nor the comments / FAQ. in my FONV, my 36hr playthrough has only 4.7MB of save data with heavy mods like PN, TGJMX, Electro city, Nevada Skies, WMX, WME, EVE you name it and it doesn't cause bloat. I've done all the necessary steps to make mods stable & clean.

[Symon]

None of the flaws mentioned are anything to do with the Gamebryo graphics engine, which isn't much different from the Gamebryo engine in Skyrim. Gamebryo wouldn't know a save if it jumped up and bit it. Similarly, bad memory handling (their heap usage is notoriously bad) is down to Beth code in the actual game executable, not any of the middleware technologies they use.

 

To be fair, savegame bloat in FO (and Oblivion) is usually down to mods not cleaning out un-needed data structures.

Wrye Bash and Wrye Fash have utilities to remove such bloat from a save game.

[Niggabanana]

None of the flaws mentioned are anything to do with the Gamebryo graphics engine, which isn't much different from the Gamebryo engine in Skyrim. Gamebryo wouldn't know a save if it jumped up and bit it. Similarly, bad memory handling (their heap usage is notoriously bad) is down to Beth code in the actual game executable, not any of the middleware technologies they use.

 

To be fair, savegame bloat in FO (and Oblivion) is usually down to mods not cleaning out un-needed data structures.

Wrye Bash and Wrye Fash have utilities to remove such bloat from a save game.

o.o, didn't know Wrye could do that, i'm been cleaning them via TES5EDIT/FNVEDIT and didn't notice that Wrye. Though i outta know what sorta utilities Wrye has to offer for cleaning un-needed data structures.

[7KeysCurtain]

that causes savegames' to bloat, FPS drops & corruption on prolonged plays.

 

I've experienced that lately.

 

 

This save of mine has 120 hours put into it and takes around 6 minutes to load in game. (Ignore the 3031, I have alot of different characters/playthroughs in other saves not related)

 

I haven't even completed any main quest missions or side quests in this save, it's just a roleplay save with Alternative Start, NVBounties I & II fully complete.

 

I personally believe I caused my saves to get 'bloated' for various reasons even if the Gamebyro engine has some/is to blame.

 

- Straight up I have around 280 mods installed in FNV, since I hit the mod limit a long time ago I've had to merge mods to reduce the .esp count.

- I used to overwrite saves [i didn't like to have a massive list of saves in the select save to load screen in main menu.] (not anymore of course)

- In regards to clean saving when instructed by some Contributers on their mod pages, Guilty of may have forgotten doing so at times. (puts on stab-proof vest)

- Alot of the mods I use are script heavy, not sure if that effects the save files or if some mods in some way or form permantely leave residue / traces / rubbish / REFRs in the save files.

- Dirty edits and some mods in need of cleaning no doubt.

 

Recently I started a fresh new game and saved, the save file ended up being 4MB with only about 15 minutes playtime in it.

How ever it loads fast now (5 - 10 seconds compared to 6 minutes) and in game it doesn't feel sluggish as it did in the 120 hour game save.

 

With each new save I make in a new slot it adds roughly 100kb to the file size.

 

Wrye Bash and Wrye Fash have utilities to remove such bloat from a save game.

 

I happen to have Wyre Flash NV, where abouts are these utlities so I can give them a try?

 

I found this tool and for curiosity tried it, no difference in the saves file size and in game caused more harm than good. Restored the backup.

 

With that said some of you may believe I deserve what I get, fair enough, none the less thought I'd share my experience anyway.

[BruceWayne]

As was said before, Gamebryo is the graphics engine, which ultimately shouldn't contribute to save game bloating (the game doesn't save the graphics, it only saves gameplay data). You must have one or more mods that cause your game to bloat. These are usually script mods, though it is possible that a seemingly unrelated mod contributes to the problem. If I were you and would be serious about another playthrough, I'd start a new game with only the mods that require a new game and add the rest in bunch to see when the bloating starts. As to the max mod limit, we found out that +/- 150 mods is the magical number before the game starts to break in unexpected ways.

[DoctaSax]

Fallout games tend to have a bit more save bloat as is compared to let's say Oblivion, due to cells not getting reset to mimic an economy of scarcity. That tin can you tripped over or picked up in whichever cell is forever remembered as having a new place. A long game, with lots of exploring done, simply has a lot more save data to keep track of that way. You can call it bloat if you don't see the point of storing this data, but it goes with the territory of making saves at all. The more you do, the more the game needs to remember of what you've done.

[Guest]

The more you do, the more the game needs to remember of what you've done.

 

That's it. I guess it's inevitable that for example exploring twice the places present in vanilla generates potentially twice the datas inside the savegame and you could consider this a bloat even if no scripts at all are involved. But this has nothing to do with the way the engine was made or the way it handles the memory. The vanilla is working well, it's when you start modding that prolly you hit these limits.

If I would ever make a mod that CTDs a user's game after 5 minutes, because of the bad way the memory is handled by the engine, the only one to blame is me and not the engine... I don't think Bethesda assumed that people had needs like wearing suits of 4k resolution or stuff like normal maps of 20-80 Mbs per file.

[Niggabanana]

 

that causes savegames' to bloat, FPS drops & corruption on prolonged plays.

 

I've experienced that lately.

 

 

This save of mine has 120 hours put into it and takes around 6 minutes to load in game. (Ignore the 3031, I have alot of different characters/playthroughs in other saves not related)

 

I haven't even completed any main quest missions or side quests in this save, it's just a roleplay save with Alternative Start, NVBounties I & II fully complete.

 

I personally believe I caused my saves to get 'bloated' for various reasons even if the Gamebyro engine has some/is to blame.

 

- Straight up I have around 280 mods installed in FNV, since I hit the mod limit a long time ago I've had to merge mods to reduce the .esp count.

- I used to overwrite saves [i didn't like to have a massive list of saves in the select save to load screen in main menu.] (not anymore of course)

- In regards to clean saving when instructed by some Contributers on their mod pages, Guilty of may have forgotten doing so at times. (puts on stab-proof vest)

- Alot of the mods I use are script heavy, not sure if that effects the save files or if some mods in some way or form permantely leave residue / traces / rubbish / REFRs in the save files.

- Dirty edits and some mods in need of cleaning no doubt.

 

Recently I started a fresh new game and saved, the save file ended up being 4MB with only about 15 minutes playtime in it.

How ever it loads fast now (5 - 10 seconds compared to 6 minutes) and in game it doesn't feel sluggish as it did in the 120 hour game save.

 

With each new save I make in a new slot it adds roughly 100kb to the file size.

 

Wrye Bash and Wrye Fash have utilities to remove such bloat from a save game.

 

I happen to have Wyre Flash NV, where abouts are these utlities so I can give them a try?

 

I found this tool and for curiosity tried it, no difference in the saves file size and in game caused more harm than good. Restored the backup.

 

With that said some of you may believe I deserve what I get, fair enough, none the less thought I'd share my experience anyway.

 

Well i guess i share the same boat on you, some of it though, I do overwrite saves with my newest playthrough hmm... maybe that's the reason for having minor freezing but dunno...

 

I also didn't read much on each modpage though my 30hour save only has 4.8MB which is a safe bet for now. And yeah i was wondering where should i find those utilities on Wrye for bloat removal.

 

As for the Utility, it's obsolete since it deletes RefID thus making some critical mistakes in game like deleting RefID that doesn't need cleaning making some contents In-game disappear / misfire. I had that problem when i use that similar tool in my Skyrim save, caused Markarth guards to be naked even after switching ownership from Stormcloak to Imperialists so i recommend avoiding that tool and keep a careful eye on your saves, you might as well do a manual cleaning yourself rather than trusting your hours of plays on a tool that risks you of ruining your save (Well there goes my 280 Hours of save in Skyrim, so much hours put on that to be ruined by a inaccurate tool).

[Niggabanana]

 

The more you do, the more the game needs to remember of what you've done.

 

That's it. I guess it's inevitable that for example exploring twice the places present in vanilla generates potentially twice the datas inside the savegame and you could consider this a bloat even if no scripts at all are involved. But this has nothing to do with the way the engine was made or the way it handles the memory. The vanilla is working well, it's when you start modding that prolly you hit these limits.

If I would ever make a mod that CTDs a user's game after 5 minutes, because of the bad way the memory is handled by the engine, the only one to blame is me and not the engine... I don't think Bethesda assumed that people had needs like wearing suits of 4k resolution or stuff like normal maps of 20-80 Mbs per file.

 

Good point, i was confused why some users Crying about how Gamebryo / Bethesda made poor resource management system / engine, that's why i posted this , though i feel disappointed at the same time since i thought Bethesda / Gamebryo's System of handling Memory / Graphics has a higher limit than it would normally do with it's Vanilla setup, then again it really falls down to the user on how he/she gonna mod the game

 

Wish future Bethesda games has higher Resource management & engine that can handle Heavy modding even if it's unnecessary for a Vanilla setup.