BSA versus Loose Files, small test

[movomo]

This is a very interesting thread. Are these considerations about BSAs valid for FO and Skyrim too?

There's a Skyrim guide in my language, after installing all the mods (i.e. texture replacers) it shows how to package everything inside a BSA. Do you believe it's a nice move to do or not?

I don't know, this might hold true for FO, but I can't tell anything about Skyrim.

Apparently, packaging everything into .bsa archives is a trend these days. I've seen many posts in the official Beth forum that recommend doing it. All of those I cared to read among them were based on that same thought experiment (zlib in-memory unpack is likely faster than SSD -> .bsa is superior under all circumstances). My personal experiment says otherwise, so I'm not doing that.

[Guest]

I remember some thread some time ago where people were explicitly claiming "I don't see a valid reason to NOT make a BSA". While for FONV I would have had some reason, that was for Skyrim. As Skyrim's lover (but Player only), I would be really curious to understand if it really increases performances, because it's not hard to reach 30 Gb of mods datas, I guess even the smallest difference in terms of performances could make a big difference in the playability / fps when the numbers are so big

[Fienyx]

I can't say for skyrim or any other game as I only play oblivion. The onlg suggestion I can give is unpack the BSA as soon as the mod gets put in. If the mod has loose folders along with BSA, install the esp and BSA first, unpack the BSA, then install the loose folders (just in case the loose folders overwrite anything in the BSA). Remember, the BSA is an archive, so once unpacked, your data folder will be bigger. The performance increase would come from not having to sift through archives to find the needed file.

 

While for some mods, this is a bit easier, but some more complicated mods (ie: Better Cities) it can be tricky. Mods installed through OBMM or BAIN may add multiple BSAs. In these cases, it's better to install by hand (thus becoming tricky) so the BSAs can be unpacked in order of install (sometimes they may contain same files if there are multiple mesh/texture BSAs. This whole method is not recommended for beginners.

 

Also, this makes install order very important, as some mods may contain files of the samename with a few differences, so you would need to install what you want to see in game later. As I said, can be tricky so not recommended for beginners.