Unpack Mesh.bsa to Stop Whiterun CTDs Question

[Duchess_Gummybuns]

Ok, so forever ago I found out you can stop common vanilla and modded crashes to desktop around Whiterun by unpacking Skyrim - Meshes.bsa to data/meshes/ but that is a lot of space to take up with loose vanilla files. Does anyone know if you NEED to have the whole BSA unpacked or just a fraction of it?

[Guest]

Probably you need just some files, but I have no clues of which ones.

 

Do this:

unpack the bsa but not in the game folder.

 

Then start by copying your game folder (Mod Organizer will make this 10 time easier, just saying, because you don't need backup folders)

 

Then start by putting only one of the master folders (meshes for example) and try if you have CTD or not.

If yes, then remove the folder (and restore the backup if you don't use MO), and try another one, like Textures.

 

Do this until you will find which folder is the culprit.

 

At this point, you can go deeper with sub-folders. But this will take time.

 

 

Again, doing this test with MO it is just a matter to create a fake mod with only the folders you wanna try. Minutes compared to hours.

 

Edit: you already know that is meshes.bsa.

Then you can do the same steps but with the sub-folders of the meshes folder.

 

[Duchess_Gummybuns]

Yeah, I thought about trial-and-erroring my way through that beast and I got a headache just thinking about it. (Already got a load on trying to make a simplified, unified STEP package) Thanks for the suggestions, though. I looked at the unpacked size of the bsa, and its not even 3 gigs. I decided if no one already KNOWS the culprit, then it might just be splitting hairs finding it. Especially since we'll end up overwriting nearly all vanilla meshes anyway. If nothing else, perhaps this page will come up for someone googling Vanilla CTDs around Whiterun.

[27X]

Pretty sure it's the mesh folder or the texture folder alike, and you'd need almost the whole folder because if I'm not mistaken it was a navmesh issue with several buildings (Bannered Mare, Kynareth, the street leading to the companions) and not just one area, additionally this also fixes some bullshit with Solitude Docks and... somewhere else, possibly Blackreach?

[Duchess_Gummybuns]

Never needed to unpack the textures, but, yeah, I guess it would just be best to use the mesh folder.

[Pauduan]

Give Ordenador a whirl (find it on the Nexus) and use it to optimise your BSAs.

 

I didn't cure all my crashes but got them down to 1 in 5 - and I haven't yet gotten to BSAs, just the textures form all the armor, NPC and body mods.

 

It's almost always textures that are not unloaded properly, causing crashes when a texture-heavy cell like WR loads.

 

I would crash every time I exited Dragonsreach, or entered the city from the main gate or fast traveled to it. Every single time.  Now I get in 90% of the time.

[yatol]

Ok, so forever ago I found out you can stop common vanilla and modded crashes to desktop around Whiterun by unpacking Skyrim - Meshes.bsa to data/meshes/ but that is a lot of space to take up with loose vanilla files. Does anyone know if you NEED to have the whole BSA unpacked or just a fraction of it?

 

that don't make any sense...

 

you most likely failed to install some mods, and some of your mess was taken care of by replacing those mods files by the originals from meshes bsa

 

waste of time to try to fix your mess, just delete skyrim, reinstall it, and this time use mo to avoid putting mess in skyrim folder and having to reinstall again and again and again and again

 

 

loading the game with meshes.bsa, or loading the game with the meshes folder from that bsa, that don't make any difference

unless you compress bsa (to reduce harddrive load at the cost of cpu ressources, bsa were made for that, harddrive were much slower before)

or use a lot of those npc/follower mods with custom texture (if 2 mods use the same files but not with the same path, bsa delete the double and replace it with a link to the first file, but bsa are too small for that now...)

[Duchess_Gummybuns]

 

 

 

Ok, so forever ago I found out you can stop common vanilla and modded crashes to desktop around Whiterun by unpacking Skyrim - Meshes.bsa to data/meshes/ but that is a lot of space to take up with loose vanilla files. Does anyone know if you NEED to have the whole BSA unpacked or just a fraction of it?

 

that don't make any sense...

 

you most likely failed to install some mods, and some of your mess was taken care of by replacing those mods files by the originals from meshes bsa

 

waste of time to try to fix your mess, just delete skyrim, reinstall it, and this time use mo to avoid putting mess in skyrim folder and having to reinstall again and again and again and again

 

 

loading the game with meshes.bsa, or loading the game with the meshes folder from that bsa, that don't make any difference

unless you compress bsa (to reduce harddrive load at the cost of cpu ressources, bsa were made for that, harddrive were much slower before)

or use a lot of those npc/follower mods with custom texture (if 2 mods use the same files but not with the same path, bsa delete the double and replace it with a link to the first file, but bsa are too small for that now...)

 

 

 

This happens to thousands of PC users despite having a fresh, 1st time install of the vanilla game. It has something to do with the environment load of the area, being the first main city you visit, it was meant to be impressive. Its rather rude that you say something like that after many iterations of the word VANILLA.

[yatol]

 

 

 

Ok, so forever ago I found out you can stop common vanilla and modded crashes to desktop around Whiterun by unpacking Skyrim - Meshes.bsa to data/meshes/ but that is a lot of space to take up with loose vanilla files. Does anyone know if you NEED to have the whole BSA unpacked or just a fraction of it?

 

that don't make any sense...

 

you most likely failed to install some mods, and some of your mess was taken care of by replacing those mods files by the originals from meshes bsa

 

waste of time to try to fix your mess, just delete skyrim, reinstall it, and this time use mo to avoid putting mess in skyrim folder and having to reinstall again and again and again and again

 

 

loading the game with meshes.bsa, or loading the game with the meshes folder from that bsa, that don't make any difference

unless you compress bsa (to reduce harddrive load at the cost of cpu ressources, bsa were made for that, harddrive were much slower before)

or use a lot of those npc/follower mods with custom texture (if 2 mods use the same files but not with the same path, bsa delete the double and replace it with a link to the first file, but bsa are too small for that now...)

 

 

 

This happens to thousands of PC users despite having a fresh, 1st time install of the vanilla game. It has something to do with the environment load of the area, being the first main city you visit, it was meant to be impressive. Its rather rude that you say something like that after many iterations of the word VANILLA.

 

if there really was a problem, i would have find it...

all my tests/cleaning were done at whiterun, because i save at breezhome before trying a mod

take a look at the number of scriptinstances

skyrim, dlc, 3dnpc and many quest mods are clear on that save

now take a look at the number of active scripts and update offset (skyrim useless scripts were killed too)

 

most of my ctd were ram ctd because of stupid ini settings, stupid enb settings, or stupid dll that mess with stuff it shouldn't mess with

most of the rest were conflicts, those can be reproduce, fixing them is just a matter of time

don't remember what my last ctd was, maybe the one when entering or leaving (don't remember) immersive college because of 3dnpc (some corpses from a quest where you have to save a npc north of winterhold)