To BSA or Not to BSA...

[Shadowhawk827]

I'm back, and trying to pick up my modding again.  After reviewing several videos, I think I've mostly refreshed my memory and have SSE conversions figured out, MOSTLY...   Just about every video I've watched & site I've looked at talks about BSAs like they're the only way to go in SSE.  Testing my conversion of my Scottish Basket Hilt Broadswords though, the mod seems to work fine as loose files.

 

So here's my question(s):

 

Are BSAs needed (it doesn't seem so)?

Are there game performance issues or benefits to using BSAs?

 

The main Special Edition game files are all BSA'ed up now also.  Is it better to unpack all of them for performance and modding work?

Note: I already unpacked the scripts folder.

[Akzyra]

With BSA files you can control when they are loaded, loose files are always last.
And you will not get annoying messages in NMM. Managing files is easier.

If you want to publish, make a BSA. Easier to unpack than create one.

I never tested if it matter for loadscreens. But some arguments say BSA are faster on HDDs. (Game knows where the file is, loose files are resolved by the OS)

 

For most thing it doesn't matter, but one scenario comes to mind: Follower mods

If you have multiple large follower mods, they might conflict. Of course, the winner is the last loaded one.
But what about the facegen files? Last installed (NMM) or the one with hgher priority (MO).
With BSA files they will load in the same order as the ESP.

[Shadowhawk827]

Finally, a straight answer there, lol.  I knew there had to be a reason to use them, but I hadn't been able to find a logical explanation anywhere on the pros & cons

 

Thanks much, Akzyra

[Sagebrush61]

For those of us who install (and uninstall) mods manually I can tell you that I've come to like mods packaged as BSA's because it's so much easier to delete one BSA instead of 1000 meshes, textures and loose scripts.

[yatol]

I hadn't been able to find a logical explanation anywhere on the pros & cons

 

 

loose files it's to do that

but most forgot about that part^^

 

unpack skyrim bsa

and textures replacers

and armors replacers

and mod a, b, c, d ,e...

 

useless to keep skyrim door1.dds, unoftexturecrap door1.dds, texturepack door1.dds, texturepack3 door1.dds... to use mod d door1.dds

the ones that don't have a ssd will gain performance by removing the useless files (less turns to load files)

and by putting the game in a partition that is the end of the harddrive (it's bigger than at the center, one turn can load more data)

 

so you copy paste last folder in the one above, then in the one above, then in the one above

to get rid of useless files, and just load texture optimiser on the result

then you repack as compressed bsa

 

grass loose file 1gb

->

200 mb in a compressed bsa

because transparency2 become a link to transparency1, transparency3 become a link to transparency1...

you use fair skin, you have 4 followers with fair skin, your npc replacer use fair skin, it's the same, there's 5 useless fair skin there

[reunicorn]

 

and by putting the game in a partition that is the end of the harddrive (it's bigger than at the center, one turn can load more data)

 

 

This is the wrong way around: Hard drives start writing at the outside of the disk, not the center. So for fastest access files should be placed at the beginning of the drive, not the end.

[Mertz]

On 11/1/2017 at 11:53 AM, Shadowhawk827 said:

I'm back, and trying to pick up my modding again.  After reviewing several videos, I think I've mostly refreshed my memory and have SSE conversions figured out, MOSTLY...   Just about every video I've watched & site I've looked at talks about BSAs like they're the only way to go in SSE.  Testing my conversion of my Scottish Basket Hilt Broadswords though, the mod seems to work fine as loose files.

 

So here's my question(s):

 

Are BSAs needed (it doesn't seem so)?

Are there game performance issues or benefits to using BSAs?

 

The main Special Edition game files are all BSA'ed up now also.  Is it better to unpack all of them for performance and modding work?

Note: I already unpacked the scripts folder.

 

Ok to answer your question from a technical standpoint..

 

The game engine was originally designed to run on consoles with really slow access to disk, specifically the optical drives on the XBox family (original and 360). This is several orders of magnitude slower than reading form a hard disk.

 

Since they wanted to minimize reads, they came up with the BSA format which is a memory-mapped file. Seeks to assets are done in memory and are faster than acquiring each asset individually on an optical disk.  This benefit isn't as obvious on a hard drive or SSD, but there is still an aggregate benefit at scale, especially when you use compression.

 

So yes, there's a reason Bethesda packs everything into a BSA, and you should too if possible.

 

One pointer about packing BSAs: if you have audio files (sound or voice) you should test with and without compression. If it doesn't work with compression, try it without.  Bethesda does not compress the master files that contain audio assets.

 

EDIT: updated AFKMods link since Arthmoor changed servers.