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What happens to NPCs and followers when they are not on screen?


Russia2012

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I am curious what happens to NPCS when they are not on the same screen as me. Do they still act or are they basically non existent until I see them on screen again. I am curious how adding new npcs all over skyrim will effect performance.

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They don't do anything and are not loaded into memory. when you enter a new cell in the exterior if they are in the Ugrids perimeter they load and start doing what the current AI pack tells them to do. When you enter an interior cell part of the loading is deciding what all the NPC's should be doing according to the AI packs and they are positioned before the cell loads. When you walk out of an exterior cell and they are no longer in the Ugrids, or you exit an interior the AI for them shuts off like hitting TAI in the console and after enough new cells load they get removed from memory.

 

Basically they are non existent until the cell they are supposed to be in at that time loads. If you add too many NPC's then load times will suffer and if they are all in the Tamriel Worldspace it could cause stuttering. There's a finite amount of NPC's anywhere before performance loss becomes a major issue from loading them.

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this mean that if I were to place 5 followers in each INN in skyrim they would most likely not cause huge performance issues in other areas? If I were to create respawning NPCS in different areas of skyrim they would not cause huge problems until my character tried to entered the cell that the NPCS had spawned in. If I placed 5 spawned Imperial NPCs near solitude they would not likely effect performance if I entered Riften? I noticed in the past that when my game freezes it was normally because there were groups of NPCS fighting each other near cities. I an guessing is because of the NPCS in the cell and not all over skyrim. I understand if it all the NPCS in skyrim effected all cells my game would constantly freeze. I am basically trying to learn the mechanics of the game so when i create mods I can know what problems my mod might create and how I can resolve them. Currently I would like to add 5 followers to each inn . However in the future I am planning to create an immersion mod that spawns a bunch of npcs at camps whose behavior would be to go from fort to fort in an attempt to capture them. I also want to have civilians who travel back and forth from city to city. I also want to create a few new factions who will invade skyrim. It is in my best interest to know what to expect before I create mods that might crash my game.

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