Save File at 128mb

[nt5raham]

1. Is there a way to push beyond the 128mb save file limit?

 

-OR-

 

2. Is there a way to reduce the size of an existing save file?

 

I have already confirmed that ClearInvalidRegistrations=1 is in skse.ini. Is there anything else I can do? This is for an e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y long playthrough in an otherwise stable game.

 

Thanks! :)

[Billy1969]

Glad to see I'm not the only one with that problem, had to abandon one of my characters because savegame got too big, unfortunately I have no solution., the savegame is the sum of papyrus and formid's, I noticed the papyrus thing is way bigger like 4 times the size of the formid's but I have no clue how to shrink it.

[nt5raham]

Yes, @Billy1969, it's a tough situation. I've been able to milk my game a bit by teleporting to a tiny cell with few items to do my saves, then teleport back to where I was to continue the game. I wish I knew more about the details. I'm going through all of my chests and selling off excess inventory, but I'm not sure if it is helping or not.

[Billy1969]

Follow up on the 128Mb limit problem, currently I am on a playthrough where I reached 90Mb savegame file and 75Mb of it sits in the papyrus section of the savegame. Yesterday I was playing and I saw the message 'VM overload' appearing for a long time in my UI (SSE Display Tweaks set to show the fps, vram use and the VM status) and I had tons of lag.

So I saved, went out of the game and loaded my last two savegames in resaver to check things out. Low and behold my last savegame was now 101Mb big and the papyrus section grew by 11 Mb in a few minutes delay between the saves!

 

 

I also had over 14k suspended stacks from a script that probably misfired or was caught in a loop. I am convinced Skyrim writes 3/4th of crap like this in the papyrus section of it's savegame. This time I noticed it because it was extreme but I'm sure sometimes I miss it when the script load isn't as heavy as this time...

 

 

Now by selling stuff you don't need anymore, taking off throphies from wall displays and other things like that the savegames deplete only by one or two Megabytes max, and it's the formid section that depletes but the papyrus section remains as big as ever, so eventually what makes the savegame run out of space is the papyrus section growing over 100Mb.

And no way to clean it that I know of the cleaning functions in Resaver all take care of the formid section not the papyrus one.

 

Worse thing is that when I now start a new character with alternate start and save, my initial first save is already over 40Mb big, right from the start lol. Imo it's because of all the scripts firing in the beginning of the game due to the insane number of mods I have. I will test more, I plan on starting the game with a minimal ammount of mods, then save, activate more mods, load, rinse and repeat to see if it will be also 40Mb after doing this, I bet it won't be.

 

TLDR: It's the scripts throwing suspended stacks that makes the papyrus section of the savegame inflate like a balloon, if someone finds a solution for that I guess that will be mod of the year lol.

[scorrp10]

Really, 128MB? I got a save for a lvl 60+ character that did pretty much all there is to do in the game + all DLC + a whole lot of modded content, barely pushing 11Mb.

World data, your houses, NPCs, all the stuff you got stored in all the chests - does not really amount to all that much.

What can truly cause insane amounts of bloat are leaky scripts. Badly coded scripts that do not clean their instances up when no longer needed. I.e. you have a script where a certain magic effect is applied on every NPC that comes within certain distance of player. Each instance of this effect spawns a script instance. But if you do not define dispel events (OnDeath, OnCellDetach, OnUnload, OnDetachedFromCell etc), these instances remain in place, taking up space in your save. I.e. you get close to a camp with 10 randomly spawned bandits. 10 instances of the effect are generated. You slaughter the bandits, but if the effect script does not have effect removal function called from OnDeath, those 10 instances remain in place.
Or mod author did not properly define effect application conditions. I.e. you add a keyword to the effect, and one of conditions for applying the effect is to not already have an effect with that keyword. Without something like that, you can have hundreds of instances of same effect applied to same NPC. Even if a single instance has only 3-4 variables and uses up 20-30 bytes, these things add up.

About only thing I can suggest at this point is to load your save game in ReSaver, note your total number of Script Instances, and then start selecting one plugin after another in the plugin dropdown and checking how many script instances and changeforms each has.
I.e. in the mentioned savegame, I have 144k script instances, roughly 80k of those belonging to Skyrim.esm (which actually also includes any cases where a mod overwrites a vanilla script with its own). Dawnguard and Dragonborn account for about 10k each, Hearthfires another 7k. More complex mods account for quite a few - I.e. Vilja weighs in at 1.5k.

RiverWoodKeep.esp is almost 3k. But thing is, say I launch game, do 'coc riverwood' from main menu which starts a brand new game with a lvl 1 character, use additem to give me 40k gold, buy the Keep, enter it and save. Then open that save in ReSaver, it shows 2600+ script instances for RiverWoodKeep.esp right away. But a save for lvl 60+ who got that same keep loaded with loot, displayed trophies and a bunch of followers, only has like 2800 instances. So while heavy initially, this mod does not cause bloat.

My own mod, HeelsFix, actually does apply a scripted effect to every NPC in certain radius of the player. But it is also extremely tenacious about clearing that effect when no longer needed, and rather than relying on just events, it has a tracking mechanism to clear instances that 'slip the net'. On a 60+ level outdoor save where this mod ran from the beginning? 10 script instances.

If 'Show unattached instances' from Clean menu does not show anything, you need to through plugins one by one and look for something with TONS of script instances. Literally, tens or even hundreds of thousands.

Low and behold my last savegame was now 101Mb big and the papyrus section grew by 11 Mb in a few minutes delay between the saves!

You need to load both saves in ReSaver side-by-side, compare total number of instances, and then go through plugins one by one, and see which contributed.

[Billy1969]

Thanks for the thorough explanation @scorrp10, the script that kept replicating itself this time was the dragonactorscript from Deadly Dragons mod, like described here: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/u4f4cp/dealing_with_dragonactorscript_stacks/ To fix the suspended stacks I did the prid, disable, markfordelete routine described in that thread and it worked but alas the savegame is still 91Mb big now, I guess that or other scripts already bloated my savegame several times without me noticing it, I will continue to monitor it though, to see if I can catch other scripts doing that. 11Mb for a level 60 character savegame wow, that's a dream for me, now I'm constantly on my toes in fear of losing my character again when it reaches the 128Mb limit.

[nt5raham]

Good discussion! Thanks to both of you for the feedback and explanations. I've been in/out of the hospital so haven't had much time yet to put it into practice but will the first chance I get.

 

I knew that there was script data stored in the save. That's why we can save when a character is mid-sentence and then reload back into the same conversation. I had no idea that's where the bloat was originating. At least I can stop obsessing over objects and start looking in the correct area now.

 

And just FYI, this problem has had a long time to build in my case. I've got over 2K mods installed, and I've got literally thousands of hours into the same save/game. Lots of heavily scripted mods, and since I don't change mods mid-playthrough it means I'm using a lot of outdated versions where improvements and fixes have already been implemented by the author.

 

The straw that broke the camel's back was Act 4 of Vigilant. That's where I first noticed that saving in different cells provided a workaround; I simply could not save up in the Central Tower without exceeding 128MB.

 

@scorrp10, thanks for HeelsFix and FG Slot Handler! Those will come in handy for my next game.