Oblivion CS Performance Issue.. Worldspace Transfer Possible?

[ZekAonar]

Greetings all! :D Allow me to deliver the prologue to my situation:
I am the sole writer and creator of 'Realms of Asuron', the ambitious total conversion mod currently under construction for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
At the very beginning of this endeavour, I chose to rely solely on the resources provided by Oblivion.esm (until I had the time to truly focus on assembling a team for the replacement of those resources). So it was that my newly-born plugin file was bound to Oblivion.esm. At the time, my long-term strategy seemed like a sound strategy -- so sound in fact, that I have now spent nearly two months sculpting the foundations for the Northern Kingdoms of Hyperia. The poor CS, however, is finally starting to show signs of cracking under the weight of Oblivion's content on top of my own. As a consequence, all progress on the mod has.. well, not come to a screeching halt yet, but it is certainly decelerating, and this rising trend of "TESConstructionSet.exe has stopped working" deeply concerns me.

Now, my question is this:
In order to relieve the pressure on this application, would it be possible for me to move my worldspace (Hyperia) to an entirely blank .esm? And, once said operation is completed, would there be any way to retrieve the resources en masse from Oblivion.esm without actually listing it as a dependency? Of course, if my own theory does not suffice, I am willing to hear any alternative solutions to this problem. Indeed, if I must scrap all of my progress and re-think my entire development cycle with a blank master file plus manually imported resources, then, by the Nine, I will do it! :tongue: For all that dedication however, I am still no lover of setbacks, and any suggestions at all would be much appreciated!

[Lanceor]

How big is your esp file now? You should have no problems until at least 40 - 50 MB. That being said, the CS doesn't seem to like large worldspaces in esp files. Try converting it to an esm.

[ZekAonar]

At the moment, the esp file is exactly 40.0 MB. I also did as you requested and created an esm copy of the file, but it crashed the first time, then finally loaded the second time.. after going white for about five minutes. That described experience is very much like the one I often have with the esp version, and it was not always so long. This is why I think the instability/increased loading time may be attributed to file size, but there may be performance improvements elsewhere, so I will attempt to continue my current modding session with it, taking care to note anything similar/dissimilar. Many thanks for your response, and, still, I am open to any further theories :smile:

[ZekAonar]

Just came back to report more of my findings after having followed your advice, Lanceor:
Saving now takes no longer than a minute, and the menus no longer fade out whenever moving from cell to cell. I have been able to work very smoothly with leaves and sky settings both on, and I can also edit terrain with a much larger brush without experiencing a stutter of any kind. I suspect that the startup issue was no real cause for alarm -- maybe five minutes is pretty standard for a load time of a mod this size. I noticed dramatic improvements overall though, so this fix definitely seems to have done its job! :thumbsup: Thanks, Lanceor! File type indeed seems to play a role here.

[Lanceor]

Good to hear that it's more stable!

 

What most people do is have all the big static stuff in the esm and place the other things in an easily editable esp. This would include the worldspace, the trees, rocks, buildings - stuff that isn't likely to need editing once it's been placed. Use an esp for the quests, scripts, NPCs, items and other small things.

[ZekAonar]

Great advice! Going forward, I will be sure to keep all of it in mind :smile: This method brings up a new related concern however: What if another modder wants to help me complete this phase of the project? Can esm files be merged like esp files? Or must I resort to converting both files back into esp files, merging them, then converting the new file back into esm format? I am still working alone, and expect to remain so for quite some time, but, for the sake of being prepared, I thought I would ask how/if the process of keeping a modding team in-sync would change.