Skyrim: Taking FOREVER to Save

FierySwordswoman · March 11, 2016

Moved from here by recommendation.

Alright, Mr. Moderator, I now see the sticky's. Whenever something shows a 'terms and agreement', I'm NOT the type of person to bother reading it. My life moves to fast for that. I have chairs to sit in.

Alright, so 2 days ago at midnight I started making a new character. I saved towards the end of creation and logged off.

The next day, I finished creation and played for a good few hours straight. 7 ish?

Today, I continued only to find that the time it takes to save the game went from 2 seconds max to 25 seconds max. My load times are still from 2-3 seconds to usually instant depending on the newness of the area. The game boots fast as well.

My question: WHY. Why has the save time grown absolutely exponentially when nothing else has changed? I thought it was just my older characters that took a while to save, but his character is only like level 9! The save file size is almost 11 megabytes, compared to my old characters' 13 (1-2 week's worth) and 17 (3 months worth). I've never had a save file randomly bloat. I just assumed it was a side-effect of character progression, but this latest character shows it's something else entirely due to how freakishly smoothly it was running in the first marathon-session. (It also crashed while loading once today, but never yesterday. Maybe a coincidence since it was a ram-heavy moment.) A newly made character's save is slightly more than 10 megabytes for my loadout.

Is there a way around this absurd save time? I use to use my rotating quick-saves religiously, but now I only save when I really need to because it locks me out for so long.

Yeah, I have like 150 ish plugins, but literally nothing changed from the butter-smooth first session to the atrocious second. It's probably been like this for all of my characters, but I just never noticed that it wasn't because the save files grew a full one megabyte (huge, right?) over the course of a week because I've got some larger mods this time around, creating a more obvious transition.

But since it'll be the first thing asked anyway, heres the MO list:

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Aaaand the system specs:

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand skyrim performance stuff:

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Edited March 11, 2016 by FierySwordswoman

Thessera · March 11, 2016

I have same issue, not only does it stops but it lags too.( i use no mods,never did)

Been like that since day one.. i assume its a issue w the game.. the game dosnt work well on PC.

maybe get mods to fix it?

Edited March 11, 2016 by Thessera

FierySwordswoman · March 11, 2016

On 3/11/2016 at 10:01 AM, Thessera said:
I have same issue, not only does it stops but it lags too.( i use no mods,never did)
Been like that since day one.. i assume its a issue w the game.. the game dosnt work well on PC.

maybe get mods to fix it?

Game works fine on PC. It's actually the least buggy edition from my experience. Yours apparently has other lag besides what I'm describing; your system isn't powerful enough to NOT lag. Old HDD? Non-gaming GPU? I find that your system should be above what the recommended requirements are on the steam store page.

Also, I have a tingling feeling deep in my pelvis that says getting more mods isn't the solution.

Edited March 11, 2016 by FierySwordswoman

Signette · March 11, 2016

OP, sifting through 150+ plugins looking for inconsistencies and conflicts, I think you understand, that's impossible... so when did it started exactly? Are you 100%-absolutely-positive that it didn't happen after some new plugin added? What does your LOOT says? Do you create bashed patch?

Considering specs, I have almost exactly the same ones (lol) and game saves instantly (save file is ~20mb btw), but I wouldn't dare to set so many hi-res mods, for me 60>everything else, tho game is pretty much maxed, and tbh I don't think specs or HDD are the plot here if it works alright and doesn't give you lemons in any other games or apps.

Also, who told you defaultHeapInitialAllocMB=1024 is safe?...

I'm curious about you script load speed though, it feels to me as something runs in background messing with saving process, like maybe updating scripts for smth? I know Convenient Horses plugin has built-in script load tracker, if you can check it any other way, would be useful to do.

Also I heard somewhere that some sound mods cause save bloating in time, tho can't be sure which ones and how.

@Thessera

Post PC specs.

FierySwordswoman · March 11, 2016

On 3/11/2016 at 10:27 PM, Signette said:
I'm replying to your words

The last time I added/updated a plugin was a month ago because I don't want anything breaking. I've got it pretty much crash-free despite having a 20 gigabyte 'mods' folder.

I know it's ridiculous to look through a hundred plugins to look for conflicts (it's only there because someone asked me for it), but I can personally say I remove any redundant/stupid/unneeded mods, don't even know what a 'bashed patch' is, use the LOOT in Mod Organizer with no red flags (I had to manually re-order a couple small things), and can confirm it started immediately after finishing my first session on a new character.

Again, all the 'high-res' mods have had their textures reduced to be 1024^2 maximum, so it's really just a cleaner, better-looking version of Bethesda's HD pack. I don't add things like SMIM because framerate. The only thing keeping my framerate down to 50 in common places in the crazy-good ENB preset I found; Skyrim, to me, can run ad sub-60 to a degree. 70% of combat is in 60fps indoorss. But yeah, most other games I don't let it drop below 60 no matter what.

I somehow ran out of memory at defaultHeapInitialAllocMB=850 (most intensive in-game area) so I bumped it up to a gig just to make sure I never run out again. I told myself it's safe. Has worked fine.

Sound mods? Like, replacing the cheesy sound effects with better ones? Not sure how that would cause bloating where mods with heavy custom voice acting wouldn't.

I just can't get over how, after my first session with the character, the time to save grew by over 20 seconds. I literally was having nice, 1 second saves, then logged off for the night to go to sleep. Woke up the next day, booted my pc, and went straight into the game without touching anything else to find a ridiculously slow save system.

The script thing seems like it'd be good to look into, and I've always wanted to do that, but I really don't want to mess around with convenient horses since I already have a couple small mods that touch the same area.

Edited March 11, 2016 by FierySwordswoman

Rooker75 · March 11, 2016

Definitely sounds like save file bloat. Disable this plugin ( +XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended ), delete the skse co-save (back it up first) and see if it helps. I had this exact problem a few months ago and it turned out to be the plugin the xp32 skeleton installs by default. It was saving tens of megabytes of rubbish to the save files related to mods I don't use anyway.

FierySwordswoman · March 11, 2016

Script latency test in a village with 30 ish people: 48ms average across multiple tests at various locations. ~About 10% slower than other people's, but they may not have taken the test in a semi-busy spot.

On 3/11/2016 at 11:16 PM, Rooker75 said:
Definitely sounds like save file bloat. Disable this plugin ( +XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended ), delete the skse co-save (back it up first) and see if it helps. I had this exact problem a few months ago and it turned out to be the plugin the xp32 skeleton installs by default. It was saving tens of megabytes of rubbish to the save files related to mods I don't use anyway.

Well, removing XPMSE will break a LOT of things. And you make it sound like it should be making my save file a lot larger than what it is. Right now, it's 11 megabytes, compared to a vanilla 9-10 ish megabytes. Not very 'bloated'. Also, the save file has only grown 0.4mb since it was taking 1 second to save versus 25 seconds. Probably from all the things I did in Markarth. Edited March 11, 2016 by FierySwordswoman

Rooker75 · March 11, 2016

On 3/11/2016 at 11:38 PM, FierySwordswoman said:
Script latency test in a village with 30 ish people: 48ms average across multiple tests at various locations. ~About 10% slower than other people's, but they may not have taken the test in a semi-busy spot.

On 3/11/2016 at 11:16 PM, Rooker75 said:
Definitely sounds like save file bloat. Disable this plugin ( +XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended ), delete the skse co-save (back it up first) and see if it helps. I had this exact problem a few months ago and it turned out to be the plugin the xp32 skeleton installs by default. It was saving tens of megabytes of rubbish to the save files related to mods I don't use anyway.
Well, removing XPMSE will break a LOT of things. And you make it sound like it should be making my save file a lot larger than what it is. Right now, it's 11 megabytes, compared to a vanilla 9-10 ish megabytes. Not very 'bloated'. Also, the save file has only grown 0.4mb since it was taking 1 second to save versus 25 seconds. Probably from all the things I did in Markarth.

No, you're right. 11MB is nothing. I think mine were 30 - 50MB or something. It's still worth testing though, just to see if that's what it is.

Note that I'm talking about disabling just the plugin, not the skeleton itself. The plugin is mainly just an MCM menu. I don't know if it's interacting with the dual wield mod you're using, but it's probably nothing vital. Back up your saves, disable it and see if your issue goes away. If not, just restore everything and no harm done.

TonyOQuinn · March 12, 2016

You wouldn't happened to have been on a rampage recently, maybe a quest binge through several dungeons leaving lots of ash piles and corpses laying around? You can see if it's something like by resting for 24 hours, save the game and check if you save games faster.

Yeah, you don't want to remove XPMSE with UNP and FNIS. At best some NPC's will do nothing in a t-pose, more likely everyone's navel will come unscrewed allowing their legs to fall off.

Edit: Will now I'm curious so I tested disabling XPMSE from my UNP-FNIS profile. It loads my last save fine after the "bwar-rar! missing plugin!" warning, npc's were standing in t-pose (dang, legs did not fall off). Saved my game, re-enabled XMPSE, load the game and save again. My saves are the same, all three about 10.4 MB in size.

Edited March 12, 2016 by Tony_OQuinn

FierySwordswoman · March 12, 2016

Uh...... So because I use Mod Organizer, I created a new profile with no mods except the ones installed to my skyrim's root (SKSE and ENB) and decided to create a new game. Saved and closed at Helgen just to check how small save files could possibly get because I'm self-conscious about mine. I then deleted the test profile, loaded the default, and went back in-game to my proper save, only to find it saving in 1 second again. I fast-traveled to a few different major holds (except Markarth because I always end up murdering the guards trying to arrest me for something Eltrys did) and saved again. 1 second.

I've not saved the game since yesterday, so it couldn't have been the plugin change; because, to my save file, it never even happened.... right?

On 3/12/2016 at 12:13 AM, Tony_OQuinn said:
You wouldn't happened to have been on a rampage recently, maybe a quest binge through several dungeons leaving lots of ash piles and corpses laying around? You can see if it's something like by resting for 24 hours, save the game and check if you save games faster.

Yeah, you don't want to remove XPMSE with UNP and FNIS. At best some NPC's will do nothing in a t-pose, more likely everyone's navel will come unscrewed allowing their legs to fall off.

You may be onto something. Especially considering the experience I just had^. Skyrim is the most 'binge-y' of my games, as in, I even leave it open with my person sitting in an inn if I'm afk. It runs for a quarter to half an entire day at a time.
Buggy 2nd Session Details: Since I'm an aspiring Succubus mage, I raid every bandit fort I come across. I also, in that same session, traveled across the continent checking about 15 nordic ruins looking for Linen Wrap to make some Nightwinder mage armor. I also murdered like 20 people in markarth because I wanted Eltrys' money. I ALSO have a few 'Random Encounter' mods, so I come across people trying to kill me more often; Where you would encounter that creepy Khajiit wanderer, I encounter a 10v10 between bandits and Imperials, or a war skirmish, etc. My load times were never more than 2 seconds, usually instant, so I assumed everything was fine. Above all that, one of my better healing spells turns the corpses of my victims into ash piles, giving my a % of their negative health; I turn 1-5 of the 15 battle corpses into health. Lots of other huge events happened, but I've typed enough already.

The only thing is, my game crashed once during the Dibella's Sybil quest. I noticed the entire dungeon was still having the lags after a game restart. This makes the first paragraph of this post that much weirder.

I'll probably do a 3rd session today. I'll set the sleep menu to 48 hours instead of 24, so if things start save-lagging I'll do the 24 'resetting' hours+however much to get me to 8 or 9 am.

If that somehow is the 2-step magic solution, I'll let you know.

On 3/11/2016 at 11:47 PM, Rooker75 said:
No, you're right. 11MB is nothing. I think mine were 30 - 50MB or something. It's still worth testing though, just to see if that's what it is.

Note that I'm talking about disabling just the plugin, not the skeleton itself. The plugin is mainly just an MCM menu. I don't know if it's interacting with the dual wield mod you're using, but it's probably nothing vital. Back up your saves, disable it and see if your issue goes away. If not, just restore everything and no harm done.

The ESP File? Doesn't that have the Racemenu&MCM&stuff? I kinda use those for FNIS animations...
I also use the Racemenu plugin to edit individual body pieces, like thighs or something.

The dual wield mod doesn't use any custom animations. What it does is allow you to block as if your left hand were holding a torch when it's actually holding a weapon. Multiple configs, the one I chose being right-click to block, left click will randomly use left or right hands while dual wielding. This is necessary since Perkus Maximus uses a lot more timed-blocks in combat.

I think my largest ever save was 17 megabytes. I completed all of one of the DLC's, Wyrmstooth, explored most things, was level 35 or something, completed various other mod quests, etc.

Edited March 12, 2016 by FierySwordswoman

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Skyrim: Taking FOREVER to Save

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