Choppman Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 I find it odd that the Steam version of Skyrim comes with all the texture, sound, etc files compressed into .bsa's making it a pain to decompress, put in the changes, and recompress, from what I have read the Steam version is the only one that comes like this and I was wondering if the game would still run properly if I just decompressed all the .bsa's and left the folders so I didn't have to go through the compressing/decompressing process every time I want to put in a new mod, or if anybody knows an easier way to put in a new mod without that process I would be most appreciative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexxEG Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 (edited) Ehh... Why are you re-compressing? If you just keep the path the same inside the Data folder, it will load that. Also, Oblivion, FO3 and FO:NV all came in .bsa. It's their way of doing things. Edited November 20, 2011 by Alexx378 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choppman Posted November 20, 2011 Author Share Posted November 20, 2011 Thanks man, that's what I wanted to know. When I first downloaded Oblivion it came with open folders I would just drag new meshes and things into. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MShoap13 Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 All versions of the game come with the resources compressed in Bethesda Softworks Archives (.bsa). I personally suggest leaving the vast majority of those resources in the archives for multiple reasons. First of all, it gives you a known working backup of any resources should you install a replacer texture/mesh that turns out to be broken, or conflicts with another mod. Secondly, and this is according to Bethesda, the .bsa archives are supposed to increase the rate at which the game can access and buffer the resources and therefore reduce lag spikes when buffering new cells and decrease the time it takes to load the game. Third, I'm not sure about Fallout or Skyrim, but I know Oblivion had issues from \Data\ file bloat. Essentially, the larger your \Data\ file is, the longer it takes to load an area and potentially, the less stable the game runs. I know they've made vast improvements over Gamebryo since then, but the new Creation Engine really is little more than Gamebryo 2.0 from what I can tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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