As of 2017, is it still needed to clean Bethesda master files?

[lofgren]

I think Bethesda games have a reputation for being unstable because people with unstable setups go on forums like this and complain about them, but people like me have very little reason to go online and brag about how we almost never get CTDs. Pretty much every game has forums full of people complaining about how buggy they are, and due to modding Elder Scrolls games have more sources of potential instability than most.

 

That, and we're all afraid of jinxing ourselves.

[cdcooley]

The risks from not cleaning your masters is negligible. You will almost certainly not notice a difference either way whether you do it or not. At this point it's mostly a placebo.

It's true that since the DLCs load first (and in a predictable order) the ITM (Identical to Master) records aren't a problem. Any mods loaded later will overwrite them in either case. Even with other mods the only real problem with ITM records is that they are almost always accidental edits so a mod that is loading later could be accidentally and unexpectedly overwriting an intentional change made by some other mod. (Unfortunately that happens far more often than it should which is why cleaning mods has become such a standard recommendation.)

 

But the UDR (Undelete and Disable Reference) step of cleaning is much more important, even for the DLCs. If some mod ever tries to access one of the original game records that the DLCs (or any other mod earlier in the load order) mark as deleted the game will crash. That may be a rare event and certainly depends on exactly which combination of mods you have installed, but it's a lot less work in the long term to simply clean the DLCs than try to diagnose strange game crashes later.

 

Deleted navmeshes are also a problem but since there's no automated way to fix them the realistic option is to wait to see if your game crashes consistently when you try to enter a particular cell and then deal with the problem if you really need to.

 

For for a minimalist approach you can simply load Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, Hearthfires.esm, and Dragonborn.esm into TES5Edit/SSEEdit and use the Undelete and Disable Reference option on each of them. But I highly recommend you do at least that step unless you like diagnosing game crashes.

[cdcooley]

I think Bethesda games have a reputation for being unstable because people with unstable setups go on forums like this and complain about them, but people like me have very little reason to go online and brag about how we almost never get CTDs. Pretty much every game has forums full of people complaining about how buggy they are, and due to modding Elder Scrolls games have more sources of potential instability than most.

 

That, and we're all afraid of jinxing ourselves.

There's quite a bit of truth to that. I also rarely have any problems. In the past I've had crashes because I was trying to use too many mods for my system and from a bad video driver. But those things can't be blamed on Bethesda. Unfortunately I have also had crashes caused by deleted records and deleted navmeshes. And those deletions were from the DLCs so that is Bethesda's fault since they should know better.

[cdcooley]

 

Lol yeah I've followed those extra manual steps too but I'm yet to form an opinion on whether it'll help with stability. BTW, what is your experience on this? More or less stable after cleaning?

Cleaning means a variety of different things. As a general rule the only thing affecting stability of the game are the deleted references.

 

Fixing the ITMs and wild edits is about trying to prevent mods from accidentally overwriting intentional changes by other mods. A good example of that type of problem is the XEZN record in Dawnguard.esm that is overriding an intentional change from Update.esm.

[lofgren]

Chances are also very slim that a modder will be trying to edit the udrs in the dlcs. If you are experiencing crashes there are about a hundred other likelier sources.

[vwmc]

I think Bethesda games have a reputation for being unstable because people with unstable setups go on forums like this and complain about them, but people like me have very little reason to go online and brag about how we almost never get CTDs. Pretty much every game has forums full of people complaining about how buggy they are, and due to modding Elder Scrolls games have more sources of potential instability than most.

 

That, and we're all afraid of jinxing ourselves.

 

First time I played Skyrim was on PS3 a long time ago, and it was pretty bad although there were no mods. After level 40 or so, it would take over a minute on loading screens, and without unofficial patches it would get in bugged state for several quests too. However I do remember it wouldn't CTD at all, which is starting to make more sense now to be related to poor modding practices. Thanks for your input again!

[vwmc]

 

The risks from not cleaning your masters is negligible. You will almost certainly not notice a difference either way whether you do it or not. At this point it's mostly a placebo.

It's true that since the DLCs load first (and in a predictable order) the ITM (Identical to Master) records aren't a problem. Any mods loaded later will overwrite them in either case. Even with other mods the only real problem with ITM records is that they are almost always accidental edits so a mod that is loading later could be accidentally and unexpectedly overwriting an intentional change made by some other mod. (Unfortunately that happens far more often than it should which is why cleaning mods has become such a standard recommendation.)

 

But the UDR (Undelete and Disable Reference) step of cleaning is much more important, even for the DLCs. If some mod ever tries to access one of the original game records that the DLCs (or any other mod earlier in the load order) mark as deleted the game will crash. That may be a rare event and certainly depends on exactly which combination of mods you have installed, but it's a lot less work in the long term to simply clean the DLCs than try to diagnose strange game crashes later.

 

Deleted navmeshes are also a problem but since there's no automated way to fix them the realistic option is to wait to see if your game crashes consistently when you try to enter a particular cell and then deal with the problem if you really need to.

 

For for a minimalist approach you can simply load Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, Hearthfires.esm, and Dragonborn.esm into TES5Edit/SSEEdit and use the Undelete and Disable Reference option on each of them. But I highly recommend you do at least that step unless you like diagnosing game crashes.

 

 

This is really good input- thanks for sharing it. I've been back and forth with clean/dirty master files per different recommendations from people who all play Skyrim on PC for a while and seem to have an opinion about that. Now I'll definitely consider cleaning only UDR as an alternative to all or nothing.

 

Question about ITM- do you know if it affects memory usage to have ITM records? E.g. first records are loaded from Skyrim.esm, and then ITM records are loaded from Update.esm. Any chance that memory was never freed from the first allocation? This is more curiosity as to whether it's garbage collected, or ITM being a mistake on Bethesda side would result in memory leaks like I described.

 

Reading guides and posts about CTD's, it first seemed more like I need several tools and procedures for a stable game, and the more I learn about it I'm realizing some of that stuff seems situational or overkill. Below is what I think makes sense so far, with a few questions. When replying please consider my PC is high end (STRIX 1080) if that makes any difference to these questions.

• xEdit to clean UDR at least
• Bashed patch from Wrye -- even if I don't have mods touching leveled lists, so in Wrye I only see Bethesda plugins in the leveled lists section when building the patch, do I still need a bashed patch in that case?
• Merged plugins within the bashed patch from Wyre -- even if I'm not even close to 255 mods yet, do I still need to merge plugins for any other reason?
• LOOT for sorting but always consulting docs for eventually manual sorting on a per mod basis
• Tweak skse.ini for higher DefaultHeap -- 512 or 768 MB DefaultHeap?
• Extra mods for stability (e.g. Crash fix, ENBoost) - do I need these at all?
• Patience and baby STEPs :smile:

Anything else not listed that you would recommend?

Edited February 9, 2017 by vwmc

[cdcooley]

Skyrim (and other Bethesda games too) follows what we've come to call "The Rule of One" which mean the last thing loaded wins any conflict. ITMs are a source of conflict specifically because as each mod is loaded into memory any records it provides overwrite the previous ones. So no, there's no memory usage issue with ITMs just a (very) slightly slower initial game startup time and a potential source of conflicts.

 

Personally I just load up all of my mods (at once) in xEdit (after using LOOT) then filter for conflict losers and look through the list to make sure everything is getting loaded in a sensible way.

 

Letting Wrye Bash generate a patch and merge things is generally the right thing to do even if not strictly needed.

 

The heap size for skse.ini is system dependent. On my current computer I need 1024 and on my previous system 768 was the right value. Sheson's Memory Blocks Log mod can help you pick the right value (or you can do what I did and start with 768 then increase it until the crashing stops).

 

My old system was so underpowered that ENBoost actually made it slower and my new system is good enough that I have no need for it (because I really don't care for the ENB "improvements" to the game visuals). I also haven't seen a need for Crash Fix although I did use it when trying out Enderal and it worked fine. If you use Crash Fix then you don't have to deal with the SKSE.ini settings because it overrides those.

[vannt93]

The same

[vwmc]

Skyrim (and other Bethesda games too) follows what we've come to call "The Rule of One" which mean the last thing loaded wins any conflict. ITMs are a source of conflict specifically because as each mod is loaded into memory any records it provides overwrite the previous ones. So no, there's no memory usage issue with ITMs just a (very) slightly slower initial game startup time and a potential source of conflicts.

 

Personally I just load up all of my mods (at once) in xEdit (after using LOOT) then filter for conflict losers and look through the list to make sure everything is getting loaded in a sensible way.

 

Letting Wrye Bash generate a patch and merge things is generally the right thing to do even if not strictly needed.

 

The heap size for skse.ini is system dependent. On my current computer I need 1024 and on my previous system 768 was the right value. Sheson's Memory Blocks Log mod can help you pick the right value (or you can do what I did and start with 768 then increase it until the crashing stops).

 

My old system was so underpowered that ENBoost actually made it slower and my new system is good enough that I have no need for it (because I really don't care for the ENB "improvements" to the game visuals). I also haven't seen a need for Crash Fix although I did use it when trying out Enderal and it worked fine. If you use Crash Fix then you don't have to deal with the SKSE.ini settings because it overrides those.

 

Good stuff, thanks cooley- you've helped me clarifying things a lot better.