LE Making cities have less loading screens

[Majorshepard]

Hi guys,

 

I recently came across a mod Called "Open cities Skyrim" I gave it a try and it was good. The only problem was that it seriously slowed down my PC. NPC's took ages to load, my character would freeze on the spot, well the whole world would but npc's could still attack me. And I thought of a way to kinda use the same principles that the mod had, having less loading screens.

 

I can think of one way that this can happen. Someone has to make a mod that keeps the City loading screen when you enter but gets rid of the seperate building loading screens. For example when you enter a blacksmiths it should go straight into a blacksmiths not a loading screen so it enters a world seperate from the main game. When you open a door it opens the whole way and you can enter the room without loading a new area, because it is already pre loaded. I don't understand the fetish Bethesda has for making small areas seperate from the game. It is both time consuming and pointless when the room is only 4 metres long 3 metres wide, looking at you shops and inns. Can someone please make a mod that makes all buildings in cities a part of the city so we don't have to watch a 10 mintue loading screen for a 12 second search in a room. I know it maybe hard to do but I trust someone somewhere can do it, and do it well :D

 

Thx for reading and please comment if this is a good idea or not.

[bben46]

Not really a good idea. It would be great if they could do that, and I'm sure Bethesda would have done it if it were practical.

 

Here is more info than you probably wanted. :biggrin:

 

Your computer memory can only hold a certain amount of information. Ram is still limited to 4GB max for the game IF you have a 64 bit operating system. Much less if you have a 32 bit. The reason for the 4gb limit is the game is a 32 bit program and can only 'see' up to 4GB of ram. Any ram over that on a 64 bit system is used for the operating system and any background processes that are running. A 32 bit operating system can only use a max of 4g ram. And some of that is used in running the computer, the operating system and background processes - leaving around 3g possible for the game when using a 32 bit windows.

 

When they start making games for 64 bit and don't have to be backwards compatible with 32 bit systems we will see a dramatic increase in the amount of ram that can be used by the games. A 32 bit game can only see a max of about 3.2G of memory - then subtract the memory used by the operating system and anything in the background. A current generation Win7 professional 64 bit can see up to 192G of ram, (theoretical is a lot more -16 exabytes - but the current 64 bit Windows is still limited). And you will still be limited to what your video board can display - current max is about 8G for very high priced video boards and around 1 or 2G for most.

 

Outside of cities and interiors, the world is constantly being updated by loading and purging blocks of the world around you. As you move forward it loads blocks ahead of and to each side of you while purging those blocks behind.

 

The game is very memory intensive. The ram is already loaded down with the data from the world outside the city. The loading screens allow the computer to purge that data and load a lot of new data from the hard drive about the area you are in. The more data it has to swap the longer it takes. The city, and each building interior, is a separate worldspace to help conserve that memory. Then, every time you make a change in a cell, that change must be accounted for before that cell is purged.

 

A loading screen gives you something to look at while the computer is busy loading all of the data for the new worldspace.

 

Open cities removes that purge when you enter a city and just piles in more data on the fly treating the city just like the outside worldspace, forcing the computer to take up processing time to constantly access the hard drive to add and remove data. Then adding in 'open buildings' would add them to the same already overcrowded world space. My guess is that the number of crashes from running out of ram memory would jump dramatically as your fps dropped like a rock. and adding in constant pauses when it had to swap data too quickly.

[Majorshepard]

I meant in my post that we keep the loading screens for the cities. Make them still have the entire loading screen when you enter and exit it, just make the buildings apart of that seperate worldspace. But I do see your point. My computer has 4gb of memory and has Windows 7 ultimate 64bit. And it still suffers from lag sometimes. If this would add more to that then maybe it isn't worth it. I probably thought it wouldn't create as many problems as it would solve. Thanks for the informative post :D