Can something be done about gamebloat?

[dementia5]

Big block of text ahead.

 

This is a popular topic that from all appearances has plagued a great many number of Skyrim players. Is there a solution to be had?

 

For several days I have tried to reduce the size of my gamesave to normalcy, currently at 90 MB. I'm not even convinced the culprit are the 50 mods that I have installed, as others have reported similar symptoms with little or no mods installed, and the ones listed aren't even script mods. Either way, the lag I'm experiencing is consistent and aggravating (about 4 seconds every minute) and at this rate I'll be at several hundred MB of data by main quest completion, assuming a gamesave file this size won't become corrupted in the process.

 

I understand that these are (likely) symptoms of empty (NULL) variable entries in the gamesave file, which I suppose I have no hope of ever being rid of, short of manual table deletion and, from what I gather, checksum modification. Or, the problem is something else entirely; Bethesda is often blamed for writing code that is unforgiving in saving objects and their placement as the game progresses.

 

And I can accept that I might have improperly uninstalled a mod from NMM or the Steam Workshop. Or it could be that as objects get moved around, data gets stored for 10 - 30 days, whatever we believe... but in the end my gamesave is increasing at a rate of about 1 MB every 5 minutes it seems.

 

If anyone has ANY suggestions, please bear them out. What I think we all need is something like BASH for Oblivion, this had a gamesave de-bloater... if anyone is privy to a utility, or its production, that can reduce the clutter of a gamesave file like BASH, please announce it and I promise to wait patiently for such a mod to come to fruition. I'd do it myself; I have some coding experience, but this is beyond my powers of healing. If it weren't, I would make it my #1 priority and post it in the Skyrim Nexus, you betcha.

 

Here is what I have attempted so far:

 

• 
   
  
• installed/uninstalled possessive corpses no more lazy zombies... no identifiable change
  
• modified the plugins.tx file (the way WETTriggerScript intends) and ensured one "skyrim.esm" exists at header of file... no identifiable change
  
• unchecked all mods, loaded, waited 24 hours, 1 week and 30 days (the latter setting timescale to 3000 and/or globaltimemultiplier to 100) on separate attempts... worked the first time on an older save by about 25%, but having since accrued more data, no further change
  
• moved the scripts folder to desktop, loaded, noticed that animations and other scripted events remained, saved... no identifiable change
  
• shutoff autosave and deleted all saves but primary... no identifiable change
  
• loaded a popular "bloat-candidate" mod (based on internet posts, possible from this forum), deleted all script entries and recompiled the script of the (potentially) problem esp file, loaded through NMM... no identifiable change
  

 

and performed some diagnostics with the help of GameSaveScanner and Papyrus logging... I'm seeing repeated notices for critter.psc and firefly.psc and vm freezes every 40 seconds.

 

What's unfortunate for me is that otherwise the game is SOLID... I used to have CTD issues like everyone else, crippled fast travel, falling through the floor, etc... but with clever reorganizing of mods and ini tweaks, I haven;t had a crash in weeks (say 20 hours of gameplay) with healthy framerates (20 - 50 fps on a modest gaming machine). Maybe it's a trade-off? :rolleyes: But then there is the lag, which is a new problem. A problem that is getting more and more attention in the forums, but like the NavMesh bug, doesn't seem to be a priority with Bethesda now.

 

Again, I'm sure the lags are due to the missing mod entries in the save, but right now I just want to fix the gamesave file size... I just can't continue to invest more and more time into troubleshooting, when I "should" be playing more :wallbash: after investing 80 hours into Skyrim, it slowly becomes a part of you. But I'm beginning to think that restarting is the only solution, or if even that would work.

 

This went on longer than I expected, but it was actually kind of therapeutic, so thanks from all sides... Any help is appreciated, and if I come across anything or figure it on my own I will certainly publish it here.

Edited May 10, 2012 by dementia5

[Tidus44]

I have found that I needed to do two things to reduce game save bloat. Delete all saves (or move them out of the save file and into another folder) except the last 10 saves (I do this after a few hours of play before I start playing again) and use a mod that resets the cell when your PC leaves. At 184 hours total play time, my save game file size is just over 9 megs.

 

Additionally, never, ever, ever, ever use quicksave.

[pegginton]

I am finding that removing the scripts folder slows down the game save bloat. I noticed after a 4 hour playing session last night, with no scripts folder, my save game had actually reduced by a couple of MB compared to the size when I started the session. Looking at my saves over the last 2 weeks there is no save game smaller than the previous until I removed the scripts folder.

[dementia5]

@pegginton

 

This tells me that the scripts need to be activated once, then it becomes part of your gamesave for eternity. I, too, have moved the scripts folder away to have no discernibly ill effects during gameplay, with all the script functionality held intact. Doesn't seem reasonable, but there it is.

 

@Tidus44

 

I am willing to give this mod (Marts Savegame De-Bloatifier) a go, but I thought it was just for arrows, nirnroots and ashes? I don't think the excess bytes of data can be traced back to these objects in their entirety, but I like the idea of a cell reset upon exit. I'll give it a go.

[dementia5]

No real progress in reduction, but by elimination, I believe I have isolated the source of the scripting issues down to a single mod: Dynavision. Which is too bad, because it looks really nice and it has a lot of power.

 

I contacted the author, who was helpful, but lamented that the way Bethesda handles gamesaves in that any defunct (uninstalled) scripts lie dormant in the file, and in some cases fail to time-out, essentially. Sounds about right, I've heard this before. Wish I knew how to scrape out the unwanted scripts, as I think that would do it. Why isn't there a utility for this?

 

I read that tinkering with the placeatme command will clutter the game world hopelessly, which also makes sense. Why can't I just reset all objects to their original position through the console by cell? Man, I don't want go back 10 levels to a save loaded before the mod was introduced.

[tonicmole]

Yep....Having a similar problem. Actually the exact problem. After checking my papyrus log It was mainly full of dragonflycritter.psc, and critters.psc references. Those are the #1 things crippling my game. I did find a few other references that were caused by mixed up load order which reduced the speed of my bloating, but not in a way that helps. Currently my save had bloated to 100 Mb, and while testing quickly leaped to 200Mb. I reverted to a slightly older save that was at 20Mb and am trying to fix it.

 

Now, I've gone through all the normal steps at repairing my game, like reinstalling, waiting for 30 days, and though that brought my bloat down, it didn't last. Originally I assumed my save had retained too many old scripts, problem is this wasn't gradual bloat. My saves over months had slowly grown to 10-12 Mb, then jumped to 24, then 70, and jumped over 100 in just a couple of saves. Old saves seem to be effected by the bloat as well, pointing away from the saves themselves, and more towards load order. I have fixed a few load order issues, and have reduced the speed of the bloat, but still see a 5-9 Mb increase with each save, and the critters.psc errors in the papyrus log. Fishing in Skyrim, seems to be a likely possibility, considering immediately after installing the bloat began, and it changes fish spawns. Not that there is something wrong with the mod in any way, but it seems to be conflicting with something else. I'll continue to post my findings.

 

Personally, I have no intention of restarting Skyrim. It ain't gonna happen. I'll either fix this problem or finish playing Fallout: New Vegas finally.

 

Skyrim Save play time: 324 hours.....yeah, I know.

I'll post a load order later.....it takes time.

[Dan3345]

I contacted the author, who was helpful, but lamented that the way Bethesda handles gamesaves in that any defunct (uninstalled) scripts lie dormant in the file, and in some cases fail to time-out, essentially. Sounds about right, I've heard this before. Wish I knew how to scrape out the unwanted scripts, as I think that would do it. Why isn't there a utility for this?

 

This is true, and removing the individual scripts from a corrupt save (technically any save with any sort of scripts attached is corrupt) is next to impossible. I suppose a program like wrye bash could come along which could enable the user to do more than just remove save attachments to mods, but it would be extremely difficult.

 

Personally I would just prefer bethesda get off the creation engine, and even further lets stop beating around the bush and call this "new" engine what it is, the gamebryo engine.