[LE] Uncompressed BSA size limit ?

[maxarturo]

Hi everyone.

 

I've been researching this for quite some time, looking all over the web and i can not find an official answer or at least a definitive valid one anywhere on the 'Uncompressed BSA limit'.

The answers that i've found are:

- 1.68 GB

- 1.8 GB

- 2.0 GB

- 2.176 GB

- 2.5 GB

I definitely know that the game can stably handle a 2.0 GB BSA, well to be precise 1.972 GB, and here is my issue:

I have a few things left to add to the mod to officially declare it as "Finished", but those assets require the minimum of 90 mb and the ideal would be around +- 200 mb.

But i don't want to risk the stability that the mod has right now by exceeding the 'Uncompressed BSA Limit', the mod is stable as hell !.

I won't even start working on those assets if i don't find a definite valid answer on the BSA limit, way too much work just to end up removing them from the BSA.

* I've played in the past mods that exceed 2 GB BSA, but i don't know if that was the reason of some ctds i encountered back then, since i was just playing and not testing.

* This is one of those times that i really, REALLY need any info from anyone that might even have a hunch.

Many... many thanks in advance !.

Edited September 5, 2020 by maxarturo

[IsharaMeradin]

My only "hunch" is to never exceed the size of the largest Bethesda provided BSA. I have no idea if they are compressed or not.

 

You could look at the files you are packing and see if any of them can be avoided. If you are including the PSC files, consider packing them as a separate loose file download. They are not needed by the game itself and thus most users will not need them. But they'd still be available for those wanting to see how you achieved something or make their own adjustments locally. It may or may not free up enough space in your BSA, but it would be a start.

[maxarturo]

Hi IsharaMeradin.

All Bethesda bsa are uncompressed and the biggest as you might already know, is Dragonborn.bsa 1.67 GB, to be more precise: 1.803 GB.

With the exception of "HighResTexturePack", i think those are compressed.

- I've already optimize the mod's size by not adding PSC.

- Removed / deleted any assets that ended up not being used.

- Reduced the length of a lot of the WAVs without compressing the wav to avoid issues.

- I've edited a lot of meshe's UV map so that they can use 1 common texture with other meshes and deleted their original textures.

- Remove / Deleted all new music, this is actually something that i would do anyway, since the music functions are so 'buggy'.

- Removed / Deleted some 'Parallax' textures from meshes that the player is too far to actually see the 'Parallax'.

- And the most important i reduce all textures from 70% 4K - 30% 2K (which were the original size of all textures) > to > 20% 2K - 70% 1K - 10% 1/2K.

* I've reached the limit of optimizing the size of the mod's assets.

"It may or may not free up enough space in your BSA"

I've cut down every single kb i could possible cut to make more space to be able to publish the mod in the state it's now.

1.972.193 kb

If no one else gives me a possible valid answer, i think i have hitted a solid wall !.

Thank you very much Ishara !.

Edited September 5, 2020 by maxarturo

[agerweb]

I have always worked on the 2 GB principle; but whose principle it is, I have no idea! I also tend to put only put meshes and textures in a BSA, everything else I keep as loose files. Mostly because any updates to a mod are likely to involve fiddling with these loose files rather than meshes or textures; uploading a 2GB bsa when you have just updated a script or added some dialogue is little tedious.

 

Also if all else fails don't use a bsa, as vitually everybody uses mod managers, it doesn't matter to them whether it's all loose files or a bsa.

[maxarturo]

Thanks agerweb.

I find it kind of suspicious that something so vital as the "BSA size limit" is not officially mention anywhere !.

I did a small experiment yesterday:

1) I added to the mod's assets some extra textures, meshes, wavs, just to grow the size of the BSA, i grew it up to 2.25GB and i packed it.

2) I did not experience the immediate CTD cause by a BSA bigger than 2GB, that i read in so many posts.

3) I did not experience any CTDs or any issues whatsoever while testing the bsa and going in and out from and to the mod's heaviests cells.

4) BUT THEN IT HIT ME !!.

None of those extra added assets are actually used by the mod / game, they are not assigned anywhere, they are just ghost assets !, so the game does not have to search for them in the BSA, and the actually usable assets still remain to be 1.972 GB.

At this point i don't know what to do...

From the beginning i wanted to have everything nice and tight into a BSA to avoid the chaos and the possibility of errors that can be created by mod managers while installing mods with huge folder structures and files ( "Loose File" version ).

And to make the mod into a "Loose File" version just for 90mb to 200mb (more or less), makes me consider to not even add those final assets !, and leave it as it is...

After all they are just:

- 1 armor

- 2 extra equipments that goes along side with the armor, but they can still function without the armor.

- 1 sword replacer for the "Main Boss"

- 1 bow

- 1 special arrow

- 1 spell

- 1 delete / recycling container to be added to the 4 'possible player's houses'

Thank you for your interest !.

Edited September 6, 2020 by maxarturo

[VulcanTourist]

If there's a limit to the SIZE of a BSA, it's not going to be some arbitrary value like all of the ones you initially postulated. It will be based on some pragmatic limit imposed by the way the BSA parsing system was implemented, meaning that it will be some "even" binary number, like 2048 or 4096 GB.

 

Have you considered that "size may not matter" and that the real limit might be the count of the files inside the BSA?

[maxarturo]

@ VulcanTourist

The posted values are from other posts on web that i've found while researching, not my definition of the size of the BSA.

"Have you considered that "size may not matter" and that the real limit might be the count of the files inside the BSA?"

Yes, but not even that is posted anywhere, not at least as an valid official statement.

[NexusComa2]

I think your confusion over all the different answers is that it changed at some point. A few years in the size limit was raised.

[NexBeth]

Some mods pack 2 BSAs, one for Textures (mod - Textures.bsa), and the other for everything else. I'm not sure how to save a file that has - Textures, because I've tried doing it to pack an exclusive texture file and it fails. Perhaps the file name needs to be changed once you have the BSA?

 

Also, is there a reason not to compress a BSA?

[IsharaMeradin]

Some mods pack 2 BSAs, one for Textures (mod - Textures.bsa), and the other for everything else. I'm not sure how to save a file that has - Textures, because I've tried doing it to pack an exclusive texture file and it fails. Perhaps the file name needs to be changed once you have the BSA?

 

Also, is there a reason not to compress a BSA?

1. If creating the bsa manually, the file name would need to be changed afterwards.

2. Skyrim Special Edition can utilize the textures.bsa. Original Skyrim cannot.