Moving .bsa Files To Ramdisk

[FiftyTifty]

Thought I'd share this golden nugget of info; it allows you to alleviate a significant portion of the cell-loading hitches.

 

Edit: If you have Mod Organizer:

1. 
   Install Link Shell Extension.


2. 
   Copy-paste the mod folders (E.g, "ModOrganizer\mods\Robco Certified") onto the RAMDisk. You can make mod folders for the vanilla .bsa and .esm files.


3. 
   Right-click the pasted folders -> "Pick Link Source"


4. 
   Go to "ModOrganizer\mods"


5. 
   Right-click empty space -> "Drop As..." -> "Junction"

You're done. No need to edit ini files, and so long as you don't change the RAMDisk drive's letter and paste the folders in the same place, you won't need to recreate the junctions.

 

If you don't have Mod Organizer:

 

1. 
   Install your favoured RAMDisk software (SoftPerfect RAM Disk is a good free 'un).


2. 
   Backup the .bsa files which you will move to the RAM Disk (I placed mine in Fallout New Vegas\BSABak).


3. 
   Copy-paste the .bsa files to your RAM Disk.


4. 
   Open Fallout.ini


5. 
   Edit "SArchiveList=" appropriately, so as to compensate for the moved files.

For example:

"SArchiveList=Fallout - Misc.bsa, Fallout - Textures.bsa, Fallout - Textures2.bsa, Fallout - Meshes.bsa, Fallout - Voices1.bsa, Wallout - Sound.bsa, Fallout3 - Meshes.bsa, Fallout3 - Sound.bsa"

Becomes:

"SArchiveList=Fallout - Misc.bsa, Fallout - Textures.bsa, W:\Fallout - Textures2.bsa, W:\Fallout - Meshes.bsa, Fallout - Voices1.bsa, W:\Fallout - Sound.bsa, W:\Fallout3 - Meshes.bsa, W:\Fallout3 - Sound.bsa"

Where "W:\" is the location of the Ram Disk. I placed my BSA files in the root of my Ram Disk, but if you want to place them in a folder, you just need to add that in. Por Ejemplo: "W:\My Folder of Doom\Subfolder of Power\Fallout - Textures.bsa"

 

A caveat is that at shutdown, unless you don't mind waiting for several minutes at both shutdown and boot, is that the Ram Disk is cleared of it's contents. Due to RAM's super fast transfer speeds, however, it would save you a butt-load of time to just copy the .bsa files back into the RAM Disk; rather than saving an image to your HDD at shutdown and then loading it back into the Ram Disk at boot.

 

This has reduced the cell loading hitches, that used to literally stop the game for a second or so, into the occasional stutter. If I had more RAM to spare (my Ram Disk was 4GB), I'm pretty certain that there would be no hitches.

[JaxFirehart]

That is quite awesome.

Just a note: SArchiveList= has a 255 character limit, so putting all of your BSAs in "W:\My Folder of Doom\Subfolder of Power\" will have serious issues with that limit.

 

Have you tried using hardlinks or symbolic links with this?

Do you have an SSD to test the difference between Ram Disk and SSD?

I'm really curious about all this...

[FiftyTifty]

I don't have an SSD, otherwise I'd be using it :P Tho', I'd wager that there would be a significant difference even with a Sata III motherboard and SSD. Because RAM is just so much faster than flash.

I initially tried symbolic links (hard links aren't cross-volume, though you might be able to merge it with your HDD. That could lead to some major headaches such as the HDD corrupting at shutdown), but they had a whole load of issues. When I used symlinks with the meshes.bsa files, half of all the meshes in interiors showed up as exclamation marks, with various exterior models missing.

Doing it with the texture.bsa files caused crashes as soon as the game loaded in an exterior.

 

About the character limit, the .bsa files could always be renamed to compensate for it. Or just don't bother with folders; place the .bsa files in the root of the Ram Disk as I have.

Edit: I'll just add that Skyrim works fine with symbolic links. Dunno what could have changed in the engine.

[JaxFirehart]

Thanks for this Majin. I am setting it up now. I have an SSD so I already get awesome load times. I'll see what RAM disk will do for me. 16GB RAM, so hopefully I can load 8GB and be set

[FiftyTifty]

Notice any difference after setting up the Ram Disk?

[rockitten]

My experience is: yes, it does helps a little bit (especially on loading the game), but the major bottle neck is the game engine itself, especially when you have lots of mods and/or lots of stuff in your inventory.....

So, consider the pricey SSD does have limited read&write life, and gaming requires lots of that..... I would say it probably doesn't worth it.

[JaxFirehart]

I haven't had a chance to actually play the game since setting up RAM disk, so I'm not sure what performance boost I will get on RAM disk over SSD.

Rockitten: Your information is out of date. SSDs do have limited Read/Write, but the limit is so high as to not be an issue. I tested mine with a few different softwares after using it for a year and they all agreed that, based on current usage, my SSD will die in the next 15-20 years. I'm okay with that lifespan considering that I used it hard this past year. My OS is on it and any games I am actively playing are on it. And performance on most games is very noticeably better, including Fallout New Vegas.

[rockitten]

[quote=MajinCry]

 

Notice any difference after setting up the Ram Disk?

[/quote]

It works great, the lagging which even pcb command cannot help shown up much later (from 30 minutes to 3 hours), I will say it is a must for anyone with 16G ram or above. Just spare 8G for the game and 8G for the ram disk. 

[FiftyTifty]

You don't even need 16GB to see a difference (though more RAM == better in this scenario); just fit whatever you can spare in the RAM Disk. I've got 8GBs of RAM, so my RAM Disk is 3.6GB in size.

 

Good to know that it isn't a placebo effect!

[rockitten]

I am placing Fallout - Misc.bsa, Fallout - Textures.bsa, Fallout - Textures2.bsa, Fallout - Meshes.bsa, Fallout - Voices1.bsa, Fallout - Sound.bsa into the ram disk (5G) on the ram disk atm, 

One file, called Fallout - AII-FNV!.bsa is mentioned in the ini file but I can't find it, just wonder where it is?

Just want to know, what need to be change if I put those Fallout3 bsa files into ram disk as well?



But again, thank for the advice, this method has such a performance boost that it becomes an essential just like the 4G launcher (I did modify the ini to allocate all 16G to the game, but the performance boost is no where comparable to yours).

Now, I wonder what will the game becomes if I have 64G of ram, and put the WHOLE GAME into the RAM drive.............