Merging mods to increase Performance!
HannahJoYo:
K I'm reading about the problem, which initially sucks, but thanks.
tryguy:
OK, I was going to discuss this implementation issue over at http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php?topic=220.0, but since I have to wait for log-in approval, I say I won't bother.
So, Anach, if you talk to those people in the near future, could you ask them to look into how they're generating the merged packages with the save-as-you-go approach?
What happens on my system is I've got a clothing directory that I merge together. I don't have to merge them together that often; only when I get something new. But right now, it merges to about 240 MB.
The "problem" I have is that to merge these together, I have to choose the save-as-you-go method (or else the program crashes when it runs out of memory), and that's OK because it does successfully make a merged package. But as a result, I get a horrendous amount of temp files created in my AppData/Local/Temp folder. With each file that's added, it puts a copy of the most recently merged file in there and adds to it. And then it moves on, copies that, adds. Copies that, adds. This goes on and on and on until you either run out of packages to merge, or you run out of diskspace.
I tried doing this with my other system, when I only had a 50 GB partition, which most of it spoken for and I was running into errors. That's when I noticed what this program was doing.
Now, since I know its behavior, I carefully watch those files and delete them as they build up. It's not a big issue at the beginning, but at the end, when you're adding packages in the order of kilobytes, and creating copies of 200+ MB on each addition, it soon consumes stupid amounts of diskspace for no reason.
And when the merge has completed, it doesn't even clean up after itself.
So... if you happen to talk to them, could you ask that they manage those files better? I mean, all they need is a copy of the most recent and a working file. But if they want a couple more than that, then fine. But they seriously don't need all of them, since they don't reference them at all, for anything.
OK, that's all I wanted to say. I really like merging all my packages together, and it's pretty easy to do. I'm just about to remerge the clothing package, and I'm going to be spending the next 30-60 minutes monitoring the process. That's why I thought I'd share my thoughts on that. :)
Inge:
According to Peter, those files are not managed directly by s3pe at all. It's something to do presumably with .Net and the OS as a result of some of the functions used. Peter has looked through his code on many occasions trying to deal with this problem, and he says there is nowhere in his code itself that creates these files nor can find out what they are called in order to delete them.
I don't even recommend using the dbc squeezer at all - we added it as a favor to someone who thought it would be a good idea, as it seemed a harmless enough request. To my mind the whole process is just a huge unnecessary hassle. Why don't you use Granthes' launcher? That deals with all the dbc stuff itself - apparently without the unwanted system overhead.
tryguy:
Wow, such a quick response!
I feel a little sheepish. Umm, that's the first time I've heard of Granthe's Launcher. The reason I switched over to merging my packages in the first place was the massive performance increase at load-up. I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere, but merging them brings load times down to "acceptable."
Anyway, I'll go look into that launcer. If it does the same job, I'll switch over. If I see longer loading times, I'll just persevere with the file-monitoring. Like I said, I don't merge that large file very often at all, mostly I'm just merging Hacks packages that get updated on a daily basis.
If you could thank Peter fo the implementation for me, Inge, that would be super. Thanks.
Rushad:
I started using the Custom Launcher some months ago, after using this method for a long time. The launcher creates .package files up to 1 GB in size, and then makes new ones as needed. I'm currently at 4 files (yeah, I go a bit CC crazy) but there's barely any performance hit.
One thing to watch out for is that it actually keeps a backup of every file added, so twice the disk space is used. If you have disk space troubles, it might not be the best option. Otherwise, it works great.
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