Mods With Scripts, What does too much look like?

[Khugan]

Hi guys, I'm in the middle of re-installing Skyrim for another play-through and I'm looking for sound advise on judging scripted mods. I have a grasp on textures when it relates to memory use, and there are tools to monitor the ram used. I now have a stable set of mods that I've trimmed the fat from so to speak, but when it comes to mods that run scripts, I don't even know where to begin.

 

The only thing I know about these mods is that you can't remove them without trashing your save game. What I would like to know is... well it's a few questions:

 

1. Is there a tool to monitor and measure resources used by scripts and is there some threshold you shouldn't cross?

 

2. How can I know which of two given mods is script heavy and script light? (Perhaps the number of scripts it contains?)

 

3. Is there a way to tell a script that runs alot from one that is simply there to function within MCM?

 

I realize a mod like Frost Fall will be heavy, but I don't know how to compare it with other mods for example, I would think that the mod Shooting Stars would be quite light and perhaps Foot Prints and Wet and Cold would be some where in between. I am just looking for some frame of reference for script weight.

 

Thanks for reading. 

Khugan

 

[Saerileth]

The amount of scripts a mod contains is not necessarily an indicator for how heavy it is on your game. The reason for this is that most issues only arise from too many scripts running at the same time, so a mod that has many short scripts that are only called once in a while (and terminate again) is much less of a problem than a mod with one large script that is called all the time, doesn't terminate or instantiates multiple copies of itself. Without scanning the actual contents of the scripts, there's really no way to tell. If you decide to do that, one thing to look for the RegisterForUpdate(X) function, it causes periodic updates every X seconds. By itself this is not much of a problem, but if too many mods do this simultaneously the script engine will begin to lag behind and become unstable.

 

This is assuming you even have access to the source scripts and they aren't packed away inside a bsa-archive. Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, you'd probably be better off asking the author of the mod in question.

 

Monitoring preformance of the script engine ingame is an entirely different matter. Convenient Horses comes with a handy Script Latency test in it's MCM menu, complete with instructions on how to use it. It measures response time, so low values are good and higher is slower (inverse to how FPS work). If memory serves, the average should be around 50 and shouldn't rise above 100, but I might be mistaken. Best try it out on an otherwise vanilla game first, then compare to your current modlist.

 

Many other mods have adapted this script as well, I know Sands of Time has it and Frostfall internally monitors script performance (it prints warning messages if latency gets too high). I don't know if there is a standalone version of it though, Convenient Horses is one of the constants in my modlist so I always use that. Also note that this will not help you figure out which mod is causing script lags, it will only tell you how much weight there is on your script engine overall.

[Khugan]

Thanks very much Saerileth for the understandable explanation. I guess I will rely on Frostfall's reporting and do a lot of play testing, but I think much of what I want to know will remain a mystery.