I am trying to place all my texture files into a single texture file.

I have un-bsa'd the original "Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa" file into a new directory and then copied my entire "Data/Textures" dir into the same directory.

Then I used bsacmd to create a new single bsa file (both in compression and non-compressed) but oblivion has no textures during game time.

Any idea's?

In any case a BSA must not be greater than 2 GB in file size. Maybe you ran into that ceiling?

Otherwise make sure that the filepaths are preserved in your BSA, they should read like in the original obviously.

If still problems, well I suggest scrap the whole idea. What you may want to do though, is to unpack the vanilla - compressed BSA and repack that as an UN-compressed BSA. Uncompressed saves the CPU the un-archiving on the fly.

And always keep your HDD nicely defragged.

Regarding that, do i need to name the un-compressed BSA the same as the original BSA...namely Oblivion - Textures - Compressed? Or can i just call it Oblivion - Textures?

You need to keep it the same (name, that is). There might be options in Oblivion.ini for alternative archive names, but I wouldn't guarantee they'd work, if so...

You'd need to split the file in two if you intend to repack it uncompressed. That means you'll then need to change the archive line in the ini file to reflect the new filenames.

Also, for BSA management, OBMM is a much better tool than bsa commander.

My new bsa file is 1.2gb uncompressed and 700mb in compressed format (major filesize reduction cause of bump map texture replacement) which includes about 50+ mod's.

I have also tried having the new bsa file named something else and added it into the ini file (sArchiveList=....) and completly removed the "Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa" file but no go.

I find it a bit strange that this doesn't work cause I got this to work perfectly on morrowind and that contained a whole lot more files.

Edit...

Didn't realize that OMM had a bsa creator....trying....now.

Ok thanks Breton Paladin.




Even if my repacked un-compressed BSA is 1.93 GB?

Solved.... thanx Arthmoor

Used Oblivion Mod Manager extended's bsa creator.

Translated... bsa commander un-bsa files just fine but packing them is bad....

My uncompressed textures BSA is 2'069'377'573 Bytes in size which I think should still be OK. At least up until now I have not run into sudden "pink places" and stuff... so *cross fingers*. I think the precise ceiling is 2'147'483'648 = 2^31... so *should* be OK.

However splitting it in two would be easy: make two BSA's and name them whatever sensible and write their names in the sArchive section of the Oblivion.ini. Just remember that extra editing if and when you need to (re)create a new .ini file... (what Arthmoor said)

Also reset the file date to the original BSA date, just to be sure...

What type of bump map texture replacement is that? Sorry I'm very illiterate with that stuff but it sounds like a major gain?!? So I'm curious of course. Sorry if it's a dumb question.

I do get the part of how you you unified all textures and repacked them . Just that size reduction I wonder how you achieve that by using which means/ tools... Thanks for enlightening me. :spotted owl:

You can download my mod at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36205 which has inside the "data/textures" all the needed files, just copy them last into the new dir that you gonna create your new bsa file. Leave all the mesh files as that has nothing todo with bump texture removal (read the read for a explanation).

Basically every texture has a sister bump texture file (*_n.dds) which as the name says a bump texture which help the engine determine shadows within textures.

For low-end spec to mid range specs the visual difference is pretty much non visible but the processing power is a huge drain and whats worse in most cases the equivalent bump texture file is bigger, sometimes up to 5 times bigger (not sure how).

With the bump texture replacement, it will also speed up load time aswell.

Worth noting that removing all the normal maps is an extreme thing to do and should only be done on lower end machines where using the small size textures via the game's internal menu is not enough.

Will do, thanks Tommy_H.

Its not removing bump texturing, its replacing them (There is no problem that can or will occur from it), for what ever reason oblivion is about the only 3d game in the world that doesn't have that option build in.

I would recommend though that it might be a good idea to not remove the bump texturing for your character as it is a little to noticable but as far as everything else is concerned, you would be hard pressed to notice a difference but this is usually not a problem as I would guess most people would use a 3rd party body.

Ok Batman, thanks for explaining it. I think though my CPU and GPU is good enough to handle the vanilla textures. I don't think it is necessary for me to replace the bump maps. But once again thanks for clarifying! :thumbsup:

I don't recall ever seeing an option in any other 3D game I've played to disable this either. Either in their ini files or in their menus.