Hey all. I hope someone can help me with this.

I've made a mod that I've been testing via a playthrough of the game. I have a save file from when the character was level 1, and my current savegame has the character at level 5.

For the level 1 character, saving the game takes less than a second.
For the level 5 character, saving the game takes about 20-30 seconds.

I disabled each other mod to no effect. Then I kept all my other mods on while I disabled the mod I had made and saving for my level 5 now took less than 1 second. So I determined that my mod was the problem.

But while I was constructing the mod (not this playthrough), I had a level 10 character that can save in less than a second (but without any other mods active).

As I leveled the playthrough character, the saves got longer and longer. Also as I leveled him, the mod changes certain values original to my mod (global variables original to my mod, and the charge of an item original to my mod).

The difference between my level 10 test character and the level 5 playthrough character is how the variables were changed. For test purposes, I changed the values of the level 10 character from the console. But the level 5 character has NPC dialogue result scripts change the values.

Basically, I'm thinking that making numerous changes causes saving to be slower because it has more changes to save.

But really all the changes are done to global variables, quest variables, and charge through the ModObjectCharge function. There isn't any savegame bloating going on, just long save times (which are really aggravating). Are these kinds of changes logged, resulting in longer save times? I doubt it, but I can't think of any other explanation, which is why I'm here.

But now that I think about it, I also have some spells that cast from activators. I use persistent activators and use the MoveTo function rather than any kind of PlaceAtMe construction. However, I don't always have them return to the dummy cell they're usually placed in. Would the constant changing of an activator's location burden the save game with extra information?

Thanks in advance,
Doulos

I can't really tell why your saving time is increasing, but it's not because of moving activators.

Most all settings that are changed during gameplay are stored in a save game.

A save game ALWAYS overrides any new mods unless the change is dynamically performed by the new mod. (like, via a script saying make this game setting equal this now.) So a setting in an old mod you may have disabled later will always override any vanilla values or new mod changes. For example, a weapon changed by a mod and found by the player will be stored in the save game. If you remove that mod, those changes are still in effect since they are in the save game. And any new mod that tries to change that weapon will probably fail since the save game containing the changes is always applied last to your game.

Save Games get bigger because they store ALL the places you have visited. The more places you visit and the more objects that were in those places will make the save game get bigger and bigger. If you visit few places and are just leveling up your character, then the save game will remain small. If you visit a million places and avoid all fights and never level up, you can have a low level character with a huge save game.

This is why I never randomly install mods until I know exactly what they are doing. And I do that by looking at them in the CS to see what changes are performed in the mod. As you can guess, I play with very few mods.

But how many places he has visited have nothing to do with changing globals and weapon charges dynamically, which has by process of elimination already been determined to be at least part of the culprit:



So, there are two varying factors. One is that the level 10 character doesn't have the same LO as the level 5 character. The other is that one is using dialog results and the other is using console commands to effect the changes.

In your shoes, I would be inclined to null those variances by testing the level 10 character with the same LO as the level 5 character. If the level 10 character starts having the same problem as the level 5 character, then you've got a mod conflict of some kind.

Alternately, start the level 5 character again, and this time use console commands instead of dialog result scripts to effect your changes, and see if the problem still persists. If that is the case, then it might be a logical construction problem in your mod, and the long save times might just be an odd symptom of the engine spinning its gears trying to resolve it.



No, it wouldn't. It is still better to move them back to the dummy cell when not in use (particularly if there is a risk they would land in a cell that might not be there later, such as an Oblivion plane or a mod that gets uninstalled), but that isn't likely to be one of your culprits just now.

This is a weird and fun (for us, not you) problem, good luck & let us know what you figure out!

I was browsing the TES CS wiki the other day, I thought I read there that the PlaceAtMe thing does cause savegame bloating...
As for a savegame getting bigger as you play naturally: I have a lvl 39 or 40 char and saving takes just as long as when my char was lvl 1.
I suppose one can assume that in Vanilla Oblivion saving should never take 20-30 seconds, unless your running a PC that really struggles to keep te game running.

Good luck

You can look at your save game files and look at the size of them. Usually, the higher your level, the more places you have visited, the bigger your file gets to be.

I'm on save no. 534 with Aya, with 411 very well-traveled hours played, and my saves are about 6? MB ea. Still, saving only takes a second or two at most. As Orion3000 just pointed out, saving should never take 20-30 seconds unless something is direly wrong.

Yeah, thats why I suggested looking at the size of the save game, to see if its a mite bit too big. That would cause a long delay when saving.
My largest save game file is 83 hours, level 35, and 3.7mb in size.