PrivateProfileRedirector F4
Screenshots 1 screenshots
About this mod Machine translation
question
The problem this plugin attempts to solve comes from the game using an old, deprecated and extremely inefficient function to load values from INI files. The function in question is GetPrivateProfileString, which is a holdover from 16-bit operating systems. But you know what's worse than using a feature like this? Use it hundreds of thousands of times. Apparently the game uses this function individually for each game setting, meaning the same ini file is opened and closed hundreds of times. What's really scary is that for every plugin enabled, the game will try to read all the same settings from a hypothetical INI file that the plugin may or may not load. So you end up with a lot of extremely inefficient calls for every mod plugin enabled. As a solution, this mod will hook the involved functions and load the target INI file into memory so that subsequent calls to the same INI file will be faster since it will read directly from memory and there will be no need to open the file from scratch again.
The number of seconds this mod will shorten the start time depends on the number of enabled plugins you have, as well as other content that uses INI files such as ENB (although ENB comes with its own loading issues that this mod cannot fix). It's basically unnoticeable when using it in a vanilla game, and goes up from there, with a 50-ish add-on taking 6 seconds off, and a 250+ add-on taking 20 seconds off.
untie
When a game, ENB or something else calls GetPrivateProfileString for the first time, this plugin will load the requested file in memory and return the required data. Next time, no files will be loaded and the data will be fetched from memory. The same thing happens when a process tries to write a value to a file. Instead of opening the file again, the Parse and Save to Disk plugin writes the data to a memory file and then saves to disk (if allowed). All files are also saved at the end of the game if the game does not crash during gameplay.
Install
It is an F4SE plugin, so install like any other F4SE plugin. Extract the archive in the game folder or use a mod manager.
uninstall
Use mod manager or delete all installed files.
Install & use Install: follow the bundled instructions
- Unzip the archive from playbuff and read the bundled readme / instructions first.
- There is no universal mod manager for this game: some mods replace game files directly, some go into a game-specific Mods folder, and some need a game-specific community loader or tool first — follow the bundled readme.
- Place the files exactly as the readme says; mods with listed dependencies need those installed too.
- Launch the game to confirm it loaded; some games require enabling mods in settings or an in-game mod menu.
Install locations vary a lot between games and mods — the bundled readme is the most reliable guide.