First, I would like to apologize if this is the wrong forum for my question.

My question is about BSA archives.

I am using Wrye Bash, with BSA Redirection option enabled. I am also using http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36005, that comes with two http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34830.
I had repeatedly crashes yesterday, before I actually went into my Oblivion.ini file, and registered the two new BSA files.

This time, it seems to work flawlessly (*keeps fingers crossed, yay!*).

The thing is I have other BSA files in my (oblivion game)\data folder, which are not registered. For example, RenGuardOverhaul.bsa or Better Cities - Textures.bsa.
However, I have never had any crashes before, because I wouldn't register them.

Now my question is, do I need to register each and *every* BSA file in my Oblivion.ini file, despite my Wrye Bash setting, or are there BSA which need to be registered, and others not, depending on their content maybe ?

Thank you in advance for any insight on that. I really would like to understand.

BSA redirection and getting BSA resources loaded are two different things. BSA redirection uses a bsa to get textures/mesh replacers loaded, i.e. without it you might not get a colored world map replacer loading as the game uses the vanilla one in the vanilla bsa. In short, BSA redirection is necessary when using texture replacers etc. Before there were techniques like BSA redirection people had to manually add texture names to an archiveinvalidation.txt file.

To get resources in a BSA loaded it either needs to be listed in the ini or "picked up" by an esp using the same name. Shivering Isles uses the latter method with DLCShiveringIsles.esp, which is empty and just there to make sure the DLCShiveringIsles bsa's get loaded. It's more convenient than adding entries to the ini as you might want to rebuild the latter and then you have to redo the list manually.

For Fran's, rename FraNewItems.bsa to something you are using - for FCOM it's FCOM_Convergence_FraNewItems.bsa, for example, as FCOM users have FCOM_Convergence.esp. The same with the creature bsa.

Thank you so much, Arkngt, I think I am starting to understand now.

Among the list of BSA files I have in my Data folder,



only the two ones of Frans need to be registered in the Oblivion.ini file, because they need to be explicitely loaded, and the other ones :

- either are replacers (and don't need to be loaded, or registered, since Wrye Bash redirection takes care of that)
- or are loaded through an empty "same name esp" trick

Did I get that right ?

PS : I am not (yet) using FCOM, just Frans. I wanted to change some from OOO, which I have been using till now.

Yes, ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa ensures that loose replacers get loaded. And I think you got all bsa's covered besides Fran's. They don't need to be registered in the ini either. You could rename them to DLCShiveringIsles - FraNewCrea.bsa and DLCShiveringIsles - FraNewItems.bsa, for example (not sure what's most convenient as I'm not using Fran's).

BTW, I'd recommend using Fran's plus MMM in your case - but you should get your current setup up and running first anyway.

You can do this any ways as Arkngt explains above,

You could make a copy of DLCShiveringIsles.esp and name it LOADmyBSAs.esp
Create a BSA(with the necessary resources) for it and name it '*sutch* or '*LOADmyBSAs.bsa*'' and it would be so.

There are many ways you can confront this problem.

I really appreciate both your help

Thank you, Arkngt and Metallicow, and please have a nice day.