Papyrus Profiling Parser

Profiling your scripts is a necessary step to ensure that your mod is responsive and doesn’t contribute to global script lag. This is a tool that processes Papyrus profiling log data into a tabular format for easier visualization and export into Excel for statistical analysis. You can access it online at PapyrusProfilingParser.com.

This tool is intended to serve as a resource for Papyrus scripters. If you aren’t working on a scripted mod, you probably don’t need this tool.

What is Profiling? How Do You Profile in Papyrus?

Profiling is a form of software analysis that measures data related to the execution of your code as it executes. Profiling is often used to measure the time it takes your code to run. Papyrus profiling logs include the timings for functions as they are called, which helps to illustrate the overall performance of your scripts. If code execution is a race and your script is the sprinter, you are the coach and your profiling is the many arms jutting out of your torso, operating stopwatches to independently track the movements of different parts of the sprinter’s body.

Why Profile?

There are a few major reasons to profile your Papyrus scripts. First of all, the performance of software can be unintuitive. Developers guess the performance of code about as well as 10-year-olds play the violin. Generally, not very well. This is especially true in Papyrus given that we are working with a scripting language and engine that we don’t know much about the internals of. Only by profiling your scripts can you get hard evidence of how well they are performing. This data gives you the information you need to learn how to improve your scripts.

Depending on the script you are writing, the time it takes to execute can be incredibly important. Imagine the frustration of a dodge mod with a second of latency every time you try to roll, or a heal-on-low-health spell that only triggers after you’ve died. Slow scripts kill. Profiling can show what functions are causing that.

Some mods don’t need precise timing though. Even in those cases, your script’s performance matters. Papyrus is multithreaded, but one of its crucial architectural decisions is that only one thread can operate on a script at a time. This cuts down on race conditions, but it also means that popular functions can take progressively longer to access as more scripts try to call them and enter a queue. The worst performing parts of your scripts will often be these popular functions, and by accessing them you are contributing to making them slower. Combine this with the CPU time you are hogging and you have a recipe for script lag, not just for your scripts but for every other mod’s scripts too. You aren’t the only modder calling these functions. Be a good neighbor. Profile your scripts.