I have decided to share this reply in the Guides and Tutorials section, as it may be helpful for other modders.
Original thread: Female Prison Overhaul
Also talked about here: Hotdog for sale
preload.tbl works as a hierarchy of meshes, textures and effects which the game keeps loaded in memory at all times. (If you see an explosion effect in the open world, for example, that effect is always loaded in memory by preload.tbl so it can happen at any time.)
Because it's a hierarchy, meshes (typically) towards the bottom of the table will stop loading if too many things are added to the preload above them. (This depends on file sizes.)
For example:
To compound the issue, each chunk of the map has it's own preload with certain items preloaded just for that specific area, meaning the amount of items which are preloaded at any one time can change depending on where you are in the game world.
For example:
The fix for your issue would be to swap softdrink.smesh with another .smesh which is of lesser importance to you further up the table (preferably of a similar file size).
If that fails, try moving it to the top of preload.tbl.
If that fails, the issue lies elsewhere.
I have been building a mod over the past year which changes some things in GotR's preload.tbl. I've had to fix this kind of issue a fair few times.
Adjusting the preload.tbl is a balancing act between what you want and don't want to always be loaded in memory, and the game only has so much memory.
Also;
Original thread: Female Prison Overhaul
Also talked about here: Hotdog for sale
The issue with the Big Swallow is caused by preload.tbl.3rdStreetSaint 212 said:
preload.tbl works as a hierarchy of meshes, textures and effects which the game keeps loaded in memory at all times. (If you see an explosion effect in the open world, for example, that effect is always loaded in memory by preload.tbl so it can happen at any time.)
Because it's a hierarchy, meshes (typically) towards the bottom of the table will stop loading if too many things are added to the preload above them. (This depends on file sizes.)
For example:
softdrink.smesh
(Big Swallow's item mesh as appointed by items_3d.xtbl) is listed near the bottom of the table. So are broomlife.smesh, beercan.smesh, squeegee.smesh, waterbottle.smesh and even spikestrip.smesh. Have a look around in-game (open world) and see if you can find these items. Odds are you can't.
To compound the issue, each chunk of the map has it's own preload with certain items preloaded just for that specific area, meaning the amount of items which are preloaded at any one time can change depending on where you are in the game world.
For example:
I was having trouble with skateboard.smesh not appearing in the Arena district, while it would appear in the Saints Row district. This happened because the Arena district loaded more items in it's preload than Saints Row's preload did, thus pushing skateboard.smesh further down the priority table. I fixed this by putting skateboard.smesh at the top of the main preload.tbl.
The fix for your issue would be to swap softdrink.smesh with another .smesh which is of lesser importance to you further up the table (preferably of a similar file size).
If that fails, try moving it to the top of preload.tbl.
If that fails, the issue lies elsewhere.
I have been building a mod over the past year which changes some things in GotR's preload.tbl. I've had to fix this kind of issue a fair few times.
Adjusting the preload.tbl is a balancing act between what you want and don't want to always be loaded in memory, and the game only has so much memory.
Also;
I've seen mod instructions before that say you have to install preload.tbl to your main sr2 directory instead of GotR. To my knowledge (from testing), there is no difference between doing that and installing it to your GotR patch as with any other mod, as anything in patch.vpp_pc will override anything else in the main directory. (If I'm wrong about this, feel free to correct me.)