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NMM 0.60 Alpha release with profiling, ready for testing


Dark0ne

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It's been a year in the making but we're finally ready to release what we think will be our final build for the next major step in NMM functionality, profiling. The download link for this build is at the bottom of this article, however, before you rush off, I highly recommend you read this article as it contains important information about this version of NMM.

 

 

What is profiling?

 

Profiling is the ability to create and switch between multiple different mod setups within NMM to facilitate different playthroughs of your game. One profile might be for your axe wielding Nord with mods specific to that character while another might be for your Argonian thief with active mods that you wouldn't need in your Nord playthrough. Or, you might just want to test a new setup without worrying about breaking your stable, current setup. That's fine, just make a new profile and do what you want; if it doesn't work all you have to do is switch to your Stable profile. With profiling, you can pick and choose what mods you have active, in what order, for the specific playthrough of the game you want.

 

While this functionality in itself is powerful, it's the added things that the Nexus as a site can do with it that excites me. We want to build on this functionality (note the future tense here, we haven't done this yet...) so that people can share their mod profiles with others, including their entire mod list and load order. Having an issue with your mod build or load order? Publish it via NMM and make it public on the site and others can take a look and see where the issue might be. Have a favourite mod reviewer on YouTube but you're tired of asking what mods they have installed to get your game looking like theirs? Ask them to publish their NMM profile on the site and you can then use this functionality to setup your game just like theirs. Want to back up your profiles so if your computer explodes all your mods and load orders are saved on the site, ready to be used by you should the worst happen? It's all possible. It's quite an exciting prospect, which is why we're putting in the time with this major update to NMM.

 

 

Why is it an Alpha? If it doesn't work for me can I go back easily?

 

This version of NMM makes such major changes to the way in which your mods interact with the game folders and we're such a small team here (2 programmers and me testing...) we cannot properly test this version of NMM enough to release it even under the "beta" moniker which we hide behind when there are bugs in the versions we release. As such, we are releasing this version of NMM as an Alpha release. That means it is not an automatic update that everyone can get when they start up NMM and see there's a new version and the only way you can get this version of NMM is by downloading it from the link in this news article. It will remain in alpha until we've had enough feedback from people using the alpha to confidently release it as a beta.

 

If you are one of those people who doesn't agree with NMM still being a beta and only wants to update to the latest version when it's confirmed as completely stable then I'd recommend not updating to this version. Additionally, If you're the type to moan about this, please, save yourself the time and don't bother (unless you want to donate a couple of hundred thousand pounds to the Nexus coffers so we can get some full-time bug testers using a myriad of different computer setups).

 

If you do upgrade to this version please do it with the knowledge that it's likely to have some bugs, but also with the knowledge that we here on the NMM team are extremely thankful to you for taking the risk and offering to help us out. It's people like you who help us to make NMM better.

 

To help you out, and to make sure you don't destroy your carefully tuned current NMM setup, when you install version 0.60 of NMM it will automatically create a backup of your current NMM setup in your NMM folder. If anything at all goes wrong with 0.60 for you and you get so fed up you no longer want to help us out all you need to do is reinstall version 0.53.x to the same folders and use the "Restore backup" functionality. You're then back to exactly where you were before you installed 0.60. No fuss. We've slapped up a quick wiki tutorial on how to do that, just in case.

 

With the backup functionality just mentioned it's my hope we can convince plenty of you to help us to test this version. The more people we have testing and reporting bugs the sooner we can get this rolled out and move on to some of that other cool functionality I mentioned.

 

 

Installing NMM 0.60 and the migration procedure

 

As per usual, to install this update of NMM simply run the installer executable and ensure you point NMM to the same folders as your current NMM setup. If you install 0.60 and no mods are showing, you've directed NMM to the wrong folders (and yes, that's your fault and not NMM's).

 

This version of NMM is a major update which completely changes the way in which NMM installs and interacts with files in your game folders. Because of this, 0.60 has a migration tool that will upgrade you from your current version to 0.60. The migration tool will automatically install any mods you have active in your current version of NMM and set it up as before. This can take a long time, depending on how many mods you have installed. However...

 

Unfortunately, because of the way scripted installers work (the mods you download where they have different options you select in NMM while installing the mod), NMM has no way of knowing what options you have picked once you've installed a mod. So while the migration tool can install any mods that don't use scripted installers easily, during the migration process you will have to interact with any and all mods that have scripted installers again. I understand, for some, that's quite a big ask. I will say this though, once 0.60 is out of Alpha, it will become the only version of NMM that continues to be updated. We will not be maintaining a profile version of NMM and a non-profile version of NMM, so the sooner you get it out the way and upgrade to version 0.60 of NMM, the sooner you can get on and continue to enjoy the bug fixes and new functionality we're releasing each month.

 

 

Reporting bugs and hot fixing

 

Considering the major changes in this version of NMM it would be unrealistic to assume it's completely bug free. We think it's bug free right now as we can't find any bugs, but 3 people testing something on specific setups can't test every possible variation. Hence why we need you.

 

As always, bug reports should be directed to our bug tracker on the forums. We've setup a specific category for this alpha version, away from the normal NMM bug tracker category, to make this easier for everyone. You can find it here.

 

We will be fixing bugs as fast as possible as soon as we find out about them and can replicate them. Remember that the more information you can provide us about the bug, what is causing it and how we can replicate it, the faster we can fix it for you. Keep an eye out in the site news or on the Alpha file page for information about bug fixes.

 

Please note: version 0.53, which we released recently, added a new "mod activation queue" system. Version 0.60.0a is not using this mod activation queue functionality as we are still considering version 0.53 as "in testing" rather than stable and we didn't want to complicate things by adding two relatively major changes into one big update.

 

 

Downloading 0.60.0a

 

We've decided to release this version of NMM via a Skyrim Nexus file page. In doing so, we can actively track the number of users who have downloaded this version of NMM, so we know how much help we're getting, and also quickly release hot fixes via the same mechanism.

 

NMM still works on all games listed on the NMM download page. The Nexus does not have cross-game functionality (one file page for multiple games) and we chose Skyrim Nexus as it is the most familiar and most used Nexus site.

 

To download this version simply head to the file page and download the file as normal.

 

All that's left for me to say is a big thank you, once again, to all those who choose to help us out and run the risk with installing this new version. While the risk is mitigated with the back-up functionality, we still appreciate you taking the plunge early with this alpha.

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In response to post #21981994.

That made absolutely no sense to me. Did you report the bug in our bug tracker, like you're meant to? I've checked your profile and it says you've posted no bug reports. So...thanks for the help!
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I was wondering about something, it seems that the mods are not only copied to the Virtual folder but to the Data folder as well, is that normal? And if yes isn't that a waste of space (felling a bit conflicted over this, it is easier to create bash patch, use CK and other modding tools like this, but at the same time the space requirement increases), anyway it's good that the virtual folder can be place on another HDD.

 

Thank you,

Edited by b10nutz
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