Limit to how many mods you can safely run?

[iNcontroL]

Hey everyone,

 

I've only recently started modding and I wanted to clarify something before starting a fresh save. Is there a limit to how many mods you can safely run at once?

 

As far as Skyrim goes, I've only played it once and gotten my Dragon Shout before I stopped to play League of Legends. I've decided to stop playing League so I figured now would be a good chance to play Skyrim. Good news for me? I don't remember much about the original play through, so it'll essentially feel like a brand new game for me. I figured I'd start things off the proper way and mod and overhaul my entire game to get the best experience.

 

Now for modding, I've been a bit obsessive. Since my friend introduced me to Nexus and through Nexus I've learned about S.T.E.P. and Gems, I've so far downloaded a total for 296 Mods. I've downloaded small mods such as the Bowlegged Jump Fix and heavy hitters such as Climate of Tamriel 3.0. I've been very diligent when choosing mods and I've made sure that everything is compatible for the most part. I also plan to play the game with ENB on the entire time.

 

Now.. I'm almost ready to start a new save after I uninstall Skyrim and reinstall it with Hearthfire, Dragonborn and Dawnguard. I've taken care to make sure all my textures are compatible and that I haven't downloaded anything over 2K in order to prevent CTDs. I've also downloaded Optimizers, ATTK, and a few other utilities such as PreCache Killer. But will the fact that I just have so many mods installed cause any other problems other than the possibility of running out of VRAM?

 

I'd appreciate any information on what I should look out for.

 

Relevent PC Specs:

 

Intel i7-2600K 3.40 GHz - Overclocked to 4.70 GHz

16GB of DDR3 PC-1600 Ram

2x EVGA GTX 580 1.5 GB Graphic Cards - Overclocked to 880/2200

2x VG236HE LCD - 23" 1920x1080 - 120Hz Monitors (I only plan to run the game on one of them, but both will be on)

Edited April 11, 2013 by iNcontroL

[Azakiel]

There is a hard limit of 255 plugins (i.e. esp/esm files) that can be active at any one time. This limit doesn't apply to loose file texture/mesh/animation replacers, but if you have more than 255 plugins active your game will crash at start up.

 

It is tricky to say how many skyrim can safely run as it very much depends on what mods you are using, if they have been sorted into the correct load order, cleaned if they have dirty edits etc.

Edited April 11, 2013 by Azakiel