Mod Manager 255 plugin limit. Is there a fix?

[korun]

Other than TES5Edit has anyone run across any other merge programs out there? IS there any other in existence?

Wrye Bash

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[hamguy21]

Skyrim has a 255 mod limit. There's no getting around it. If you want to install new mods, you have to remove or find some way to merge old ones.

 

Why is this so? Skyrim was patched to support more than 4GB meaning its now 64bit yet its still using 32bit?

Edited January 31, 2015 by hamguy21

[bben46]

We get this same question from time to time. You have a misconception of what the LAA 4G patch really does - It absolutely does NOT make Skyrim a 64 bit program. It allows a 32 bit program to use UP TO the full 4GB of RAM that a 32 bit program can possibly use. NO MORE. It does this by allowing the game to use more than the 2G that windows allocates for any single program by default. And allows 64 bit Windows to move the Windows and other background processes out of the way into a higher (above the 32bit 4G limit) part of the RAM. But only if you have more than 4G of RAM - That has absolutely nothing to do with the 255 mod limit that is hard coded into the Gambryo engine.

 

The Gambryo engine that was used to make Skyrim is a 32 bit program. And just having a 64 bit version of Windows cannot change that. The same basic 18 year old engine (with many changes and upgrades over the years) has been used since before Oblivion. And in the years that have passed - not one of the expert programmers that love to fix things in the games has found a way to get more than 255 mods in any Gambryo based game. :sad:

You can combine and merge some mods to keep below that 255 limit though.

 

Unless you understand binary & hex math the actual reason for the number 255 is hard to understand. If you do, it is obvious. (1111 1111 = ff = 255) :cool:

 

Hopefully the next game will use a true 64 bit engine and we will have far more address space for mods. :thumbsup:

 

TLDR: You can't make 10 pounds of stuff fit in a 5 pound bag. :whistling:

[RedRabe]

Some mods do not count towards the limit such as SKSE and any script "plugins" you may add to SKSE. Texture mods that only change vanilla textures do not count towards limit. Basically any mod that does not add an ESM or ESP. A weapon mod that only changes texture/mesh of a vanilla weapon does not require an ESM/P and will not count towards the limit BUT if the stats, animation, and/or sound of the weapon is changed than an ESM/P is required to tell the game to apply the changes and then counts towards the limit.

 

So it is possible to go "over" the limit if you have a ton of texture/mesh replacement mods.

 

In other words, if your mod only replaces vanilla assets then the game engine does not "see" it as something new. If your mod adds anything to the existing vanilla assets then a plugin is required for the game engine to "see" it and use it.

 

Hope that is plain enough English :)

[spudkiss]

 

Skyrim has a 255 mod limit. There's no getting around it. If you want to install new mods, you have to remove or find some way to merge old ones.

not entirly true. this only happens with NMM i had like 254 mod insalled then i went to work shop and got 20 ore and they still work but i cant install mods from maniger

 

you are partily right on that for NMM some known issue for the installer. your best way is to do all retexture mods manually that dont contain esp or bsa. otherwise the installer counts it as a esp mod. if u havent notcied yet. giving ur comment from last year just noticed

Edited December 22, 2015 by spudkiss

[bben46]

I see this misunderstanding over and over. Texture replacers that do nothing beyond change a texture do not count toward the hard limit in that true mods will have a esp or esm. Texture replacers just overwrite the existing texture without making any changes that need a esp or esm. However, the order that you install the texture replacer CAN make a difference if you have more than one replacer that replaces the same texture.

 

Think of a texture as the paint that covers the wall. When you paint the wall a different color you haven't actually changed the wall, just the color.

 

Some texture replacers are included as part of a larger mod that does have an esp and those will be counted.

[PillMonster]

We get this same question from time to time. You have a misconception of what the LAA 4G patch really does - It absolutely does NOT make Skyrim a 64 bit program. It allows a 32 bit program to use UP TO the full 4GB of RAM that a 32 bit program can possibly use. NO MORE. It does this by allowing the game to use more than the 2G that windows allocates for any single program by default. And allows 64 bit Windows to move the Windows and other background processes out of the way into a higher (above the 32bit 4G limit) part of the RAM. But only if you have more than 4G of RAM - That has absolutely nothing to do with the 255 mod limit that is hard coded into the Gambryo engine.

 

Actually that's close but not exactly how it works. The 4GB RAM limit is for 32bit chipsets and CPU's, not Windows. You're prob thinking of the older Intel chipsets which didn't support over 4GB (except Xeon).

 

Every 32bit process has 4GB of address space available, not RAM.

Thanks to address translation, per process address space isn't linear either, meaning a 64bit CPU can store data for a single 32bit process anywhere in RAM, even at the top of 32GB with a 32bit OS installed.

 

Here's the problem:

As we know 2GB of RAM is reserved by the kernel, and kernel is the only part of the OS which can access RAM. On 64bit machines with over 4GB installed RAM this doesn't matter; 32bit app all 4GB available.

On 32bit machines the whole platform can only address 4GB RAM. Since 2GB RAM is reserved for the kernel this only leaves 2GB RAM and 2GB address space for everything else.

 

The 2GB reserved for the Kernel is compacted down to 1GB, which is where the extra memory comes from. Technically this allows all applications to use up to 3GB.

That's why LAA only works on 32bit machines in conjunction with the /3GB switch.

 

 

 

On my 64bit W7 machine FNV eats around 3.6GB with mods, around 400mb for the kernel...... The loaded mods take another 13-14GB though of standby memory.....0_o

Windows just keeps on caching files till it runs out of RAM......

[LordVega]

Actually, workarounds for expanded variables are possible, for example, one of lamest possible solutions for increasing variable size in cryptography is creating two variables, with second variable increasing by 1 each time first becomes full. Of course, operators for such variables need to be described as class methods (in object-oriented programming) or the whole thing may be made as a structure, with functions describing interactions with it.

That being said, it is not unknown for programmers to create so-called "clutches" - for example, making a check for certain required bits in different variables. Hell, I even remember reading an article about some old CPU's using hardware clutches (failed to google it) - i. e. using old CPU architecture with slightly increased cache, buffers etc.

But expanding FormID - is one nasty piece of work. You have to take every possible interaction with it into account, perfectly understand how it works, then you have to come up with some clever mechanic to make the said "clutch", implement it and test it thorougly.

 

Long story short: IT IS VERY COMPLEX AND HUGE PIECE OF WORK. NO ONE WILL DO IT. (PROBABLY)

 

P. S.: While writing this, I actually remembered one of said CPU "clutches" - example is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A20_line

 

[GameMavrick]

Interesting I`ll look into it...

[arturkill14]

Merge plugins http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37981/