How many mods at a time?

[maroo]

I tried to load a huge amount of mods at the same time in order to have a lot of stuff in the game and I had problems with certains for sure but I found a couple of tricks that most of tweaking maniacs know.

 

I must say that for such an experience, I needed a huge amount of RAM (2 Gigs); also, those mods had to be compatible to an acceptable level. I found a couple of problems related to some lacunes in Windows (especially Me and XP). Some may say that it is irrelevant but to me it proven to be on the right path.

 

First, after your first start of the game, it will surely crash; the second time,the third or further, you will have the time to save your game so, DO IT rigth away.

 

Secondly, this is to be done carefully, you take notepad to load your MORROWIND.INI file and re-arrange those mod titles (with cut and paste) by rank of importance (lands, transport and NPC mods first, Quests and Dwellings second and articles and tools at last). The game will integrate those datas a lot faster and better.

 

Another thing to do is to add a higher value to the DWORD "IoLockPageLimit" in the register; if this key does not exist, you must provide it, especially for those Intel CPUs. That special must be placed at:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

 

Create the DWORD "IoLockPageLimit" first, then, modify the data on this DWORD (at least decimal 65535 translated in Hex format for memories superior to 512 Megs, 32768 for 255 to 512 and so on...).

 

Restart your machine and presto, (after maybe one or two crashes due to some latency in the regeneration process for some CPUs), it will go like a charm.

 

I have been able to integrate all episodes of TES 3 plus Sea of Destiny and most of the popular mods available. It went up to 108 mods working all together (naturally to avoid avok with some actors you have to do a little more tweaking of the game but you all know those tricks by now).

 

Thank's for your attention...

 

:blush:

[Adras]

I believe the maximum is 200 mods including Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon and any other Master files.

[VaanicOne]

this is very enlightening, thankyou, i have been having problems with this kinda thing myself, and you just solved them.

[Switch]

Moved and pinned. Nice work Maroo, thanks a lot. ^^ Definitely pin-worthy.

[Xeniorn]

I know this thread is very old, but this shouldn't be considered thread necromancy...

 

Here's a howto on packing all of your mods' art into one .bsa file. When you do that, you'll save up some of your disk space, and speed up loading times a bit.

 

There are two ways to do this. One is to create a .bsa file for each mod you've got and second is to create one big .bsa file with all the mods included. The first way can get really nasty if you have already unpacked you .zips or .rars that you downloaded (because you can't say which file belongs to which mod), so the first method can be used only with freshly downloaded mods, or if you didn't delete the original .zips and .rars after unpacking them.

 

Before you can use any of the methods, you must have an utility called BSAPack. I even found it for you BSAPack ^_^

 

Also, I recommend you to create a backup of Morrowind.bsa, Tribunal.bsa, Bloodmoon.bsa and Morrowind.ini

 

***************************************************************

 

Now, the 1st method:

 

1. Create a temporary folder wherever you want, but I recommend C:\Temp, not something like C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Data Files\Temp because you'll have to use the command prompt, and I guess you don't want to type whole day.

 

2. Copy BSAPack into the Temp folder.

 

3. Open the .zip or .rar file and look for BookArt, Fonts, Icons, Meshes, Music, Sound, Splash, Textures and Video (not necessarily all of them, usually there are just Meshes and Textures folders) and unpack them into the Temp folder.

 

4. Open up the command prompt (click start/run... and type in "cmd" (without the quotes)) and go to your Temp directory (I hope you know how to do it :P ).

 

5. Type in "bsapack pack [name of .bsa file you wish to create].bsa (replace [name of .bsa file you wish to create] with the actual name, without the brackets)

 

6. Copy the newly created .bsa into your Morrowind/Data Files folder.

 

7. Go to your Morrowind folder and open Morrowind.ini

 

8. Look for [Archives] section, under the [Level Up] section:

 

Level18=The challenge now is to stay at the peak as long as you can. You may be as strong today as any mortal who has ever walked the earth, but there's always someone younger, a new challenger.

Level19=You're really good. Maybe the best. And that's why it's so hard to get better. But you just keep trying, because that's the way you are.

Level20=You'll never be better than you are today. If you are lucky, by superhuman effort, you can avoid slipping backwards for a while. But sooner or later, you're going to lose a step, or drop a beat, or miss a detail -- and you'll be gone forever.

Default=The results of hard work and dedication always look like luck to saps. But you know you've earned every ounce of your success.

 

 

[Archives]

Archive 0=Tribunal.bsa

Archive 1=Bloodmoon.bsa

 

9. Add this line to the [Archives] section

Archive 2=MyBSA.bsa

(Replace MyBSA with the actual name of the .bsa)

If you don't have Tribunal or Bloodmoon, then add Archive 0=MyBSA.bsa. For each next mod add a new Archive #=MyBSA.bsa.

 

10. Delete all files except BSAPack from your Temp folder.

 

For each mod repeat the actions 3. to 10.. At the end, your [Archives] section will look like this

Archive 0=Tribunal.bsa

Archive 1=Bloodmoon.bsa

Archive 2=Vampire Embrace.bsa

Archive 3=Sea of Destiny.bsa

Archive 4=Carnithus Armamentarium.bsa

Archive 5=Scripted Spells.bsa

 

***************************************************************

 

Now the 2nd method:

 

You use this method when you have already unapcked all your mods, so all mods' files are in your Morrowind/Data Files folder.

 

1. Repeat actions 1. and 2. from the first method.

 

2. Open your Morrowind/Data Files folder and copy the BookArt, Fonts, Icons, Meshes, Music, Sound, Splash, Textures and Video folders to the Temp folder.

 

3. Open the command prompt and go to your Temp folder.

 

4. Type bsapack pack AllMods.bsa

This may take more or less time, depending on the number of art files and your computer's speed.

 

5. Copy the AllMods.bsa into your Morrowind/Data Files folder.

 

6. Go to your Morrowind folder and open Morrowind.ini.

 

7. Repeat action 8. from the 1.st method.

 

8. Add Archive 2=AllMods.bsa to your [Archives] section, or Archive 0=AllMods.bsa if you don't have Tribunal or Bloodmoon.

 

Your [Archives] section should look like this

[Archives]

Archive 0=Tribunal.bsa

Archive 1=Bloodmoon.bsa

Archive 2=AllMods.bsa

or like this

[Archives]

Archive 0=AllMods.bsa

 

Phew... too much typing... my head is going to explode... Need... Cafeine...

 

*Xeniorn drinks a big cup of coffee*

 

OK, now only a little more.

 

Do not delete your Temp folder. Whenever you download a new mod, you can just copy it to your Temp folder, delete the old AllMods.bsa and repeat the actions 3. and 4..

 

***************************************************************

 

One last method:

 

This third method merges Morrowind.bsa Tribunal.bsa and Bloodmoon.bsa (and you can also add your AllMods.bsa, but I prefer having my mods in a separate .bsa).

 

1. Copy Morrowind.bsa, Tribunal.bsa,Bloodmoon.bsa, and BSAPack (and AllMods.bsa) into your Temp folder.

 

2. Open the command prompt, go to your Temp folder.

 

3. Type

bsapack unpack morrowind.bsa

then

bsapack unpack Tribunal.bsa

then

bsapack unpack Bloodmoon.bsa

and (optional) at the end

bsapack unpack AllMods.bsa

 

This will take a long time. Go make yourself a bowl of cereal, or a sandwich.

 

4. Delete all .bsa files from your Temp folder.

 

5. Go back to command prompt and type

bsapack pack Morrowind.bsa

IMPORTANT: do not change the name of Morrowind.bsa, it won't work if its name isn't Morrowind.bsa

 

If you haven't eaten the sandwich you made earlier, now it's the time to do it.

 

6. Copy your new Morrowind.bsa into your Morrowind/Data Files folder.

 

7. In you Morrowind.ini your [Archives] section should look like this

[Archives]

Archive 0=AllMods.bsa

or it should be empty, like this

[Archives]

 

Hope this helps... ^_^

 

-X

 

 

****************************************************************

 

EDIT: I just found out that BSAPack by GhostWheel is just 50kb large, so I decided to add it to this post, if the link I provided doesn't work.

bsapack.exe

Edited October 23, 2004 by Xeniorn

[Guest Bugmenot]

Very interesting post, although it made me wonder 3 things:

 

- why does it refuse to find the Fonts directory in the bsa I made, when all the rest goes fine ? I had to put it back in the DataFiles directory in order to run the game again. (and rebuild a bsa Fonts-free at the occasion)

 

- how do you make esm from esp ?

I remember I saw something about that some day, but can't put the and on it again.

 

- is the bsapack.exe limitation to pack 20000 files 'only' dictated by a morrowind requirement, or can I safely compile a modified version of bsapack to fit my needs (about 25000 files for 1.5go of plugins files)

 

Thanx for the hint anyway, this kind of perfectionistic (does it mean something in english ?) manipulations suits my temper very well : )

[Sogenda]

currently I have 41 mods running sum downloaded sum created by me

and they are damn goood! :D

[Xeniorn]

@bugmenot:

 

Why? Probably because the game doesn't look for font files in the .bsa file, only in Morrowind/Data Files/Font, or because the only version of BSAPack is 0.1a...

 

Instructions on how to create .esms have been posted a few times on the Forums already, try searching.

 

As far as I know, BSAPack can pack archive any type of files in any quantity.

 

Thanx for the hint anyway, this kind of perfectionistic (does it mean something in english ?) manipulations suits my temper very well : )

 

You're welcome. ^_^

 

@Sogenda

 

Please don't spam, don't post unless you have something to say that'd contribute this topic.

[Sypron]

right now i have around 15 mods, but i once had over 260

[katklaw]

I know this an old thread but the information to the question is incorrect.

 

You can run a maximum of 255 mods unless you learn how to merge. I have friends who have merged up to a thousand.

 

My max ever is 241.