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- How to install any mod for Fallout New Vegas with Nexus Mod Manager

Dweedle

By Dweedle
in Mod Troubleshooting

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Dweedle

Dweedle

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Hi guys. I thought I'd write up a tutorial here on the forum as I've seen in the comments of a lot of popular mods that a lot of new comers to modding are having trouble and the attitudes of some mod authors to these people have been less than satisfactory. This is going to cover the use of NMM to manually install mods and how to prepare your game for modding itself.

 

If you have already installed any modifications to your game but you are having issues what I would like you to do before anything else is to go into your Nexus Mod Manager and select the following button;

 

Tools > Uninstall all active mods

 

 

Now that we have that out of the way there are three crucial things we must perform to ensure you game is safely able to accept mod's.

 

- First, ensure your Steam program itself is installed on your C Drive > OUTSIDE < of Program Files or Program Files (x86). If it is in those then back up all of your Steam games to an external device, uninstall Steam and then reinstall Steam into a more friendly location on your C drive. My location is C:\Valve\Steam.

 

This has to be done because mods have issues being installed in places where you need admin rights or UAC or some technical thingy. I don't know why but that is just how it is.

 

- Secondly, uninstall New Vegas and reinstall it fresh. To do this use the uninstall feature in Steam and then proceed to manually delete anything else in C:\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Fallout New Vegas (honestly, just delete the whole folder).

 

Reinstall it afterwards and make a backup of the virgin copy to avoid re-downloading it again. Why I suggest re-downloading it all again is that some mods may have altered the official ESM's and BSA's. Not likely, however, BOSS does suggest the cleaning of a few of the ESM's so it is possible that mods may have tinkered with them.

 

- Thirdly and finally we need to run the virgin copy of New Vegas so it generates new Ini's and lets you setup your graphics via the launcher. After that run the game. Nexus Mod Manager will probably prompt you about this as well if you have not run the game before running NMM.

 

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Once these three steps are done you can safely mod New Vegas with the instructions I am going to be writing below. I will admit I am going to be assuming you have at least played Vanilla New Vegas to a point where you understand the Vanilla game play and why Modding was necessary to improve upon it. If you have not done this then I suggest to post pone the modification of your game until you are familiar with the Vanilla game play and quest lines.

 

The first thing I want to mention is that Gopher, another Nexus user and a YouTuber (he has a really hot accent as well so its easy to listen to him :smile:) has some video tutorials that are great for learning to lightly mod your game. If you would like to have some video teaching then I honestly suggest him over the rest of my post, however, some of his videos are slightly out of date.

 

If you are really only wanting to lightly mod your game then he is the way to go. His New Vegas playlist is about installing various popular mod's such as Project Nevada.

 

Infact, I am not going to cover Project Nevada, NMC or DarnUI as it is already covered fantastically by Gopher.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0E5E8CA384409B11

 

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Ok everyone! The first tool we want to install for Fallout New Vegas is the New Vegas Script extender. You can obtain this from http://nvse.silverlock.org/

 

On that website there are a few downloads but the one we want for modding New Vegas as of July 2013 is the BETA build;

 

After downloading that you must open its archive. I suggest either WinZip, WinRar or 7Zip to do this.

 

After that place all of the contents of the folder inside of C:\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Fallout New Vegas

 

That's all there is to NVSE.

 

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Now, the second tool we want to immediately ensure we have ready is the 4GB extender. This is necessary and do not play without it.

 

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/35262/?

 

This is installed much in the same way as NVSE. Follow the instruction on the author's mod page.

 

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Now with those two programs installed we can begin some serious modding. The first mod we want to install is NVEC which is short for New Vegas Enhanced Content.

 

Do NOT download that mod with manager however, download it manually as seen;

 

Once that has completed unzip it and then run the EXE. Easy! :D

Have a look at the following links to see what you just installed and bookmark these links! Whenever you install a new mod check to make sure it is not already included!

 

In my honest opinion NVEC is "the" first mod anyone should install as it has so much superb content inside.

 

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Ok. This is the last section of my guide but it is probably the most important section because it is about creating archives that NMM can read. It's not going to be long though as it's really simple.

 

After downloading manually a mod (unless it states it can be used with NMM although I suggest do it manually anyway) inspect its framework. If it has inside the zip saying (Mod Name)>Data>Meshes/Textures etc then you are probably safe installing it via NMM.

However, if it does not have that and has a variety of sections this is what you must remember. The game reads mods in the Data folder, always. So ensure you unzip the archive and rearrange the file structure to be Data/Meshes or Data/Textures or even Data/ depending on the type of mod it is.

 

Once you have done that just re-zip it with whichever program you used to unzip it and then you can manually add it into NMM and then away you go!

 

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Hopefully this short guide has helped some people. If anyone wants me to clarify some points or explain something in more detail just drop a post and I'll try my best.

Edited by Dweedle
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dubiousintent Grand Master

dubiousintent

Posted
Posted

Yes, you can run as "admin". However, that alone does not solve all problems with older games on versions of Windows from Vista and later. Microsoft radically changed the rules concerning how programs installed to the "Program Files" folder tree work with Vista, and it's taken quite a while for developers of all sorts to understand those changes. Older games didn't and don't understand them. See the article "Installing Games on Windows Vista+" in my signature for more in depth on this matter.

 

The simplest solution by far is to install games outside of the "Program Files" tree. Such as under a "C:\Games" folder. By-passes all the issues, and leaves you more secure by not needing to run as "admin".

 

-Dubious-

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dubiousintent Grand Master

dubiousintent

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Downloading issues are seldom a problem related to the mod manager. They are usually due to issues with the "Content Distribution Network" (CDN), and outside of the control of either you or the manager. It's just a fact of life on the internet. When you click on a file to download (at least when you "manually download"; I don't use NMM) the "Download File" window that pops up has a link "Slow download speeds? Help us troubleshoot your speed issues" you can use to try to troubleshoot the problem.

 

You can always try to use the "Download (Manual)" button. Just direct the downloaded file to the same folder you have NMM store them and it will recognize it there. If a "manual download" succeeds where a "NMM download" fails, then you might want to ask in the "NMM Open Beta Feedback" forum.

 

-Dubious-

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