Howto: Load Texture Mods

[ShneagleBlurg]

Ok, So this is my How-to on how to load Texture mod files into Starfield. This method worked for me, and I do hope it can work some some others who are struggling with:

 

"Why isn't any sort of Texture changing? It is for others but not for me? This game- blah blah"

Here is my solution and guide.

1: Double Check there are not any Duplicate "Data" Folders in BOTH your Documents Starfield Root (Where the StarfieldCustom.ini was placed), and your steamapps/Common Game Root. (Where the Starfield.exe is)
Note: (I put EVERYTHING into my GAME root folder, not Document)

2: Your Document Folder doesn't need the data folder, get rid of it. Should not have it.

3: Make sure your Custom.ini is set up like this:

[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
sResourceDataDirsFinal=

[General]
bEnableMessageOfTheDay=0


It does NOT need:

[Display]
sPhotoModeFolder=Photos

It worked fine without it. (Literally every texture mod I installed worked fine with these two in my custom.ini)

4: Go to Starfields game root folder: steamapps/common/Starfield And go into your Data folder.

5: DELETE the DATA subfolder that is inside the MAIN data folder. (If there is not one there, skip this part, and go to 7)

So it should not look like this steamapps/common/Starfield/Data/Data more like steamapps/common/Starfield/Data

6: Move everything from the DATA folder from inside the BASE data folder into the 1st Data Folder, and DELETE the SECOND data folder.

7: And that's pretty much it, hopefully this isn't confusing to most, as I personally do not know how to re-word things a different way. And if this works, I'm glad cause I struggled with this for HOURS.

[BurningBaboon1]

This helped me. Thank you so much! I ended up with a "Data" and "Data Backup...." folder in My Documents. Removing this seemed to fix texture mods. THANKS AGAIN!

Edited November 5, 2023 by BurningBaboon1

[tomomi1922]

 

2: Your Document Folder doesn't need the data folder, get rid of it. Should not have it.

Um, are you sure? The existence of that Data folder does not matter. What matters is where the game will look for content. You are saying the game will ALSO look for content in steamapps/common/Starfield/Data? Because to my knowledge, the game only load loose files over Document folder.

 

5: DELETE the DATA subfolder that is inside the MAIN data folder. (If there is not one there, skip this part, and go to 7)

 

So it should not look like this steamapps/common/Starfield/Data/Data more like steamapps/common/Starfield/Data

 

Once again, the existence of the extra Data folder does not matter. You can have "Data/Data/Data/Data/", the game will simply not find content in there, thus render the existence of these folders irrelevant, but harmless. However, the moment you see "Data/Data", it rather hint that some mod is installed incorrectly. What you should do is to go into the second Data folder to fish out any content and cut/copy them to the main Data folder. Simply deleting Data folder will not help.

 

The way computer works, it has a specific file path to look for things. It does not care how your file structures are. You can have 1000 Data folders and the game wouldn't know or care. But if your content is not exactly at the right path, the game will simply not load it.

Edited November 6, 2023 by tomomi1922

[HeyYou]

 

 

2: Your Document Folder doesn't need the data folder, get rid of it. Should not have it.

Um, are you sure? The existence of that Data folder does not matter. What matters is where the game will look for content. You are saying the game will ALSO look for content in steamapps/common/Starfield/Data? Because to my knowledge, the game only load loose files over Document folder.

 

5: DELETE the DATA subfolder that is inside the MAIN data folder. (If there is not one there, skip this part, and go to 7)

 

So it should not look like this steamapps/common/Starfield/Data/Data more like steamapps/common/Starfield/Data

 

Once again, the existence of the extra Data folder does not matter. You can have "Data/Data/Data/Data/", the game will simply not find content in there, thus render the existence of these folders irrelevant, but harmless. However, the moment you see "Data/Data", it rather hint that some mod is installed incorrectly. What you should do is to go into the second Data folder to fish out any content and cut/copy them to the main Data folder. Simply deleting Data folder will not help.

 

The way computer works, it has a specific file path to look for things. It does not care how your file structures are. You can have 1000 Data folders and the game wouldn't know or care. But if your content is not exactly at the right path, the game will simply not load it.

 

I nuked the Data folder in the My Games\Strafield folder, adjusted a couple settings in the ini, so the game doesn't really 'require' that folder, and installed all mods the data folder in the game install folder. (yeah, steamapps\etc.) The game will load any files from that directory it finds. At this point, most texture mods are 'loose' files in any event, as creating an esp to prompt an archive to load, is a bit problematic.

[aurreth]

 

I nuked the Data folder in the My Games\Strafield folder, adjusted a couple settings in the ini, so the game doesn't really 'require' that folder, and installed all mods the data folder in the game install folder. (yeah, steamapps\etc.) The game will load any files from that directory it finds. At this point, most texture mods are 'loose' files in any event, as creating an esp to prompt an archive to load, is a bit problematic.

 

I nuked the Data folder in My Games, then created a hard link from there to the steamapps Data folder, making them the exact same folder (yes, Windows actually does support symbolic and hard links.) Do that and you never have to ask which folder you should be putting things in, 'cause no matter where you go, there you are.

[tomomi1922]

I nuked the Data folder in the My Games\Strafield folder, adjusted a couple settings in the ini, so the game doesn't really 'require' that folder, and installed all mods the data folder in the game install folder. (yeah, steamapps\etc.) The game will load any files from that directory it finds. At this point, most texture mods are 'loose' files in any event, as creating an esp to prompt an archive to load, is a bit problematic.

 

Care to show how you changed ini to redirect the game to poke at the steam folder?

 

If you want to know how I did it, I use symlink to fake 2 Data folders. The game still thinks it is loading files from my Document folder, but in reality, there is a Symlink Data folder that points back at my Steam folder.

[HeyYou]

 

I nuked the Data folder in the My Games\Strafield folder, adjusted a couple settings in the ini, so the game doesn't really 'require' that folder, and installed all mods the data folder in the game install folder. (yeah, steamapps\etc.) The game will load any files from that directory it finds. At this point, most texture mods are 'loose' files in any event, as creating an esp to prompt an archive to load, is a bit problematic.

 

Care to show how you changed ini to redirect the game to poke at the steam folder?

 

If you want to know how I did it, I use symlink to fake 2 Data folders. The game still thinks it is loading files from my Document folder, but in reality, there is a Symlink Data folder that points back at my Steam folder.

 

I believe it is as simple as turning off the "Message of the Day", redirecting the path for the "Photos" store, and then blowing away the Data directory in the "My Games" folder.

 

bEnableMessageOfTheDay=0 (is under the [general] header)

 

sPhotoModeFolder=Photos (is under the [Display] header)