Skyrim: SE texture mods not showing

[bloodreign979]

Hello.

I've been troubleshooting this problem for about a week now, after getting back into modding Skyrim. I have the game fully updated, the Anniversary Edition, and all of it's updates installed.

At first I downloaded and installed the Nolvus v5 mod pack and all of the mods work, except any of the texture mods, so the game still has the vanilla graphics. 

More testing lead me to trying other graphic mods in Mod Organizer 2, Nolvus uses MO2, which I couldn't get any of them to work either. I then thought that maybe there's something going on with Mod Organizer 2 itself and texture mods, some sort of miscommunication. So I did a clean install of Skyrim SE, fully updated, with the anniversary update, and only installed 1 graphic mod directly (Skyland - A Landscape Texture Overhaul - 2k version), without using any modding tool, for example, MO2 or Vortex. I loaded up the game and still, the graphics mod had no effect.

My best guess is that there's something wrong with a certain file, some setting in a something, somewhere? But I don't really know.

I run a Ryzen 5 5600G CPU, 6700 XT with 10 GB of vram graphics card, and 32 GB of ram on my desktop.

I've ran the same tests on my laptop 
i7-9750H CPU, GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, and 16 GB of ram, with the Redux version of Nolvus v5 (the least demanding version) and also with the Skyland mod on it's own, with still no texture changes.

Does anyone know what could be going on? I really appreciate any help I could get and thank you so much for your time.

[d4em]

You need to use archive invalidation to get skyrim to recognize overwrites. MO2 has an option to do it for you, make sure it's on.

There is never a reason not to use MO2 (you really really should use MO2,) but here is an old nexus article on archive invalidation 

[bloodreign979]

Oh sweet, thanks!

I'll try this method out and let you know how it goes. Oh I want to use MO2, I really like it in the time I've been learning about it/how to use it, especially since the texture mods aren't working in the game even without using MO2. So it seems like MO2 isn't my problem, thus no reason not to use it.

[AaronOfMpls]

I don't recall archive invalidation being needed in Skyrim, since that was part of working around the earlier games' method of loading plugins by last-modified date.  (A very early Oldrim update switched Skyrim to using plugins.txt's listing order instead.)  But I could be wrong; I've never installed any big texture mods that use .bsa's.

But getting the "duh!" things out of the way first, is the texture mod active in MO2's left pane?  And is its .esm or .esp (if it has one to load a .bsa) active in your right pane, and sorted after other mods that edit some of the same textures (like the Unofficial Patch)?

(Also, if you're looking for the Skyrim forums, they're under Game Communities at the top of any forum page (or in the ≡ menu on mobile).  Click Join Community there to post there.)

[bloodreign979]

On 6/15/2024 at 5:01 AM, d4em said:

You need to use archive invalidation to get skyrim to recognize overwrites. MO2 has an option to do it for you, make sure it's on.

There is never a reason not to use MO2 (you really really should use MO2,) but here is an old nexus article on archive invalidation 

Well I tried this and and all it did was make the game crash before I can load character in. So I returned the files in the guide back to what they were originally.

 

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions and thanks.

[bloodreign979]

On 6/15/2024 at 5:01 AM, d4em said:

You need to use archive invalidation to get skyrim to recognize overwrites. MO2 has an option to do it for you, make sure it's on.

There is never a reason not to use MO2 (you really really should use MO2,) but here is an old nexus article on archive invalidation 

 

MO2 says that archive invalidation isn't required for Skyrim SE. Or at least that's what it's telling me.

[bloodreign979]

18 hours ago, AaronOfMpls said:

I don't recall archive invalidation being needed in Skyrim, since that was part of working around the earlier games' method of loading plugins by last-modified date.  (A very early Oldrim update switched Skyrim to using plugins.txt's listing order instead.)  But I could be wrong; I've never installed any big texture mods that use .bsa's.

But getting the "duh!" things out of the way first, is the texture mod active in MO2's left pane?  And is its .esm or .esp (if it has one to load a .bsa) active in your right pane, and sorted after other mods that edit some of the same textures (like the Unofficial Patch)?

(Also, if you're looking for the Skyrim forums, they're under Game Communities at the top of any forum page (or in the ≡ menu on mobile).  Click Join Community there to post there.)

 

Yes, everything is activated and in the right order in MO2. The Nolvus mod pack installer conveniently does all of that for you.

 

Also, I took your suggestion and posted about my issue in the Skyrim forum section. I've posted in the Skyrim forum on Steam as well.