How to disable physics in mods?

[MirandaKusland]

My laptop doesn't handle physics mods well, which causes various bugs to appear. But at the same time, I would like to use high-poly models of hair, bodies, clothes, etc. Will it be enough to remove files with the tri extension and not install mods that add physics to the game? Or is something else needed?

[melvinius]

Hi poly and physics are not the same thing.  Hi poly means the mesh files are more detailed, whereas physics means that meshes are specially set up so that gravity and force can be simulated on them.  Cramming a lot of either of those types of mods (or both) is going to have an effect on your game's performance.

So, a mesh (also called a model) can actually be BOTH hi poly AND physics enabled.  I'm not too educated on the different types of physics thought to be honest.  I have both CBP-C and HDT-SMP physics set up as well as High Poly Heads for just about everyone.

Now here's the important thing about physics.  If you have mods that add physics enabled meshes to your game but don't actually have physics set up, it will likely result in crashes, either instant CTD or untraceable CTD where your game just suddenly and unpredictably crashes when such meshes are loaded.  It can be hard to trace these if you have mods that add background NPCs who have physics hair or bodies if those NPCs are just spawning randomly.

So it sounds like you want to avoid the physics stuff entirely, but still use stuff like High Poly Head, SMIM, etc.  Just make sure you don't install anything that requires a physics install like CBP or HDT-SMP and you will be fine.  It can be confusing because a lot of NPC/follower mods these days require BOTH High Poly Heads (enhance head mesh shapes) AND some kind of physics (jiggly body simulation).

Now let's talk performance.  Using both CBP-C and the Faster HDT-SMP mod (this is the ONLY SMP mod I'd recommend) my build's performance isn't bad at all.  I don't have a porno-Skyrim build either, let's be clear about that.  I try not to even have nudity in my build but with 4,000 mods sometimes mod authors sneak it in and I have to fix it myself later.  However, I DO have body physics for all races, male and female, but with underwear bodies.  It took FOREVER to find all the resources and put together.  Anyways, I also have a mod that replaces all the vanilla hair with physics versions, physics for KS-Hairdos, physics for capes, SMP wind physics, clothing and armor physics for the ones that make sense (not metal plate).  I think that's it.  It performs well if you know how to optimize your physics setup.  Specifically, go through all your XMLs and change "triangle" to "vertex" -- this gives a more performant form of physics that for some reason most modders don't utilize from the get-go.  This made a noticeable difference for me and I now have smooth gameplay even with all the physics stuff going on.  OFC in the configs you can disable physics or limit it during combat and stuff like that too to keep things smooth.

High poly mods actually in the past have caused me more performance issues than physics.  Everyone would always swear by SMIM but I actually hate that mod with a passion.  Just adding ludicrous polygons everywhere doesn't actually make anything better and really can tank your game's performance.  The computer I'm on right now is the first time I've been able to use SMIM without a serious performance hit.  And actually, I'm only using SMIM textures and some essential meshes because other mods I like require them.  Yes, some vanilla meshes are horrible, but then these high poly mods go to the extreme other end of the spectrum.  I don't need a wooden bucket that looks more realistic than my whole life.  High Poly Heads though I will say is great.  For something like human faces you need the detail.  HPH is required by a lot of other mods too.

I hope all this helps you sort things out.  For a performant build, I'd say you can setup a few things with physics (CBP-C and Faster HDT-SMP), do the XML optimization trick I mentioned, and don't go too crazy.  Once you start having everyone with hair physics you'll notice a bit poorer performance.  Cape and cloaks are killer too.  Avoid wind stuff if your computer isn't great, even the vanilla wind system tanks performance for some reason for some people.  Same with the high poly stuff.  Pick the best mods that are also performance friendly.  HPH I'd highly recommend.  But if you start remeshing every little thing in Skyrim you'll destroy your performance real fast too.

[melvinius]

3 hours ago, MirandaKusland said:

My laptop doesn't handle physics mods well, which causes various bugs to appear. But at the same time, I would like to use high-poly models of hair, bodies, clothes, etc. Will it be enough to remove files with the tri extension and not install mods that add physics to the game? Or is something else needed?

I forgot to mention the TRI file thing.  To my knowledge, they don't have anything to do with physics.  They are transformation data that modify/refine the mesh/model structure in various ways.  For example, the detailed facial expression mods are generally TRI files that modify how the head and eye meshes are shaped for various facial expressions and emotions.  You should be able to use TRI files without a physics setup.  TRI files are part of the base game, whereas physics are technically a physics "extension" because they're adding a simulation engine that's not part of the base game engine.