Confused concerning "Load Order".

[Zerayan]

I'm just curious, what is the purpose of Load Order? Does it have any effect on mods and game stability? I only run a few mods (all the DLCs, Unofficial F3 Patch, 4Aces HD Pack) and I'm curious to know what it's for. All I do is use the F3 Launcher, put a check next to the mod files in the Data Files list and play. I find that my game freezes quite often and forces me to end the task in task manager. Could this be the cause?

 

If someone wouldn't mind answering my question, I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Cheers!

[Zerayan]

Is nobody going to help? It's getting a bit ridiculous having my game crash every 5-1o minutes/.. It can't be that I have too many mods because I've seen others with 50 or more mods installed and working fine.

[TweekedOut]

Load order means that certain things come before others in the way the mod manager activates them.

 

If you look in FOMM, files will say that they have Masters. If you have say, Joe.esp but it has Fallout3.esm and Bill.esp as 'Masters', that means that Fallout3.esm and Bill.esp need to be loaded before Joe.esp. If not, it'll crash. If something has a master listed, but you don't have it installed, it'll crash.

 

And then there are some mods that just plain conflict with each other. If both are loaded, then it'll crash. Some mods have you choose one of several ESPs to use. If you try to use all of them, it'll crash.

 

And then, you have mods that overwrite each other. Take Project Beauty and Lings Pretty Things/Finer Things/Coiffure. If you load Project Beauty after those, PB will overwrite the stuff that is supposed to happen in LPT. http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/...-1255474628.JPG That is a comparison in the load order of the two.

 

Edit - Think of it like getting up in the morning and getting ready. Do you put on your pants then jump in the shower? Or do you shower first?

[mongrelarchitect]

Yes, load order matters greatly. You always want all .esm's loaded before .esp's, with Fallout3.esm at the top of the list followed immediately by any DLC.

 

Try giving FOMM (Fallout Mod Manager) a try, it's a lot better and easier to use than the default launcher:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=640

 

There's also some automatic load order sorting software available, but I've personally never used it so I can't attest to it's effectiveness:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10193

 

FO3Edit is also a great tool for detecting conflicts between mods that are causing CTD's, and can be used to create merged patches to help mitigate those problems:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=637

 

Good luck!

 

EDIT:

If you're still having problems, post your load order and someone here may be able to help you straighten things out.

[GrandsonOfSam]

There's also some automatic load order sorting software available, but I've personally never used it so I can't attest to it's effectiveness:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10193

 

I for one recommend highly using the above program (BOSS for FO3). It makes sorting most of the mods very easy, even though you will end up sorting manually a lot of the smaller ones, as their list is still "only" for 300+ mods. It will give you a general view of how the remaining mods should be sorted though, if you examine how the recognized ones are sorted.