How many mods can Fallout handle?

[LordEmm]

Baron of Hell, that is a good idea, let us know if it solves your problem.

 

If i remember correctly i got mesh problems too when i approached my crash limit number. There is a gray area where i can start the game fine, but it would have issues with not starting quests, and i also had problems with textures during char generation. However those were from mods and the textures and meshes already are unpacked.

 

But i guess it could be the same problem...

 

Now i wonder though why the number for the "sweet spot" differs so greatly. What causes that problem? Is there maybe a secret limit as to how many resources in general Fallout can handle? But then again merging wouldn't help with that at all, and it certainly does with the problem i described in my original post. Therefore it can also not be a memory limit. Neither has it to do with load order or type of mods, as i am sure none of us have the same ones running.

 

It is interesting to note though that Baron of Hell solves the issue by removing Seducing Women... same as me. The problem first came up to my notice (or rather the solution) when i removed two of the Seducing Women plugins (it did not matter which two though, which led me to the number of mods). When i get around to playing the game again, i'll test if taking out Seducing Women alltogether may be a solution to the numbers problem...

[BaronofHe11]

Note that I am using the ram booster fix which might be why I can have more mods going.

 

Well I tried removing a mod I thought might be sucking up a lot of resources, Fellout. And I added Seducing Women back in. No more missing meshes. So it seems removing any mod will probably fix this and if I want to add something I'll also have to remove something. This might not be true for something small that just adds a new weapon.

 

Next I'll re enable Fellout and unpack the bsa to see what happens. Might be awhile before I can try this.

 

I forgot to mention I had another problem that went away by removing a mod. My game would crash anytime I enter Valut 1 and sometimes when I entered Megaton. Vault 1 is from RR companion mod. The vault is nice but poorly built because it is just one big vault that isn't split up into sections so it can be a frame rate killer if you don't have a good pc. The crash went away when I removed Fellout or Seducing Women. I'm pretty sure this is related to the missing meshes and why some people games crash when going into big areas with lots of stuff going on.

[LordEmm]

Well it certainly is not a RAM problem for me (i am using 8GB DDR3 on a 64bit Windows7... i tend to use CFF explorer to enable games to use 64 bit memory adresses. Much cleaner way to do than with external programs, in my humble opinion. I have seen several "ram booster" mods that basically do the same thing, just a little more messy).

 

I have also since deduced that this is not specific to any mod. It IS however specific to the number. Just different numbers in our cases.

 

Have you tested to take out more mods and see if the crashes persist?

 

For me it was first, crash at the startup screen until i took out a few mods. Then crash at new start, so i took out even more mods, and suddenly could start fine. Then the textures problem. More mods went out the window, and suddenly that worked fine. I have not extensively playtested yet, but i think i found the number for me so far... i had no crashes in Megaton, but have not played further yet.

 

I would suggest you also try taking out more mods and see if that helps your crash situation.

 

What i find odd though is the different numbers of mods we can use, before something bad happens. There must be something we all have in common to cause that, especially since not many others seem to have these problems (or they just haven't hit their "sweet spot" number yet).

 

Could it be a problem with FOMM or FOSE? A combination of plugins maybe that somehow ties up resources or prevents Fallout from properly accessing them? I also wonder if it is just around our numbers that the problems happen. Maybe if we go actually OVER the number by quite a bit (say 20 or so mods more), if maybe the problems go away again?

 

I do not think it is a Windows inherent problem, as i have been monitoring the resources used and it doesn't come even close to what my machine is capable of, and considering that only scrip heavy mods (or textures of course) would put a strain on physical resources anyway, it would mean that taking out these mods should help more. Which it doesn't, since it does not seem to matter WHICH mods we take out, only that we take out a certain number of them.

 

Maybe we can do a quick compare, what patch number we are on and which DLCs are installed? Maybe work from there...

 

I have kept my Fallout always updated to the newest patch which is 1.7US (if i remember correctly). I also own all five DLCs.