Deleted7267501User Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 (edited) This is a bit of an interesting problem I've been having. So for those of you wondering, I HAVE looked this up but to no avail. I found some people kind of talking about the problem but never really solving it. Anyways, the problem started as a regular CTD problem. I did the usual "search for the broken mod causing the crash" and found out that no specific mod was causing the crash. However, if I deactivate a certain number of random ESP/ESMs (until there were 234 active ESPs/ESMs) the game would not crash anymore. Even still, when I tried to start a new game or load a game, the game would crash again. I did the same troubleshooting method, and came to the same result. Deactivating and merging even more ESP/ESMs solved the problem of that crash (at this point, I have about 230 active ESP/ESMs). But now, I'm having ANOTHER problem. After deactivating all of those mods and starting a game, now there are giant red exclamation marks everywhere AND purple textures. At this point, I'm kind of wondering if there is some limit to the number of active mods, which if exceeded, cause the game to break in weird ways. I could just keep merging or deactivating mods until I find that out for myself, but I want to be sure about this before I commit to doing that (merging hundreds of mods takes a lot of time for me). And if you are wondering, I have used Archive Invalidated and FOSE and tried tons of google links to try and find an answer to this problem. If the issue is what I think it is, can someone give me some advice on merging mods, because I seem to be extremely slow at it and it seems like its really easy for other people (I know that doesn't make much sense, but you never know). TL;DR: Is there a mod limit to make the game work correctly? (And don't say 254, I know that already) EDIT: After researching further, I figured out I was half-correct. It turns out, the Real Time Settlers (RTS) mod was causing a weird incompatibility which lowered the amount of mods able to be activated (at least as far as I can tell) If I have any more problems, I'll post them here, but for now, my problem seems fixed. EDIT 2: I am now outside of Vault 101 and after walking around a bit I started seeing crashes again. I noticed that as more stuff was loaded around me, tons of meshes and textures slowly starting disappearing and turning into giant red exclamation marks and things, then the game would crash. I turned off AA which helped, but the problem still persists. I'm guessing it has something to do with memory allocation, but I won't be able to test that without removing some graphics mods. Edited December 28, 2014 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRampage Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 (And don't say 254, I know that already) Alright, I won't. I'll say it's actually 255 plugins. The gamebryo engine has reserved the hexadecimal FF prefix spot for savegame related content & non-persistent references. So that makes 255 empty spots before you get to the hexadecimal number FF. See the spoiler for the full list if that didn't makes any sense. 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E 5F 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6A 6B 6C 6D 6E 6F 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 7A 7B 7C 7D 7E 7F 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 8A 8B 8C 8D 8E 8F 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 9A 9B 9C 9D 9E 9F A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 AA AB AC AD AE AF B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 BA BB BC BD BE BF C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 CA CB CC CD CE CF D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D8 D9 DA DB DC DD DE DF E0 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9 EA EB EC ED EE EF F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 FA FB FC FD FE(It's a little different with FONV btw, since with that game the FalloutNV.esm actually starts at position 74 instead of 00, which means you can only activate a total of 139 plugins in FONV before you get to the FF limit) But anyway, the problem you're describing is exactly what happens when you have too many plugins active in your load order. Also bear in mind that inactive master files (.esm's) WILL still get loaded by the game and thus count towards this limit.Besides, having to merge hundreds of mods? You sure you're not getting carried away modding your game? If the answer is no, both Fallout 3 and your computer are telling you otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted7267501User Posted December 28, 2014 Author Share Posted December 28, 2014 (edited) Alright, I won't. I'll say it's actually 255 plugins. The gamebryo engine has reserved the hexadecimal FF prefix spot for savegame related content & non-persistent references. So that makes 255 empty spots before you get to the hexadecimal number FF. See the spoiler for the full list if that didn't makes any sense. I'm already familiar with that concept. All of my ESM's are all active anyways. I haven't been deactivating any. And no, I have a lot of mods because there are tons of very small mods I have (mods such as more ammo on bodies and new variants of Nuka-Cola). Merging about a hundred of those mods would make sense, not necessarily "hundreds". I'm sure it's just a problem with Fallout 3 having a certain number of active mods. What confused me was why it caused the problems just because of the number of mods active. If I merge the mods (and still have the same amount of content) the game works perfectly fine. It's as if having a certain number of active mods just breaks the game for whatever reason, even if it is below the 254 mod limit. At this point, I'm just wondering when the game will actually start working correctly once I merge enough mods. Edited December 28, 2014 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M48A5 Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 (edited) I'm sure it's just a problem with Fallout 3 having a certain number of active mods. What confused me was why it caused the problems just because of the number of mods active. If I merge the mods (and still have the same amount of content) the game works perfectly fine. It's as if having a certain number of active mods just breaks the game for whatever reason, even if it is below the 254 mod limit. At this point, I'm just wondering when the game will actually start working correctly once I merge enough mods. I usually start having a problem with my rig and game at about 135 files active in my mod manager. I try to keep below 130 esm/esp and don't have a problem. There have been posts here and on New Vegas where the deletion of just one mod made the difference between a well run game and missing meshes/textures and/or CTD. Edited December 28, 2014 by M48A5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted7267501User Posted December 29, 2014 Author Share Posted December 29, 2014 I usually start having a problem with my rig and game at about 135 files active in my mod manager. I try to keep below 130 esm/esp and don't have a problem. There have been posts here and on New Vegas where the deletion of just one mod made the difference between a well run game and missing meshes/textures and/or CTD. Ok, I'll try merging more mods till I hit that amount. I wonder why the game acts so strangely like that, but I guess we will never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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