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willlamme1988

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I tried to tell you it's botched. Botched=Ruined, messed up, whoopz! You need to start over. Un-install everything related to fallout 3 you installed. Happens a lot, not a big deal.

 

QQ QA The greatest Nexus Fallout 3 Post Ever

 

Pinned how to install mods at Nexus

 

Pinned topic getting mods to work at Nexus

 

FAQ at Nexus

 

 

 

 

Launch pandora put on some music...

 

Tech Support takes a break from Win7

 

Foundation software- Whatever grapics card driver came in the box with the card. Bethesda will tell you to use a older driver rather than the new one in most cases. Get .NET framework the whole family of software 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 an 4.0 all versions available. Get a version of Visual C++ from either GTA IV or from Nexus downloads or from microsoft downloads I got Visual C++ 2005 from installing GTA IV an got Visual C++ 2008 from a nexus download pack that allows Blender to actually work (blender is a 3D model program before you ask) Nexus Blender download which has a Visual C++ 2008 You can also get most of this thru windows automatic updates either thru that application service or from visiting the update website at microsoft. Also if you get a fully updated version of WMP (windows media player) you won't need to use a 3rd party codec update pack because microsoft updates (2nd party) will install it as part of the core O/S or something like that. Even when you use a 3rd party codec pack because the one you have botched fallout sound you still have to set WMP as the default player for .Wav an .Mp3 so it's just an easy way to avoid that. The only 3rd party software I really get is Java an adobe flash player, which are used everywhere.

 

1. Install the game, don't launch it

 

2. Install GFWL (game for windows live)

 

3. Launch the game, input yer game key if you even have to.

 

4. take the 1.7 game patch from either GFWL or download the manual 1.7 patch from the Fallout 3 main bethesda page or from Nexus downloads

 

5. Patch to 1.7 even on the GOTY edition, you can run a test game here to have some fun.

 

6. First time you launch it autodetects what settings will yeild the best performance, however it doesn't detect the native resolution of your screen, so you need to set that. Also there are a few silly settings which can free up some performance. For one thing Shadows are primarly taken care of thru HDR lighting an normal maps, the shadow settings you see in the game settings are shadows only for characters bodies which will apear an cull (disapear) depending on how many NPC's or creatures are around based of which is closest to the player character, this switching on an off is kind of silly so it make these shadows optional.

 

Depth of field is only really active while you are in a active dialog menu with another NPC, such it's pretty useless, depending on the game you built though, having it on or off can give you a performance gain, for example if I had 600 NPC's in a city, depth of field would smooth out the transition from non-dialog to dialog because it blurs an culls stuff in the lesser detail an distant LOD range. Testing shows if you wana use it or not.

 

Radial blur is the blur you get when you get shot or damaged, the whole point is to make the screen look like crap so it's kind of silly to use a high quality crappy view for this, such it's a way to gain a bit of performance by using a low or medium setting. Also you can get a mod which will disable it.

 

Then I would use the in-game sliders for the distance settings for your level of detail LOD, you can either use what it came up with when it auto detected, or move them down a bit. Right now I use 4 click on all of them. For example 2 clicks on actor distance is about 100 feet away or more. Also on some game builds (depending on the mods) it's actually a advantage to max the distance settings, really this is only found thru lots of testing, but as far as starting out pick lower than the auto detect.

 

AA turn off AA because you don't need it, and it's only going to tax your system, thus frying your grapics card before it's time, besides coruption being somewhat linked to over taxed systems, which can lock into save games ruining them.

 

AF is different, 2X or 4X Texture filtering otherwise known as AF will clean up those poopy vanila textures, which is almost as good as using a HD detail texture pack, only this way you are filtering highly optimized bethesda textures which depending on the build of mods you made could allow many things to run more smoothly, at the same time it might be better from time to time to have AF turned off as well. Say I'm going into a area which is plagued by 2000 NPC's just waiting there to Pwn me, well might be a good idea to turn off AF before hand.

 

7. Also when it autodetects the FalloutPref.ini an FALLOUT.ini config files are created based off what is autodetected. These are located in mydocuments/games/fallout 3 Which are the two files the tweekguide does it's advanced tricks on, but that can cause as many problems as it solves, and such should be only used in ways which were backed up thru lots of testing so you know it's doing what it should, not breaking the game. When you botch the .ini config files pretty much you just delete them an then use the default launcher to create them again thru the autodetect thingy it does. TweekGuide Use with caution...

 

8. Install GECK, The GECK update, FOMM, FOSE, FO3 edit these all get installed at C:/bethesda softworks/ fallout 3

 

9. Create shortcuts for FOMM, FO3edit, GECK place them on the desktop, you now launch the game from FOMM. Also find your data folder C:/bethesda softworks/fallout 3/data yeah that data folder, create a shortcut for that, move it to the desktop, then right click, change the icon, look inside the fallout 3 folder for the fallout icon, use that one or whatever you like. This way you can blindly drag an drop mods onto that shortcut thus installing them, and also get to the data folder really easy for many other reasons. *note* right about here you toggle archive invalidation invalidated then forget about it, however do go to the data folder an check to see that the new archive invalidaiton .BSA is the first in the list of .BSA, so drag it up past the two DLC .BSA that are in front of it, you can check this by loading up the list in FO3 edit in messages durring the last part before it finishes it will tell which .BSA is loaded and in which order, you want the archive invalidation one to be first, which is based off the order they are in in the data folder, so bump it up.

 

Archive invalidation as you know it, is actually archive invalidation invalidated, meaning the old invaldation method isn't valid anymore, yeah it's been poopcanned because it was a pain. Archive invalidaiton invalidated makes the engine look at created modified on dates for content. So to speak if you had a texture created on monday which is inside a .BSA, then you dropped a texture created on thursday into the loose files in the data folder, the game engine thanks to AI-invalidated will automaticly use the texture created on thrusday which is in loose files rather than the texture inside the .BSA which was created on monday, but it goes of date & time.

 

10. Create a folder on the harddrive Name it Fallout 3 downloads, inside that folder create another folder name it Tools, inside the tool folder create another folder name it Master update, copy your FO3 edit shortcut an paste one into this masterupdate folder, right click the shortcut then add a space -masterupdate to the target line, create another folder in that master update folder name it Master restore, inside that paste another FO3 edit shortcut change that target line to -masterrestore, easy... Create a shortcut to the tools folder put it on the desktop with a fancy icon. You have a folder because you use many tools such keeps them together. What's in my tools folder, ou ou ou lookie.

 

Conformulator- Makes hats or hair that morph with the shape of the character head.

FACE GEN- Allows face gen data to be taken from save games as to be pasted into .Esp as needed

FO3 Plugin utility- Allows 1, 3 or 160 mods to be merged into one mod if needed, thus allowing as many mods as you want to be loaded, not just 250 (max)

Converter- This is just the .DDS converter used to convert textures to an from different formats, I use it to convert crappy photoshop textures into true .DDS only if they are messed up in paintnet though

Webensized- A guide on how to use FO3edit (yeah I know what I'm doing an I still use the guide)

Master Update- you should already know what's in here

 

11. Inside your Fallout 3 downloads folder you created, create another folder, name it downloads or whatever you like, place a shortcut to this folder on the desktop. This is the folder to which you download your mods, an keep them all in seperate folders nammed depending on what mod it is or what it deals with. Also as you download mods which have seperate parts put them in different folders named 1 2 3 4 5 ect as to keep them in the correct order so you don't botch it later. (however sometimes you need them all in one folder if the .RAR is linked, i just ignore this) The linked .Rar or .Zip will error I just cancel an hope it gets installed anyway like I said ignored because for the most part the 1 2 3 4 and also folder names update or optional keep it simple enough, plus if I'm not sure about a mod I name it IDK because I don't frackin know about this one just yet hmmm Also I'll name a folder RCM short for resource mod, meaning it's either yet to be put into the game or I want to remake a more friendly version of this mod so it doesn't break my game.

 

12. Inside your fallout 3 downloads folder create another folder named already installed or just installed. Put a shortcut on the desktop for it. Now when you install a mod, drag the folder .Rar or .Zip to your installed folder, keeping the folder names, this way you don't have to download the mod again unless they update it, and also you have a backup copy of what is installed besides being able to refrence that mods read me anytime you like, but only if you named the folders in such a way as to make it easy to find this mod or that mod...

 

13. Install DLC's launch FOMM move the load order up and down so that it looks like this then forget about them, yeah don't turn them on an off like you said before.

 

Fallout3.esm

Anchorage.esm

ThePitt.esm

BrokenSteel.esm

PointLookout.esm

Zeta.esm

 

The content inside the DLC is listed as DLC01 DLC02 DLC03 DLC04 DLC05 and such is somewhat designed to overrite the privious entries, because yes some of the data overlaps as with any other mod. Yes the DLC have problems inside them but it's dang near the most dangerous thing you can do to attempt to fix it, I'm not saying you can't do it, but you almost always end up messing something up. So I pretty much leave them as they are. If there is conflicts I just fix them by leaving the final entry alone but resolve the issue by draging the fallout.esm data to the later DLC but not the final entry. Say you have 6 entries for something the first 5 conflict, well the first one is fallout.esm, so drag that one to the 4 after it, an now those 5 match leaving the final 6th entry as the final.

 

14. If you want to you can now run a post DLC install test game to have some fun, at least try to get into the DLC's when you are testing later on when you have installed mods, I say that because most mods end up breaking the DLC so it's a no-brainer test after you install something. This can be done by cheating, open the console by pressing ~ (next to the 1 key) type TMM 1 or TMM 0 which will toggle on an off the map markers thus allowing you to fast travel, which just doing that is a good test, fast travel around killing the whole time, if you can create a load order of 200 mods an fast travel fighting the whole time for 8 hours without any problems or crashes then you have done your job.

 

15. You can download mods in bulk but never install them in bulk. Once you feel like working after your post DLC install testing, or tweekguiding, or settings choices which all are backed up by tons of testing. Which rules out your computer system an the vanilla game as to a cause of a possible future problem you might face. (at least for the most part) Get a bunch of coffee then download about 600 mods, however put them in seperate folders all named in ways which will allow you to navigate that fallout 3 downloads/downloads folder finding what you want to install.

 

16. The longer you take installing mods an building the game the better it ends up working. That being said start out just installing them one at a time. Pick one it doesn't really matter. Install it which it's always better to unpack FOMODS an install them manually deleting the FOMOD afterwards this isn't always available though. Open the mod look at it, open your data folder look at that, see what is going to replace what if anything will end up doing that, as a way of avoiding messing up or replacing high quality content with low quality. Auto installers will blindly overrite content so the order you install them is somewhat important to this effect. *note* Also it's better to unpack any player made .BSA into loose files rather than have a whole bunch of .BSA I just use the vanilla an DLC .BSA's that's it, anything else gets dumped into a fake data folder on the desktop, then unpacked into that fake folder, then moved into the actual data folder, then the player made .BSA gets deleted

 

17. First thing after install open FO3 edit an load the whole load order, apply your conflict filter as learned in Webensized FO3 edit guide by CSB This will display any conflicts, pay attention to the red conflicts an the purple to which you can look up what the colors mean. Basicly what you end up doing is either copy paste or drag in drop to work the spreadsheet so that the conflicts are fixed. If you are about to fix something you have no idea what it is or haven't fixed something like it before save it before hand that way if you mess it up just exit without save an load it up again, quicker than making backups of all your mods which is a good idea anyway. When something can't be fixed by the normal means you use a override to do it. A override uses more than one mod as a master thus allowing any an all content inside all of those mods to be used which is loaded after all the other mods. Overrides can either allow the repair of DLC or mods quickly by just putting those parts later on in the load order or like what I said before using more than one mod as a master thus allowing one in game item to use many parts of many mods. I keep the Override seperated an named based on what they actually do.

 

Override-DLC

Override-FWE

Override-Scripts

Override-Quests

Override-Drugs

Override-Dialog

ect

 

OR use the FOIP if you want to (fallout inner operablility programz) which are just patches that go after or in between mods to get them to not break the game

OR just use simple mods until you know what you are doing...

 

18. Once it's all fixed an overrided if needed. load the whole load order with FO3 edit again, this time click the list when it's finished, an hit Ctrl A to select all, then right click what is selected an pick "create merge patch" name this "merge patch" Note though it shouldn't display any errors in the message box. It should only say adding this master about 100 times. If there is a error you need to deal with that. Which when you load the whole list it will also display errors an notes for example "*note* such an such was injected into fallout.esm" or "errors were found in the following mod under Group topic blah blah blah" Most of the time the only way to get a diagnosis on a merge patch which caused errors is from looking into these errors an injected status when the whole load order is being loaded. Such things are very dirty mods built by noobish lazy folks like myself which if you ask me is a good reason not to use that mod. That being said I hope there wasn't a error in the merge patch, so you can either use that or go back an fill in the holes an gaps in the lists if you wanted but you want to make sure to at least scan over it because it's not a fully automated process.

 

19. At this point your merge patch is only a temporary version, when you install other mods you'll have to delete it an make a new one, so don't invest too much time fixing it yet. Also when working with the larger mods you can create a merge patch first thing so that anything that will be fixed by merge patch will show it when you view that conflict. Thus you can ignore it until all the other conflicts are fixed. Thus cutting the work you need to do in half while starting out. For example most of the NPC creatures data can be fixed with merge patch, if you create one first off you can ignore about half those fixes which will spit up that huge bulk of work you need to do in creatures NPC.

 

20. Clean the mod or mods from what the webensized FO3 edit guide said. However you can also load up the whole list then apply your cleaning filter then "remove identical to master records" "set deleted to disabled" on all the mods top to bottom, remove the filter, "clean masters" "sort masters" top to bottom, thus avoiding having to load each mod seperately to clean it. However seperately is the best way to do it. Also while doing this ignore the DLC just leave them dirty an broken it's the only way it works the best. Then also from time to time FO3 edit will cause an error not allowing the mod to be saved after you have cleaned it. Anytime you get an error when you press Ctrl S to save it, an it doesn't save, just clean the mod again which fixes it an allows it to save. This is why you press Ctrl S to save an not the X button which closes FO3edit, because if there is an error an you hit X you might have lost everything you just worked your butt off on.

 

21. Now master update the load order from the quick shortcuts you put on the desktop. Watch what it says it should run an then say hit X to finish saving. If there is an error you might have to open a mod with GECK with it set to active then when it prompts you to autofix the form ID counts that don't match (because the modder was a idiot like me) that auto fix works good for getting master update to work error free, but most of the time you don't have to do this. Note though this same problem will flag a error if you are merging one of these mods with a non-matching form count. But I mean the whole merging thing is a pain in the butt anyway to do clean.

 

22. After it's master updated you start playing, which at this point is more like testing. It can take months to get all the bugs out of a load order. It's best to spit up the workload between working your butt off then playing the game for a long while or playing some other game or watching hulu, this stuff just gets old. When you have a problem (notice I said when, not if) first thing duplicate the problem under the exact conditons this will rule out random crashes or problems. Then duplicate the problem again in a new game start, which will rule out problems due to corupted save games. That being said disable your auto-save an also never quicksave or use the continue button from the main menu screen. The all promote coruption which can get locked into the save game thus ruining it. Each time press Esc which pauses the game then create a new save, never delete a save game until you are ready to delete them all an start over. Don't add or subtract mods an expect the save game to still work. Don't change the load order in any way an expect it to still work.

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Followed that guide to a T, every specifc action, If I mix FWE with mods I get CTD on startup, everything else works fine. FO3 Edit has no conflicts to speak of either, Windows just generates that same error when game launches. Irregardless of load order, following dozens of guides, every mod but FWE will launch and run and play well with others with zero crashing in game. The irony being the only mod I really wanted to get to work is FWE.
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You're learning. That's great. Keep doing that. Don't listen to any one person though read a bunch of stuff an hit up the pinned topics. You're learning how to develop your own method based off what works. Just make sure you get lots of gameplay even if it's just a vanilla game or some other game. It might be time to start another topic on the FWE issue. Maybe you could find a FWE expert. Sounds to me like the install of FWE got messed up somehow. Normally when that happens we miss some simple small detail or make a silly mistake. Geez if you only really want a FWE game just install FO3 an get the vanilla game working well, then install FWE.

 

The last load order I had was huge an took like 60 hours an 3 months time to build. I thought I got tired of it so I started over fresh. So now I have a small handful of core mods. I haven't really used the Tweekguide on it. I'm not even using any AA or AF. Then 4 clicks of distance in the in-game settings. LOL it didn't even need a merge patch. Just a basic vanilla game for the most part. Over the new few months I'll add stuff to it so maybe it turns out super cool. I'm just not going to spend a whole lot of time working on it because I'd rather play a game or watch TV.

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