Cleaning mods.

[Telyn]

Cleaning mods really helped my game. Just make sure to always check the "do not clean" list first. It gets updated sometimes.

 

 

[LordEmm]

Yes cleaning mods is definitely a must if you plan on having a large modlist. Even seemingly harmless conflicts can lead to crashes then as the CPU sometimes seems not to be able to decide which way to go. So ALWAYS clean mods, and if you know how settle conflicts with load order, or even better by modding them away ;)

[Mortrix927]

Also, sometimes the conflicts are in fact innocuous individually; but accumulatetively even these can bring a world of trouble. Do check the "do not clean" list-also, mods that shouldn't be cleaned will normally say so in the directory. Here, it is important to understand "why" a particular mod shouldn't be cleaned. (Something that could be on the list.)

 

Also, for at least the first while-try to stick to well-known mods, as *normally* these will already be *mostly* clean.

[Telyn]

I use a lot of small little-known mods and haven't found much of a pattern when it comes to fairly recent ones. Unless you download something with no description or a really incoherent description, small mods seem to be about as likely to be clean as well-known mods. Most mods which need cleaning are very easy to clean. The two mods I have downloaded which needed the most cleaning have been highly ranked island mod which needed to be basic cleaned of over 1200 items, and one tiny obscure mod which needed special cleaning despite using vanilla content and being only 3k in size. In general, though, it often surprises me which mods are clean and which are not. The highly ranked mod which had over 1200 edits that needed removing has almost 100 endorsements here and no negatives. It crashed my game right and left before I cleaned it. Two of the 3 mods currently on the special cleaning list have had a large number of downloads on this site alone(28k+ and 50k+ downloads). The other one is that little vanilla house I mentioned. Famous and popular mods are often very complex so there is more chance of making bad edits. Unknown mods are often simple. I think it tends to even out. Some of my favorite mods are very small, very obscure, and were clean. Some other mods I run, both famous and obscure, did need cleaning, but are well worth it. I'd hate for people to be afraid to download little indie mods. Some of them are terrific.

[Mortrix927]

I didn't mean to not use unknown mods; just be more careful. I shouldn't have said the more well known mods would be cleaner (some are famous for being dirty), I should have said their more likely to be supported or at least have someone that can help you when it goes wrong.

 

That being said, the hardest part of cleaning is reading the instructions for tes4edit. The actual process is straight-forward, if a little tedious. Same thing with some installation instructions-seems daunting when your reading about it-but when your actually doing it theres nothing to it.

[Telyn]

There are some really nice tutorials for TES4Edit. When I first played the game, the idea of cleaning mods sounded scary, but the tutorials made it easy. I like that you always have a chance to back out of committing to the changes you've just made, also. I think what surprised me most was how dirty some of the official DLCs are.

 

 

[SteelCityCaesar]

I've finally got a system that can run as many mods as I want and give me a, generally, stellar FPS (drags in a few cities thanks to Better Cities but I could always install the FPS patches). Pleased as punch as you can imagine but I still get a lot of CTDs and have been reading around for ways to fix it.

 

I've tried lots of stuff but, at the back of my mind, I thought that eventually it would come down to cleansing the ESPs. BOSS obviously suggested this but I thought that would be huge mission so I tried everything else first! It seems, based on this thread and a load of other stuff I've read, that my worse fears are true and that if I got to grips with cleansing ESPs a lot of my problems would cease and I could finally get some decent playing time in and actually finish the game (seriously I've had it since the day it came out and never even completed the MQ because I'm forever messing about with mods) before Skyrim comes out. I've read a few of the tutorials and it can't be that hard so will get on it tonight.

 

One thing though that dallen86 said though that I want to ask about:

 

 

D) Make sure your using your video processors services. (Hardware acceleration as opposed to software; so Windows isn't wasting memory doing the video cards job)

E) If you have the option, let the video card force 28-bit processing on 3D.

F) Make sure you have a sufficient swap file. The automatic one windows manages is totally inadequate for memory intensive games, like, say, Oblivion.

 

Although I am going to clean the mods just want to have everything else right and I'm struggling with all 3 of those things. Are the first 2 settings to change in my video card? If so I have an ATI card and an AMD processor. I updated all my drivers this weekend with Driver Genius (all part of my quest for less CTDs) and I seem to have lost Catalyst Control Centre and instead I have this rubbish AMD Vision Engine Control Center and I can't find any of the above settings to change. Any help would be great.

 

The last one about swap files just means nothing to me I'm afraid. I've had a look through Google and drawn a blank. Is it a Windows setting? I have Win 7. Again, any help would be great.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Dux.

[SceneGG]

swap file = virtual memory

 

Virtual memory is hard disk space allocated to act as RAM, but works much slower - it works as an overflow when all the RAM is in use.

 

You can adjust it in Windows 7 by:

 

1 - Right click on "Computer" in the start menu, and select "Properties"

2 - In the system window that opens up, select "Advanced system settings" (left hand menu)

3 - In the System Properties window that pops up, click on the Advanced tab and then click on the Performance settings button.

4 - Select the "Advanced" tab in the Performance Options pop up, and at the bottom you will see the option to change your virtual memory settings

[HeyYou]

swap file = virtual memory

 

Virtual memory is hard disk space allocated to act as RAM, but works much slower - it works as an overflow when all the RAM is in use.

 

You can adjust it in Windows 7 by:

 

1 - Right click on "Computer" in the start menu, and select "Properties"

2 - In the system window that opens up, select "Advanced system settings" (left hand menu)

3 - In the System Properties window that pops up, click on the Advanced tab and then click on the Performance settings button.

4 - Select the "Advanced" tab in the Performance Options pop up, and at the bottom you will see the option to change your virtual memory settings

 

If anyone decides to do this particular little trick...... make sure to set the swap file size to 1.5 to 2 times the amount of physical RAM that you have. It makes for an interesting little performance tweak, as windows won't be dynamically resizing the file, but, windows actually doesn't do too bad of a job at it.

[LordEmm]

Can get to be a nightmare though if you have an SSD and 16GB of RAM ;)

 

Is there even an option for Hardware acceleration anymore? i do not see it in the AMD vision engine control whatchamacallit now?

 

EDIT: what i meant is, DO NOT use a pagefile on your SSD. Put it anywhere else, as SSDs do not like the constant writing/reading. SSDs are fine for the system and some games though!

Edited May 24, 2011 by LordEmm