Actors freezing when too far away

[DrakeTheDragon]

Some might know already, but not-so-recently I installed (parts of) Bevilex' mod list on my new PC, and everything was working flawlessly, or as flawless as the Virtual Machine with unrecognized graphics card drivers by Oblivion Reloaded can make it so.

I haven't yet installed a large part if its mods, because they either aren't to my taste, or I just didn't get around to install and test them so far, but the gist of it, Oblivion Reloaded, the countless OBSE plugins, ENBoost, clean ups, etc. is already in place and working nicely so far.

 

However, there's one specific issue I only recently noticed/stumbled upon, which I wasn't yet able to pinpoint down on a particular mod or setting, that is, like the title says, some, not all, actors in my game just completely freeze (like when I call "tai", toggle AI) in place, once they're farther away from me than a particular range (I also can't exactly point down "how far" that range is right now).

 

If I'm in combat, or following a quest NPC around, they can go as far ahead as they want to, but if I'm inside a city, for example, and multiple NPCs are going along their daily routines, most will only start moving as soon as I'm getting close enough, and when they walking away from me, they'll completely freeze again, once they're too far away. So I guess it's dependent on priority or something, or maybe the number of simultaneously computing actors in the same scene, or whatever, I just couldn't pin it down up to now.

 

I'll prepare a load order and mod list later, when I get the time, then I'll also go into binary search deactivation next, but I think I already ruled out everything related to OBSE, OR, Engine Bugfixes, Stutter Remover, etc. or ENBoost, when I started my game without them and it still happened, though I must admit my recollection is lacking, and I'm not sure it actually did, as I was also diagnosing, or trying to, another unrelated issue of lighting going on and off on surfaces depending on which angle I'm looking onto them from.

 

If in the mean time somebody has an idea, or recognizes reading anything about this particular issue before, let me know. It could help singling out specific mods, or causes even, as it could also be an INI setting or some such.

 

It's looking really awkward, when walking around the Arcane University, and everybody's frozen in place, while outside a certain range. :ermm:

 

 

edit: Well, that was quick. Thanks to the help of a friend and confirming it via in-game tests the source of the issue could already be narrowed down to "The Underdark: The Realm Of Northdark", which was available here on Nexus in the past but since then disappeared from the net, is a requirement for parts of "Viconia DeVir - The Underdark Saga Part I and III" and "Stoker Wolff - Male Companion" a.k.a. "The Vampire Hunter - The Underdark Saga Part II", and I still had it all on my drive and used it in my game, as I might have repeatedly told of already in the past.

 

Disable the "underdark.esm" and the entire city comes to life again, weaseling around as usual like a busy anthill.

 

Now that that is done, I think the question should be changed to "why does it do that to begin with?" - Has it probably to do with a lot of forced-high-processing actors in far away cells taxing the limited AI computing resources too much? And if so, will I get the same issue again with other large region mods with a lot of new actors coming along?