Skyrim Mods are pissing me off a little bit. Not ment to be?

[iRobsta]

I'm a mod hoe. I love tons of s*** going at once, and I'm also a software engineer (in studies) and a computer tech (currently posting this from work) and I'm currently learning the creation kit to create my own mods.

Aside from that, the topic of this post. But, before I go on, here are my computer specs:

Intel i7 950

SSD 60GB/HDD 1TB

ATI 6970

6GB RAM

 

If this is too long of a post for you to read and you want to get to the point, scroll down to the very bottom with the same colour text.

 

WHY WON'T THEY JUST ALL WORK TOGETHER?

Trouble shooting is super easy, but at the same time super tedious. Like I said in the topic description, I have a total of 75 mods all enabled at once (I've had much more).

With all of these mods it create a Skyrim 2.0 kinda game, next level up, and it's beautiful.

The mod's consist of 43 of them through the steam workshop, and 32 of them through the Nexus Mod Manager. I've always preferred to install my mod's manually but considering

that troubleshooting then when they are manually installed is so much more work, I said "f*** it" and went with the NMM (Nexus Mod Manager).

 

Before I tell you my trouble shooting stories I'll tell you this. I've turned ALL of the mods I've acquired from this website (even though they are so much more and easier to discover than the steam workshop)

and just kept the 43 I had through steam on. The game works FLAWLESSLY. I've done many tests and it's never crashed. Hence, I know that half of the mods are stable.

 

Currently I with all my mods (both Steam Workshop & NMM) I can create a new character, go to bed (Start a new life mod) and start the new "life". There are bugs though, for example. I can only click "surprise me" because if I choose how my life is started it hangs on the loading screen after I go to bed. So surprise me allows me to get past that loading screen and I can actually get fully into the game. I've discovered that all my HD 2k Mods crash my game once I'm actually in it. I run around a little bit but once I pass certain points in the game it crashes, always. So I turn all of my "graphic" enhancing mods through the nexus mod manager off. Game works, I'm able to get past that crashing point and get into the world. This is the first time I got to experience all of the combat mods I've loaded through NMM and all the extra wild life and such that was added. I'm 25/30 mins into the game, having the time of my life and bam. Crashed to desktop. No errors, no nothing. WHY???? WHY MODS WHY?

I guess I have to now go through again, each mod ticking them on one at a time and playing 25/30 mins worth to see if it crashed again. Tedious I say. Tedious...

 

My questions are this: Is there a mod/tool that can tell me what mod caused the crashed or which mods are conflicting? Or not mod that caused the crash, but object in the game or something? Making my life 100x easier.

 

Also, I know the Skyrim HD 2k mods DO work. I've had them in the past before the steam workshop came out. Anyone know why I'm having the troubles that I have? I really do doubt it's because my computers too weak, but could it be? Not enough RAM?

I also have a feeling that Skyrim itself cannot be stable with this many mods going at once. I could be wrong, because I know no one so far that's had close to as many mod's as I have. Friends have 5/6 mods, some maybe even 15. I see YouTube videos of guys and all their mods and they're list only hits ~25 or so. My installed mod's are not duplicates nor super similar. I don't have any armor or weapon mods that add new items to the game, just change the textures. I'll post my mod list later since those are all on my gaming PC.

 

tldr; Mods through steam workshop (43 of them) work perfectly. Mods together don't work with the ones from my NMM (nexus mod manager, 32 of them). Trouble shooting which ones are causing

the problem is a complete pain. The Skyrim HD 2k mods caused crashes in my game, but I know these mods work 100% because I've had them in the past and they've been flawless. Why does this have to be so difficult? Anyone know of a tool that can help me figure out which ones are causing conflicting problems? Anyone had similar problems?

 

 

Also, how many mods do you guys have working stable together? The most I've ever gotten working together 100% stable was 56 of them. 50 from steam workshop, 6 from the NMM.

[Modslave]

I run around 50 mods with complete stability using NMM and the Nexus including the SHD2K Texture packs.

 

I don't download anything via Steamworks at all. Not that I have a specific problem with it but the Nexus was here long before Steam was even a glimmer in Gabe Newell's eye so I just go with what I know best.

 

Mod conflict detection is a tricky business. Its down to understanding what the mod is modifying and how it might interact with other mods that are doing the same thing, which is the point of the BOSS load order management system which has been in use now since OBMM or so.

 

Also an installation of Skyrim HD 2K via Steamworks or NMM would literally have zero difference in installation path so I'm not sure why you'd be experiencing issues installing them via NMM as compared to Steamworks, the data relative path is exactly the same for the textures regardless of which service you install them from and they're the exact same textures by the exact same designer.

 

Overall its always been a fair rule of thumb that once you get into the 50 - 75 mod territory, you're going to start having problems regardless of how good your computer is, without putting a lot of thought into what the mods you're using do, and how they interact with the other mods you're using.

 

Overall I would never expect anything higher than 50 mods maximum to be stable, and even then you have to be really conscious of how to manage your load order to avoid conflicts, BOSS can help in that situation, but it won't recognize every mod you have. So it will still take a rough eyeball guess based on your own experience for several mods.

[iRobsta]

I run around 50 mods with complete stability using NMM and the Nexus including the SHD2K Texture packs.

 

I don't download anything via Steamworks at all. Not that I have a specific problem with it but the Nexus was here long before Steam was even a glimmer in Gabe Newell's eye so I just go with what I know best.

 

Mod conflict detection is a tricky business. Its down to understanding what the mod is modifying and how it might interact with other mods that are doing the same thing, which is the point of the BOSS load order management system which has been in use now since OBMM or so.

 

Also an installation of Skyrim HD 2K via Steamworks or NMM would literally have zero difference in installation path so I'm not sure why you'd be experiencing issues installing them via NMM as compared to Steamworks, the data relative path is exactly the same for the textures regardless of which service you install them from and they're the exact same textures by the exact same designer.

 

Overall its always been a fair rule of thumb that once you get into the 50 - 75 mod territory, you're going to start having problems regardless of how good your computer is, without putting a lot of thought into what the mods you're using do, and how they interact with the other mods you're using.

 

Overall I would never expect anything higher than 50 mods maximum to be stable, and even then you have to be really conscious of how to manage your load order to avoid conflicts, BOSS can help in that situation, but it won't recognize every mod you have. So it will still take a rough eyeball guess based on your own experience for several mods.

 

Understandable. I think I'm going to be switching and just staying with one mod manager (Steam or NMM). I've used NMM in the past way long ago and it's given me issues, hence why I've done everything manual for a long time. Just recently I started using it again and it's been wonderful! So, I believe I'm going to be switching all my mods to NMM.

 

I wasn't aware that the steam workshop had the Skyrim HD 2k pack? Guess I never really checked or payed attention when I was looking through mods. Anyways.

I agree with on the 50 - 75 mod territory zone. My goal, is though, to get as many mods going at a 100% stable rate. Boss does help, but only so far like you mentioned. I guess I didn't really pay attention with which mods do what and conflict each other. I guess I'll being a full Skyrim re install again just to get that fresh clean start and slowly add mods and see who things go.

[shotgun188]

Are you sure some of your mods aren't conflicting?

[Modslave]

I run around 50 mods with complete stability using NMM and the Nexus including the SHD2K Texture packs.

 

I don't download anything via Steamworks at all. Not that I have a specific problem with it but the Nexus was here long before Steam was even a glimmer in Gabe Newell's eye so I just go with what I know best.

 

Mod conflict detection is a tricky business. Its down to understanding what the mod is modifying and how it might interact with other mods that are doing the same thing, which is the point of the BOSS load order management system which has been in use now since OBMM or so.

 

Also an installation of Skyrim HD 2K via Steamworks or NMM would literally have zero difference in installation path so I'm not sure why you'd be experiencing issues installing them via NMM as compared to Steamworks, the data relative path is exactly the same for the textures regardless of which service you install them from and they're the exact same textures by the exact same designer.

 

Overall its always been a fair rule of thumb that once you get into the 50 - 75 mod territory, you're going to start having problems regardless of how good your computer is, without putting a lot of thought into what the mods you're using do, and how they interact with the other mods you're using.

 

Overall I would never expect anything higher than 50 mods maximum to be stable, and even then you have to be really conscious of how to manage your load order to avoid conflicts, BOSS can help in that situation, but it won't recognize every mod you have. So it will still take a rough eyeball guess based on your own experience for several mods.

 

Understandable. I think I'm going to be switching and just staying with one mod manager (Steam or NMM). I've used NMM in the past way long ago and it's given me issues, hence why I've done everything manual for a long time. Just recently I started using it again and it's been wonderful! So, I believe I'm going to be switching all my mods to NMM.

 

I wasn't aware that the steam workshop had the Skyrim HD 2k pack? Guess I never really checked or payed attention when I was looking through mods. Anyways.

I agree with on the 50 - 75 mod territory zone. My goal, is though, to get as many mods going at a 100% stable rate. Boss does help, but only so far like you mentioned. I guess I didn't really pay attention with which mods do what and conflict each other. I guess I'll being a full Skyrim re install again just to get that fresh clean start and slowly add mods and see who things go.

 

Manual installs are really where you start running into your issues. Its not that you're not competent enough to know how to install mods manually, most Bethesda gamers have been doing that in some form or fashion now for well over a decade. The issue is that even though you might know how to install a mod, you might extract it to data, when it has subdirectories or creates a primary directory in data and the mod, while having installed its plugin to the correct folder has also installed a sub folder in your data folder which has its mesh and texture data in it that needs to be in your mesh/texture data folders to work correctly.

 

To be honest I stopped doing manual installations with FOMM and started doing creating fomods for every install, its just cleaner and leads to less problems.

 

NMM largely has achieved the same process without the extra work on my end to do "clean installs", I haven't had any major issues with NMM since it came out, but I realize everyone has their own experiences.

[iRobsta]

@pr0 - Oh but of course eveyone has their own experiences. I don't extract I've always done individual drag and drops being carful. I like know where my stuff is because when it comes to troubleshooting or deleting a mod I know where everything is. Manual mods started becoming an issue around the 15 mod mark because it became a lot harder to memorize where all the files for specific mods were. So I used to create a word document listing directories and files of specific mods and where they were. I knew almost everything about where or how the mod was installed. Like I said though, manual is manual but it never gave me issues hence why I've always preferred it.

 

My past problems with it would be installing a mod and the NMM would just crash, and it wasn't with a specific mod but many. But this way back.

Edited April 15, 2012 by iRobsta