Fallout New Vegas Road Textures Don't Work

[RobinHood2005]

I have installed multiple mods that impact (or are supposed to impact) the quality of the textures for the roads in this game, such as the NMC Texture Pack (Large, all three parts), Ojo Bueno, Poco Bueno and New Vegas Road Retexture. However, despite my best efforts, none of them work and I still end up having the same default textures for the roads, as well as the sidewalks and steps. What's weird is that the texture packs seem to affect other things, such as doors or signs.

 

I am using Vortex Mod Manager.

 

Please help?

 

Bonus Issue 1: Whenever I try to install any version of Wasteland Flora Overhaul, I always end up with trees that look like they were ripped from Minecraft, regardless of whether I have the add-on for the mod that is supposed to fix this issue.

 

Bonus Issue 2: Whenever I try to install UIO, the launcher for the game breaks and I have to reinstall the game in order for it to work again. I have an ENB, use an NVSE launcher and have 4GB Patcher installed.

[HeyYou]

Did you do anything for archive invalidation?

[RobinHood2005]

Did you do anything for archive invalidation?

I have the Archive Invalidation Invalidated mod installed, although I am not quite sure what it does, but a lot of people suggested to download it as part of a general Fallout New Vegas overhaul. I also have archive invalidation disabled in the mod manager.

[RobinHood2005]

By the way, I also have this screenshot to show what I'm talking about. The right side is high-res, the road is not.

[M48A5]

All the mods you have mentioned were published well before there was a Vortex mod manager. Therefore, Vortex may or may not install the older mods properly. This is also true of Nexus Mod Manager.

 

Texture replacers are best installed manually. That is the only way you can insure that the files are placed in the proper location.

 

You should not be using the standalone Archive Invalidation, but you should be using the one in the mod manager.

[RobinHood2005]

All the mods you have mentioned were published well before there was a Vortex mod manager. Therefore, Vortex may or may not install the older mods properly. This is also true of Nexus Mod Manager.

 

Texture replacers are best installed manually. That is the only way you can insure that the files are placed in the proper location.

 

You should not be using the standalone Archive Invalidation, but you should be using the one in the mod manager.

Which mod manager would you suggest that I possibly switch to? I already switched from NMM to Vortex because it was more modern and user-friendly (at least in my opinion) and because NMM was a terrible mod manager for me.

[M48A5]

I don't know anything about Vortex since it is still in development and I am not going to use my game or computer for experimental purposed.

 

I don't know anything about Mod Organizer except what I have read here and from what people have posted, I think I'll pass on it.

 

I have used NMM and did not like it. I could not get a stable game with it. So I went back to Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM).

 

What you use is up to you. Use whatever mod manager you feel comfortable using.

 

As I said, there is no mod manager I would feel comfortable using to install texture replacers. I have always manually installed them.

[RobinHood2005]

Manual installation would be placing the contents of the mod in the Data folder, right?

[dubiousintent]

Yes: manually installing means you use an archive program (such as 7Zip) to extract the package contents into the game "Data" folder. However, pay attention to the package folder structure first. You do not want any folders above (including) the "Data" folder. More on this below.

"Texture packs" don't usually show up in the "load order". (They are replacing vanilla assets; thus they overwrite existing files.) And the issue with them is what size/resolution of the images you are using. Larger/"hi-rez" textures require more pixels, and larger screen display monitors multiply that requirement in a non-linear way. While your hardware may technically be able to handle it, the game was published in late 2010, designed for Windows Vista with maximum screen displays of 1920x1080, with default image sizes of 512x512 pixels. The game engine texture cache tends to be the bottleneck: "leaking memory" and causing "stutter".

Please see the wiki "Display resolution versus Image Size" article.

Because "Texture/Mesh" replacement mods replace vanilla versions of those files, you absolutely have to toggle "ArchiveInvalidation" off-and-then-on again after installing or removing one of them so it recognizes that there are loose files (added by the mod) which have to be used in place of the vanilla files in the BSA files or are no longer there and the BSA files should be used instead. That failure to toggle is the most common reason behind most "not working problems". This is usually evidenced by red "!" icon for missing meshes, and solid colors for missing textures. This "ArchiveInvalidation" mechanism is incorporated in all the currently used mod managers, so there is no need to (and problems arise if you do) install older mods to provide that capability. Please see the 'ArchiveInvalidation (by Manager)' section and also see the 'Checklist Item #15 & 16' entries in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide.

The only other reasons for mods to have these "missing element" error indications are that you failed to install all the necessary files (such as an ESM or BSA file), or they aren't in the correct location.

In the case of (for example) "Weapon Retexture Project" (WRP), the package has a "non-standard" folder structure. (Not an uncommon mistake by mod authors, so learn from this.) The game (to include most mod managers like NMM, MO, and FOMM) is expecting the top level folder of an archive package to be standardized, folder names such as "Textures" or "Meshes", or ESM/ESP/BSA files. It assumes they are being placed under the game "Data" folder. This example package starts with a "RLS" folder, which the game does not recognize, and so it places that as the "top level" under "Data". (Sometimes this is the author's name or initials, other times it's the mod name and version, but anything unexpected is treated the same way: as a new folder or file.) Most likely when the files are "installed" but aren't found correctly, something similar to this is your problem. Unpack the mod archive (WRP in this instance) to some other location and then either rebuild the archive so the top level folders are "Textures" and "Meshes" (in other words, without the "RLS" folder from WRP at all), and then install with your mod manager, or manually drag those two folders into the game "Data" folder.

The text file under the WRP "RLS" folder is a documentation file. If you want to keep similar in the package, just place it in the top level along with the "Meshes" and "Textures" folders. Personally, I rename such to "<mod_name>_ReadMe.txt" so I know which package they came from. (Many authors act as if their mod's text file is the only one that might possibly exist in the same location or use the same common name (i.e. "Readme.txt").)

Re: Using more than one texture pack.

To illustrate such considerations: I use both "Ojo Bueno" and "NMC" texture packs with a 4GB VRAM video card on an older [email protected] system still running Win7 (upgraded from WinXP; simply to show how old it is).

I chose to install "Ojo Bueno - Performance" (textures up to 2048 x 2048) first, because most of it's images indicate it's dealing with more fore- to mid- ground textures. IMO, these tend to use more models with more details and vertices. They are more demanding of video resources.

I installed "NMC - Large" (Typically: 2048 x 2048 Textures & 2048 x 2048 Bumpmaps/Normal maps) second, because it seems to be more "View While Distant/Level of Detail (VWD/LOD)" oriented, which are lower in details and vertices but where the two overlap I wanted the consistency in favor of the NMC imagery color scheme.

You could install them in the reverse order, depending upon which you preferred to win any "overlap" conflicts. I'm quite pleased with the result, both visually and performance wise; but will confess to not being highly demanding in the visual regard compared to others. YMMV.

If you add any VWD/LOD textures (such as NMC or Ojo Bueno), please see the 'Checklist Item #15 & 16' entries in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide regarding the need to run both TES4LL and FNVLODGen. Also recommend you read the 'LOD/VWD Texture Packs' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article first.

-Dubious-

[RobinHood2005]

ISSUE SOLVED: Archive Invalidation is a pain. It needs to be checked and unchecked when installing new mods, especially on mod managers like Vortex. Doing so and reinstalling NMC texture pack and Ojo Bueno fixed the mesh/texture issue. That, and reinstalling the game and following Gopher's mod guides. Guy's a genius.