Suggestion: detect that two overwrites are identical so no user action needed

[DaveClaw]

Fallout 4, I was building a mods list for a new playthrough.

 

I added CBBE, then CCO Saucy Settlers. Vortex handled them without needing to bother me.

 

I then added CCO Vulgar Villains. It includes identical changes to some of the same objects as CCO Saucy Settlers, but Vortex saw that as a conflict and fired up a giant tree of modified resources to confuse and dismay me :smile:

 

I Read The Friendly Manual (wiki) on mod order rules and that resolved it, but:

 

It would be nice if vortex could compare the overwrites, determine they are the same, and so not need to bother me about the not-really-a-conflict.

 

Or if mod makers had a way to include metadata that mod A was making the same overrides as mod B.

[BigBizkit]

I am not sure that would be possible because even if these are the same changes to the same game files, they will likely differ in e.g. time stamps, seeing how they come from different sources.

[HadToRegister]

I have a situation like this with Fallout: New Vegas and UIO.

UIO (User Interface Organizer) writes the files every single time the game is started, which causes Vortex to ask if I want to SAVE/REVERT, of course I always pick SAVE.

Obviously the only thing that changes is the date/timestamp of the file, but I still must answer the question every single time

[Tannin42]

Not quite the same thing, the OP was (I think) about two different mods that have file conflicts but the files are actually the same so it doesn't matter which gets loaded last.

 

The problem with both though is that comparing whether files are identical is quite expensive. The OS doesn't maintain a checksum for each file, so Vortex would have to read each file, calculate the checksum and compare that.

In the file conflict case Vortex would have to do that frequently, otherwise it wouldn't be able to discover if the mod changed and the file may no longer be the same (which may be quite common in the case of "dynamic" mods like the one that stores the fnis output).

This is completely impractical. If you install a mod like "Interesting NPCs" (that consists of thousands of files) twice, Vortex would become completely unusable because the checksum calculations for all those files could take minutes.

And besides: In this case the conflict information may be very interesting even if the files are all the same because maybe you didn't even notice you have two identical mods installed. Even if the load order doesn't matter, the info that a mod is obsolete can be useful.

I believe in this case it's simpler to just set a rule, even if it's not strictly necessary, and be done with it.

 

In the "external changes" case it's at least more deterministic, we'd only have to compare checksums when the dialog comes up, but even then: If you have a lot of changed files some users might prefer to not wait and click one or two buttons instead of waiting 5 minutes just to save the button clicks.

A better solution for this case would probably be a flag that tells Vortex "if this mod changes always save the changes without asking." This way Vortex doesn't have to check the files - but obviously it adds potential for unexpected breakage.

[HadToRegister]

 

 

In the "external changes" case it's at least more deterministic, we'd only have to compare checksums when the dialog comes up, but even then: If you have a lot of changed files some users might prefer to not wait and click one or two buttons instead of waiting 5 minutes just to save the button clicks.

A better solution for this case would probably be a flag that tells Vortex "if this mod changes always save the changes without asking." This way Vortex doesn't have to check the files - but obviously it adds potential for unexpected breakage.

 

Yea, too much potential to break things, I'd rather have to click the button every time

[DaveClaw]

 

 

The problem with both though is that comparing whether files are identical is quite expensive. The OS doesn't maintain a checksum for each file, so Vortex would have to read each file, calculate the checksum and compare that.

That's true. MD5 of 1 small file = trivial. MD5 of 100s of files or even a few large files = you'll notice the wait.

 

If mods included a GUID in their metadata, they could possibly include metadata saying "ignore supposed conflicts with (other list of mod GUIDs)". But if the mod maker got it wrong because one of the mods changed its version of the overrides then obeying that suggestion would break things.

 

Vortex is doing a good job already, and I guess there's no easy way to improve on the current design. I'm asking for magic, just like our customers do at work :)