Vortex Problem with Unoffocial Oblivion Patch

[Dimensional13]

 

Seem to be fine!

 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Oblivion\Data\Meshes

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Oblivion\Data\Textures"

 

Like I said, I really really am not sure what the issue is here. No matter what I do, the same mods that I used in NMM don't seem to work properly in Vortex, with textrues and visual things remaining unfixed. When I deactivate the mods in NMM and deploy them in Vortex, the textures don't work, even if I re-download it all. But when I undeploy/deactive them in Vortex and activate them in NMM everything's working a-ok, even after opening Vortex again and having the .esp files auto-sorted!

 

It's a highly confusing mess and the only conclusion I could come to is that Vortex is doing something different from NMM here that breaks the mods.

 

 

EDIT: If anyone could tell me if they have the same problem when trying to replicate it with the same mods I use, I'd appreciate it and I would already know a bit more!

 

 

Hang on, are you using two mod organizers on the same mod, or are you Installing with NMM, and it works, then Uninstalling the mod with NMM, then Installing the Mod with Vortex and it doesn't work, then Uninstalling the mod with Vortex.

Because your description makes it sound like you're using NMM and Vortex at the same time on the same mod

 

 

Oh, nonono. I'm Installing it in NMM, it works, uninstall, Installing in Vortex, doesn't work/only partially works, Uninstall. That's what I mean.

 

I should clarify though that I also sometimes uninstalled the mods in Vortex, Installed them in NMM and then after closing NMM opened Vortex. Vortex then would proceed to auto-sort the load-order of the mods that I installed in NMM, ending up with the load-order that I had when I installed them in Vortex, yet I still wouldn't have the same issues that I had with my vortex-install.

 

In conclusion, I think there may be a problem that comes up when I install and deploy the mods via Vortex!

 

EDIT: Just in case someone wants to replicate my issues: In order to check I just use a "Conjure Zombie" spell or go into the Temple District of Imperial City. If the Zombie has black hair instead of the fixed textured hair, or the White-Gold Tower isn't visible from the entrance of the Temple District, then I KNOW that the texture-fixes in the mods didn't work.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Dimensional13

[Rattledagger]

Haven't tested modding Oblivion with Vortex, but at least last time tried installing the patches manually not all of them worked correctly since Oblivion seems to load by file date and with Steam the patches is often "older" than the game-files.

 

So no idea if NMM includes some logic to re-date the patches and this means they work with NMM, while Vortex is missing this kind of logic, or your problem is something completely different.

[Dimensional13]

Haven't tested modding Oblivion with Vortex, but at least last time tried installing the patches manually not all of them worked correctly since Oblivion seems to load by file date and with Steam the patches is often "older" than the game-files.

 

So no idea if NMM includes some logic to re-date the patches and this means they work with NMM, while Vortex is missing this kind of logic, or your problem is something completely different.

 

 

 

I've been wondering myself wether or not NMM re-dates files while Vortex doesn't (or vice versa) but I haven't really found anything conclusive yet. With NMM, the .bsa-files of the game seem to be dated at the time I installed the game (june 2018), while the esp-files AND mod-esp-files are dated at the year 2000.

 

i didn#t really a notice a difference in dates with it when installed via Vortex, but I think I could see what happens if I switcht the installs around again.

 

EDIT: Well, that's not the issue either. The dates of the mods' esp-files are ALSO in the year 2000 when installed in Vortex. D:

 

EDIT 2: I just took a closer look at the files! When NMM deploys the files of a mod, the "last modified" date is the time they were last installed! But when Vortex deploys the files, the "last modified" date is... 2006! Now, there's gotta be a way to find out what files exactly I need to change the "last modified" date of... and if it works after the date is changed, then we have the culprit!

 

EDIT 3: False alarm, changing the date on the esp-files didn't seem to do anything, at least. :sad: I'll keep trying to find a solution though. maybe some other file...

Edited April 1, 2019 by Dimensional13

[Dimensional13]

Alright, so I think I found something out.

 

Apparently, the mods in NMM also stop working properly for me when the mod-install is older than the game-install via steam. I had to uninstall and re-install oblivion since I ran into an issue while fiddling around in vortex (note to self: don't use the "move deployment" option in oblivion, it resulted in me getting the Oblivion DLC patches and their files stuck in my root folders); this resulted in some files getting the "last modified" date of today. and suddenly my installed mods via NMM didn't work properly anymore. But when I re-installed each mod, changing the install-date from yesterday to today, it suddenly worked again!

 

So, apparently, there indeed IS a date-based issue somewhere, since NMM uses the date of the initial mod-install as the "last modified" date, while Vortex uses the date that are already in the files of the mods.

 

And since the mod-dates are behind the oblivion install-dates, they don't work properly!

 

IMO kind of an oversight... I hope that if anyone from the vortex-development-team is reading this, they somehow can come up with a fix for anything oblivion-related!

Edited April 1, 2019 by Dimensional13

[Striker879]

Those changes that the UOP makes to textures requires archive invalidation, and the recommended method is BSA Redirection. BSA Redirection works when the loose files are newer than the original game's BSAs (e.g. Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa). Steam has a habit of changing the vanilla game BSAs to a modern date, so then the loose files are older than the BSAs ... which means the game will use the "newer" files stored in the vanilla game BSAs. The net result is Steam likes to break BSA Redirection in Oblivion.

 

Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) has a utility that easily corrects the vanilla game BSAs at the same time it enables BSA Redirection (Utilities -> Archive Invalidation -> select BSA Redirection -> click Reset BSA Timestamps -> click Update Now -> done).

 

It's also possible to use a utility like File Date Changer 1.61 to change the Steam version vanilla game BSA files to their proper date (year 2006 works fine).

 

The other thing I notice is the order you have for your sArchiveList in Oblivion.ini ... ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa needs to be first in the list (so sArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, etc).

Edited April 1, 2019 by Striker879

[Dimensional13]

Those changes that the UOP makes to textures requires archive invalidation, and the recommended method is BSA Redirection. BSA Redirection works when the loose files are newer than the original game's BSAs (e.g. Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa). Steam has a habit of changing the vanilla game BSAs to a modern date, so then the loose files are older than the BSAs ... which means the game will use the "newer" files stored in the vanilla game BSAs. The net result is Steam likes to break BSA Redirection in Oblivion.

 

Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) has a utility that easily corrects the vanilla game BSAs at the same time it enables BSA Redirection (Utilities -> Archive Invalidation -> select BSA Redirection -> click Reset BSA Timestamps -> click Update Now -> done).

 

It's also possible to use a utility like File Date Changer 1.61 to change the Steam version vanilla game BSA files to their proper date (year 2006 works fine).

 

The other thing I notice is the order you have for your sArchiveList in Oblivion.ini ... ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa needs to be first in the list (so sArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, etc).

 

Ah, I see. i am relatively new to modding, only using mods to fix bugs and glitches and maybe using one or two immersion mods, so I wasn't really aware of this! :O I just found this super annoying because I am the convenience-type that really likes to use one simple manager for all mods in all games, but Vortex kinda dashed this hope! :'D Maybe I should switch to Oblivion Mod Manager for Oblivion... I was a bit afraid of using it, since it's last update was 8 years ago, but if it still works, then why not? Wrye bash also seems to also have such a feature, but I kinda don't wanna uninstall and re-install oblivion again, since the install-location is in my program files and the Wrye Bash installer already was complaining to me that this may cause problems when I first tried it, so i gave up on it for now, haha.

 

Either way, I'll try re-dating the vanilla bsa-file timestamps once i'm home from work in about 7 hours and we'll see if this fixes my problems. Apparently it should!

 

(btw i already fixed that part of the oblivion.ini a while back!)

Edited April 2, 2019 by Dimensional13

[Dimensional13]

YES! Changing the date on the vanilla bsa-files worked! Everything's finally working as intended, thank you!

 

Now I just gotta keep this in mind for the future, in case I gotta install Oblivion on a new PC or something! Probably should start using another mod manager, haha!

[Striker879]

I believe that you may need to go through the correcting the dates thing any time Steam does any sort of update on Oblivion in the future (I've seen such reported ... I'm a disk guy myself so I have no direct experience with Steam).

[Dimensional13]

Maybe, but that's honestly not a huge problem. As long as I don't frick up the game files to the point where I need to ask steam to repair them through a download in the steam client, Steam updates won't really be a big problem for me...

 

...I mean, considering Oblivion hasn't been updated since 2007, with Steam using that exact version of the game! Meaning that I don't see any steam-updates coming in the foreseeable future as long as Bethesda doesn't suddenly decide to patch something in 12 years later! :'D The most they did were news posts for fans on the steam-site for Oblivion but that's it!

Edited April 2, 2019 by Dimensional13

[Striker879]

Hope you're right ... I've been helping out around here long enough to go through more than a few times that Steam did something that broke some aspect of the game (most frequently getting OBSE to work with Steam Oblivion). My opinion of them is that they love to meddle.