Do unused mods lag game?

[PhoenixBlue]

If I download a lot of hair and clothes mods and install them but don't use them in-game, do they take up resources and make the game lag more (less fps)?

[Gribbleshnibit8]

There will be minor overhead because the mod data has to be loaded into memory, the forms and such have to be indexed. If any of them run scripts all the time via quests or something, then that will add more overhead as those process every N seconds. But unless you're wherever the items might be in the world, it won't take up more processing.

 

Every loaded mod has overhead though, and I think I recall somewhere at one time reading that even unchecked mods will still be "loaded" by the game, even though they aren't enabled or used.

[Norinvaux]

No, why would they?

They'd probably cause slightly longer loading screens (and MAYBE a shortage of RAM if NV loads all models/textures on startup, but I don't think it does), but I can't see any reason the game would render nonexistent models and such.

 

Though if you have too many .esp files enabled, it can cause some problems regardless. Though the mysterious limit on .esp files is usually 100-300, so you're probably fine in that regard anyway.

 

Edit: Oh, right, as Gribbleshnibit mentioned, if there's any scripting involved in the mods, then they would definitely have a performance impact, just probably not even remotely noticeable.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Norinvaux

[Xaranth]

@gribbleshnibbit - you may be thinking of BSAs, which are indexed and mapped by the executable as long as they are present.

[Gribbleshnibit8]

@gribbleshnibbit - you may be thinking of BSAs, which are indexed and mapped by the executable as long as they are present.

The mod data from the plugin gets loaded. For most plugins, in the 10s of kilobytes range this is no big deal. But it does add extra data that has to be loaded.

 

 

The 'hard' mod limit is 256, as that's how many 'slots' are available in the mod index values, 00-FF. However, it's nearly impossible to get that many mods loaded, as the game is unstable enough that it usually encounters major issues before you can load that many successfully.

[luthienanarion]

 

@gribbleshnibbit - you may be thinking of BSAs, which are indexed and mapped by the executable as long as they are present.

The mod data from the plugin gets loaded. For most plugins, in the 10s of kilobytes range this is no big deal. But it does add extra data that has to be loaded.

 

 

The 'hard' mod limit is 256, as that's how many 'slots' are available in the mod index values, 00-FF. However, it's nearly impossible to get that many mods loaded, as the game is unstable enough that it usually encounters major issues before you can load that many successfully.

The current session reserving FF reduces the number of available indexes to 255, and the first loaded plugin (FalloutNV.esm) being loaded at index 74 due to a bug brings the total number of available slots down to 139.

[Gribbleshnibit8]

I knew I was forgetting something there with FF, and I was not even aware of the 139 limit bug. Seems like something they should have fixed, huh?