Should I be wary of the size or number of mods I install?

[DucksAreReal]

I'm seeing some of these mods that are 100mb+ in size and think to myself that can't be good for the stability of my game.

 

Am I thinking wrong? Can I freely download 1GB+ mods without worrying about it?

 

Also, same question but the number of mods instead of the size. Is there a certain number I should keep my mod number under?

[ripple]

'Size' is not an indicator of whether the mod will destabilize your load order. Texture replacers, for example, will always be larger in size than the standard 'just a plugin' mod, but running a texture replacer will likely cause less stability issues than running a mod with a simply plug that adds tons of spawns and spawn points to the game. Things that will destabilize your game are mods that are poorly done, contain error records, deletion of default game records, etc. (pay close attention to your BOSS log). As for 'number' of mods, in general, it's easier to run a stable game with few mods than it is with a massive load order, if for no other reason than it makes it easier to track down which mod is responsible for a bug you experience in game or CTDs. However, it really depends on what the mod you use actually edit, do they use papyrus scripts, the scope of the mod edits....the factors are too numerous.

Edited May 9, 2013 by ripple

[Deleted3765355User]

I currently run around 185 mods at all times. I've found that the mods MOST likely to cause issues are ones that deal with NPC's. Whether that's adding new NPC's to the game (Warzones, Immersive Patrols, Interesting NPC's), changing vanilla NPC abilities (ASIS), or changing around specific NPC dependent animations. Running many NPC variable mods will cause massive stability issues, and in the long run will affect your gameplay as a result.

 

The second biggest issue creator I've come across are mods that make changes to the vanilla worldspaces. Many times these will conflict with NPC mods, or other mods that might affect the same area that you're unaware of.

 

So long as you keep those variations of mods to a minimum (I run about 12 NPC altering mods [skyTEST, Immersive Patrols, LIAT, Immersive Creatures, and a few others I don't remember), and 7 or 8 worldspace altering mods [better Cities Whiterun/Solitude/Windhelm, Better Villages, Dawnstar Enhanced, Winterhold Destruction Ruins, Campsites of Skyrim, and again a few others I don't remember, and I'm able to play on a clean save for quite some time before I have to deal with a CTD/Freeze) you shouldn't suffer to many issues. The Freeze happening more often because of the sheer amount of scripts I have running that can get clogged up.

Oh, and one mod I must say you should refrain from at the moment is the Immersive Carriages mod. It has a nasty habit of leaving behind bad scripts if uninstalled, and is very glitchy right now when installed.

[mellophonist]

I'm probably going to say more or less the same as everyone else here but here's my two cents. For myself my current load order has 208 mods installed and my game runs at perfect 60 fps 90% of the time with a margin of +/- 5% in some areas. Now not everybody can do this, keep in mind you have to have a pretty beastly computer to handle all the memory and traffic a load that size generates. My current computer setup is a AMD six-core processor, 16 gigs of hardware ram, a 120 gig SSD for my Skyrim and windows OS alone, and 2 EVGA 660 gpu's 4 gigs vram. So that's a setup gaurenteed to handle large load orders. If you have one that's a little weaker then that I would recommend keeping it down to the 100 range. You also have to take into consideration, how you install these mods. Knowing which mods need to overwrite which, making sure your load order is spot on and cleaning your mods. If you deal with all these then you should have no problem. I will be doing a video tutorial on how to handle large load orders since this question gets asked more often then you would think.