Kelmych

The REGS STEP Extended patch isn't really needed any more. If you use only the mods in section 4.1 then you don't need the two patches for Interesting NPCs. You would only need the Realistic Room Rental + No Snow under the Roof patch.

I'll look at these and revise the guide. Thanks for the information. Some of the textures in the list aren't used since other FO3 mods are used to provide these. Optimization can be useful, especially with textures from older mods but you won't typically notice major changes in quality or VRAM use if the optimization doesn't change the texture resolution. I don't recommend using DDSopt to make the normal map resolution lower than half the resolution of the color map textures; the normal maps are an important contributor to graphic quality.

With the vanilla Skyrim textures DDSopt helps with some improvements in graphic quality, primarily in the mipmaps, and in it seems to provide some game stability improvement. With the mods that provide higher resolution textures there are a few that get improvements from using DDSopt; these are usually some older mods or mods such as some quest mods where the texture quality wasn't the highest priority. If you want to reduce texture sizes, particularly normal maps, DDSopt can be used if needed.

For the vanilla textures there are several mods that provide vanilla textures that are already optimized, as well as the DDSopt tool which can be used to optimize these. It's unlikely you need to use reduced size vanilla textures unless your graphics card has very low VRAM. For some of the high resolution textures mods, the mod includes versions with smaller textures; these avoid the need to use DDSopt. Post your system details so we can provide more specific suggestions. What high resolution mods are you using that seem to be causing the problem?

Thanks for spending the time to create this. I'll add it to the FO3 guide.

You can eliminate the optimized textures anytime and use the vanilla ones if you want to undo what you did. You can afterwards (or instead) redo the optimization, or get one of the packages of already optimized textures. These are just textures so they don't cause major problems in saved games if they are changed.

I looked at the mesh from the original 20th century weapon mod in Nifskope and I didn't anything that was obviously wrong - note that I'm not a graphic artist and I don't spend much time using Nifskope. I don't see how the patch mod causes the problem unless the RH_Ironsights version of the mesh is bad. The plugin does change the projectile models to use xCalibr versions, but these should be OK. This what makes it fun to mod Bethesda games .

Yes it is game-breaking because of the incompatible navmeshes. NPCs won't go where they are supposed to go and will get stuck. There are many mods in REGS that are not affected by Immersive Citizens and could still be used with SR:LE, or alternatively SR:LE can be used without Immersive Citizens. It depends on what is more important to the user, the more immersive NPCs or the more immersive cities and towns. There are a few town/city mods that are compatible with Immersive Citizens, but these aren't ones that make large changes to the environment.

I have a copy of version 1.5.1.1 of the Bash Tag script I got in July. I've been using it to generate tags for Fallout 3 mods so I can make a page with these tags.

The link was updated again; the guide has been updated for the new link.

Perhaps the mesh for the weapon has problems. I'll see if I can see an error in Mk-II Ruger v0 Silenced.nif

I've been able to run the Geck through MO with Fallout NV, although I haven't tried doing this for FO3 I expect the concerns are the same. Take a look at the recent STEP forum post on using the CK through MO for Skyrim. There are some similar steps needed when doing this with FO3.

You can change ugrids, although I haven't ever done so and I don't know if there are any problems other than the standard ones in Bethesda games. These have been discussed in detail in the Skyrim forums. However, if you then want to revert ugrids back to the default value there is no guarantee; I have not seen any comments on successfully doing this for Fallout 3. I'm also not aware of a FO3 mod equivalent to the Stable uGridsToLoad mod for Skyrim.

When you exit the vault the first time the game engine gets very busy since there this is first time it sees the wasteland. I've been playing lately with an alternate start location so I haven't had the exact same problem, but I remember the game engine being very busy when exiting the vault. The engine isn't especially stable, and it's possible that that the memory usage is too high during this initialization period. One possibility for reducing the load on the game engine is to temporarily turn off the texture/mesh only mods being used (vs. those with a plugin or with other resources). They can then be re-enabled a short time later when the game engine seems to have finished its initialization. I haven't done this myself because of using the alternate start, but perhaps this will reduce the initial loading enough that it can start without overwhelming the game engine. I suggest the non-plugin mods because disabling and enabling the texture/mesh only mods shouldn't typically cause any long term problems with the game. I'll make some changes to the guide based on your other comments. Thanks. Only the DIFF patch in Wasteland Patch Collection is needed if only the mods in the guide are used. If you use Impact it might be affecting the Jericho rifle. In LOOT have Impact load before the FWE Main esp plugin.

Do you recommend changing the Fallout_Defaulf.ini for Fallout 3 based on these? DomI understand correctly that the PalloutPrefs.ini here should replace the existing version and then the Launcher rerun to add or replace values based on the capability of the graphics card?

Thanks for making the change so quickly.

You might try turning off the extra quest mods temporarily and see if that affects the result.

When I had similar problems I never had to back very far.

Sadly there seem to be many ways the game engine fails. I have had similar problems where after a long fight I level up and the game stops working properly. I have to reload a save from before the fight and do it again. If the same problem happens again there may be another bug. What I meant for reload was that as soon as I die I try to hit escape key to get to the main menu and then reload from there.

An updated version of the file was posted today, and as a result the file url changed. I edited the guide to reflect this. The details, and the current version of this file, are discussed in the posts for the FNV Collision Meshes Nexus page.

Did you try running the game with one or more MO profile(s) that have fewer plugins to see if there might be one or two plugins causing a problem? I've run FO3 in the past with a lot of plugins, by the way, so I don't think it's just the number of plugins. I've used the game with all the mods in the guide except for some marked optional, and I haven't tested all the quest mods in the Potential quests section (as mentioned in the guide). For example, I did a short test of 3DNPC Fallout Bundle but I haven't run it for a long period yet, and it's still an alpha version.

If possible escape out of the auto reload when dead and use manual reload. As playing time in a game increases I have had problems in previous playthroughs of FO3 where the game doesn't exit properly and I needed to use the task manager. I never determined a specific reason for this. The guide mentions that the auto save options should all be off since using automatic saves can cause problems, especially if there are a lot of plugins. This is related since the problem is that the game engine doesn't always fully clean up when auto saving or when reloading after player death.

101Bugs includes meshes and textures for the new bugs, and the associated ingredients, it adds. I don't see anywhere in the 101Bugs plugin where it uses vanilla meshes as models. The 101Bugs meshes are likely based on the vanilla bug meshes (looking at a few of them quickly in Nifskope they seemed to be very similar). I don't see any vanilla meshes or textures that are overwritten by the 101Bugs mod. Of course, they are going to look much less realistic than the bugs in the Lepidoptera Of Skyrim mod and the other mods that you mentioned.

Have you tried running the game using one or more of the profiles with fewer mods? When I'm installing mods in Bethesda games with MO I periodically make a copy of the profile so I can go back if there are problems and see if there are some mods that affect the problem.