A question about plugin limits

[Dr_Herbert_West]

So I have been playing the FALNV setup for a few weeks and have been having a lot of fun but cant help but feel a few essential mods are missing like, Chems Alcohol and Meds, Apocalypse Girl's Supplementary Uniques, Underground Hideout NV, [all great mods that should be added to the guide in my opinion] just to name a few.

 

But before I try to fix something thats not broken I started to think about the ~140 plugin limit and searched around a bit but could not find the information I was looking for, so I figured I would ask around here :}

 

Does FNV only recognize the plugins that are active or does it use their priority number? [Like in MO FNV is 0, DM is 1, HH is 2 ect.]

 

If it does go by the priority number can I remove mods that where deactivated by the creation of the Bash patch?

 

And if I can't remove mods is there any advice on how to further condense the FALNV mod set?

 

Any and all help is appreciated.

[darthbdaman]

You shouldn't have inactive plugins in your data folder. They are counted to an extent, and will mess things up

 

There are mod merging utilities. I don't personally endorse them, but some people on this forum will likely help you out

[Dr_Herbert_West]

So can I remove [untick in the left pane of MO] the mods that where unticked by creating a Bashed patch [like YUP, FCO patches, Improved Sound FX, Ect]? Or does the Bash patch require the mods be in the list to work properly?

[MonoAccipiter]

You shouldn't have inactive plugins in your data folder. They are counted to an extent, and will mess things up

 

There are mod merging utilities. I don't personally endorse them, but some people on this forum will likely help you out

Haven't seen this mentioned since Oblivion, and even then, it was not a problem encountered by everyone. I have never had an issue with it in FNV. It is a good tip to check out if you have crashes, but until then it is nothing solidly affirmed in terms of whether a small amount of files affect it or not. Gentle reminder that correlation does no equal causation. There is a connection there, but the theory is not formed on the basis of verified truth, and as such there is no real evidence that it counts minor amounts of inactive plugins in that fashion. The PM listed on the source for directory thrashing mentions hundreds of inactive plugins, and ten thousands of useless files, WB leaves you with about a dozen.

 

Now to answer you question about plugin limits, Dr_Herbert_West, the game does not count inactive plugins for that. You can see the amount of plugins you have by looking at the hex number reflecting its position in the load order. Hex works with a root of 16, viz. each slot is worth 16. So 20 is 32, 30 is 48 etc. Because it needs six more digits, it uses letters from A to F, viz. A is 10, C is 12, E is 14 etc.

 

I have 76 as my lowest active mod, meaning (7*16) + 6 = 118 active plugins.

[Dr_Herbert_West]

Thank you for the information, helps me immensely.

[darthbdaman]

Haven't seen this mentioned since Oblivion, and even then, it was not a problem encountered by everyone. I have never had an issue with it in FNV. It is a good tip to check out if you have crashes, but until then it is nothing solidly affirmed in terms of whether a small amount of files affect it or not. Gentle reminder that correlation does no equal causation. There is a connection there, but the theory is not formed on the basis of verified truth, and as such there is no real evidence that it counts minor amounts of inactive plugins in that fashion. The PM listed on the source for directory thrashing mentions hundreds of inactive plugins, and ten thousands of useless files, WB leaves you with about a dozen.

 

Now to answer you question about plugin limits, Dr_Herbert_West, the game does not count inactive plugins for that. You can see the amount of plugins you have by looking at the hex number reflecting its position in the load order. Hex works with a root of 16, viz. each slot is worth 16. So 20 is 32, 30 is 48 etc. Because it needs six more digits, it uses letters from A to F, viz. A is 10, C is 12, E is 14 etc.

 

I have 76 as my lowest active mod, meaning (7*16) + 6 = 118 active plugins.

It's not worth risking it. It is believed, that the closer you are to the plugin limit (which is due to a bug in how NV starts counting plugins), the more likely those inactive plugins will screw you. It might not be true, but there isn't any real point to leaving a bunch of inactive plugins, if it's true.

[MonoAccipiter]

I disagree. There is almost no risk involved. If you begin crashing, that can be fixed. What is believed, without knowing by whom, sounds like speculation. Which is fair to do when you have little solid evidence to work with, but rarely something you need to trouble a new user with. The point to leaving a bunch of inactive plugins is that you don't need to write a list, unhide, and re-sort them every time you need to make a new Bashed Patch.

 

If it's true, of course there is little point to leaving them, but that's entire point of this argument: that it is an if.

Edited March 30, 2017 by MonoAccipiter

[GrantSP]

I'm with @Mono on this one. Inactive plugins on a whole are such a small chance of causing issue as to be inconsequential. 

[hishutup]

There was this thing with oblivion where too many BSAs or plugins, would cause hard drive trashing. I have never observed it but its not easily apparent these days.

Fallout comes from the same era so it may be a thing.

[GamerPoets]

Not sure that my input will help or make things worse lol.. but here goes = )

 

I've followed the Fear and Loathing in New Vegas guide. I've left some mods out. I've added other mods in. Personally, (I don't have reasons as to why this happens, if it's specific to me, or anything else for that matter... simply personal use and testing on my own load order, which I use for my RP series) If I hit 120 plugins, activated of not (using MO) I start to get visual oddities. My characters facial hair lifts slightly off his face (eye brows sit back into his face a touch.. not enough to cry about but enough for me to cry about it lol) and if I remember correctly the color tint changes slightly (a bit more bleached)... all that to say, when I cut my load order back to 119 mods (again, deactivated mods still had this effect) the issue went away. For whatever my word and personal experience is worth, there it is. I use Windows 10 Pro if that means anything. 

 

Hope that helps and doesn't cause you any more confusion or questions. Just my experience. I test things heavily before venturing into an RP series on my channel, mostly for fps, stutter and visual quality. Taking up close footage of my characters face is something that I do often. 

[MonoAccipiter]

As I said, looking in that direction when a problem occurs is completely natural. Up until then it varies a lot for different setups though. I've never had this issue, and I've been playing both Oblivion and Fallout on different setups over the years. It seems to me something that will make it a bit harder to get things going as a newbie, and adds a lot of steps for something that quite often is not an issue.

I am glad you managed to fix your problem with it, GP, and it is worth keeping in mind if we encounter any issues of the like.